Civ 4 - the list of ideas for Firaxis - Page 4

Provost Harrison · December 8, 2003, 20:59

It would be nice to have resources that conferred a particular national benefit - for example, perhaps 10% increased production or so on, something like that...

...and social engineering dammit

Boris Godunov · December 8, 2003, 21:17

Workers: Eliminate them. Use a pool of "terrain improvement" points, or whatever, and simply designate terrain around cities to be improved. You can divide up available points between types of project, kinda like the tax screen (ie. 50% roads, 30% irrigation, 20% mines, etc). Then projects are built over time. You can also rush certain tiles for double the point cost (which would replace worker doubling).

Once you had construction, you could then have civil engineer units to build fortresses/walls (like Hadrian's wall), canals and bridges (because I think we should be able to linke any body of land/water that is separated by another body of land/water by only 1 tile with a canal/bridge as technology permits), airfields, etc.

Boris Godunov · December 8, 2003, 21:19

Trade routes: I think the GalCiv method is perfect and should be shamelessly copied. It would be awesome to have little icons for trade ships/caravans moving across the map during the game. This would lend a real feeling of a vibrant, populated world.

Brent · December 8, 2003, 21:35

Landmarks

Something like Sunny Mesa, etc in SMAC. I guess there aren't any in the real world that would span multiple squares, maybe in the game we could make them that big. Real world ones and made up ones. There could be a Grand Canyon spanning multiple squares, maybe some waterfalls each contained in one square, but I don't know about labeling them. There could be one square craters, mountain ranges, rivers, forests labelled with real names.

The above is a moderate to high priority for me.

Movies

I think I would like an opening movie similar to that of Civ1. Maybe even bring back the exact wonder movies from Civ2! I want interesting, creative victory and defeat movies.

The above is a low to moderate priority for me.

Exploration

Maybe not award any points for exploring every square of a continent etc, but have a quick movie or something for your home landmass and the whole world, maybe every landmass over a certain size. Be able to restrict automatic exploration by saying go in a particular compass direction until you reach a coast or a rival's borders, and then follow that coast. Be able to tell it to follow the first river it finds, move into mountains when you see them.

The above is a high priority for me.

Scenarios

Colonization of United States, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Oceania. Natives not too challenging to play as. US powers: Spain, England, France. Latin America powers: Spain, Portugal, Inca, Maya, Aztec. Africa powers: Arabs, English, French. Asia powers: India, England, China, Japan, Russia, Tibet, Arabia, France, Netherlands, Mongols, Turkmen, Hmong. Oceania powers: Australian Aborigines, Maori, Japan, China, Hawaiians, French, English, Americans

The above is a high priority for me.

City Names

Include Austrian and German- speaking Swiss names included for German cities. As previously suggested, let Austria and Switzerland be cultures within the German civ, with the potential to split off.

The above is a moderate priority for me.

Splintering

Give Scandinavians potential to split into separate Norwegian, Danish, Jute, Swedish, Gutnish, Icelandic, Faroese civs. Somehow have the option of Americans, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders splitting off from English. Mexicans, Argentines, Peruvians, etc from Spanish.

The above is a moderate priority for me.

Sound

Have excellent music as usual. Use some from Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, expansions, Colonization. We don't need a wide variety of sound effects for units.

The above is a low priority for me.

DarkCloud · December 9, 2003, 00:04

Quote:

You can't get everyone to agree on even the simplest concepts. You can't get everyone to agree on units vs. stacks cobat. I'll never agree to tech research model changes (such as SMAC blind research). Others will never agree on future age. Etc.

Indeed. Solver is correct on this.

However, I still support Trifna's idea of connotating in the list differently colored ideas based upon the feasability/necessity/popularity of certain ideas based upon forum return.

We could have an explanation detailing the criteria for each color and then note aht this is only a basic rating given 'REPRESENTATIVE' of the civilization community at large!

I believe that would be both a fair and even-representation of data taht would benefit all involved.

Boris Godunov · December 9, 2003, 00:08

Reward for winning:

One of the biggest disappointments of Civ3 is that there is little reward for winning the game. A lame text box saying "YOU WIN!!!' is laughably Java-game-esque. Why no victory movie for each condition? That'd be awesome.

Also, ditch the cutesy, cartoonish leaderheads with their dumb sayings. Make it feel EPIC, like SMAC. Can we not say that enough?

DarkCloud · December 9, 2003, 00:13

It would be great if they would have a vicotyr movie like they have in Empire Earth for each win... and epic cutscenes like Empire Earth;s (like they had in Civ II)

that would be a worthy reaward for all the hours of hard work that each player puts into a game of civ!

Brent · December 9, 2003, 02:32

Preset Civ Combinations

Allow players to set combinations of who they'll be and who they'll play against to save and choose from when starting a game. Include the group from Civ1, the group from Col (with or without the natives), and sets of civs that are the same color in Civ2. Have one for the PtW expansion and one for C3C.

The above is a low to moderate priority for me.

Civs

Pay attention to the Civs from the Civ2 and Civ3 scenarios in choosing civs for Civ4. Like I said, I want at least 50 Civs available in the original release. 200 would be great. 20 seems reasonable for maximum on one map.

The above is a low to moderate priority for me.

Rush Buying

Bring back sending caravans into Wonder cities. Don't flog me!

The above is a low to moderate priority for me.

Degree of Difference from Previous Games

To me, it seems like three is plenty for simply better versions of previous games. I don't know how Civ4 should break the pattern, maybe it would work to just make it a much bigger leap, and having 200 available Civs could be part of that.

The above is a low to moderate priority for me.

Trading Maps

Be able to trade maps in pieces by continent. The game could automatically name the continents. With culturally linked starting locations, the game could make sure that the civs on one continent in the real world are on the same continent in the game, and in the game the random continents could have the names of real continents.

The above is a moderate priority for me.

Ficticious Civs

Include pregenerated ficticious Civs, not elves or other fantasy, but humans. Let the game randomly create ficticious Civs.

The above is a low priority for me.

Let Settlers Defend themselves

Make noncombat units more like in Civ2.

The above is a low priority for me.

Regional Animals

For example, let horses appear only in Arabia, maybe just at first. Link regional animals with culture groups. Let specific types of animals migrate slowly over time. Let there be plagues of insects.

The above is a moderate priority for me.

Future Tech

Let some future technologies resemble SMAC techs.

The above is a low priority for me.

City Names

Add compass directions to reused city names. Maybe just on large maps when there's reason to believe you'll build many cities, when your first few cities are spread out.

The above is a low to moderate priority to me.

Three Way Battles

After rereading posts several times, Fosse's idea about two phase turns catches my attention.

The above is a moderate to high priority for me.

Guidance

I got used to Civ2 telling me where to put my cities. I guess I'm over it now. I want such guidance to be available on the higher difficulty levels.

The above is a high priority for me.

Automation

I want to be able to automate settlers to build cities in good spots without worrying about them, but I don't want those cities to automatically go on governor like in SMAC. I want automated land units and transports to work together, if they don't already.

The above is a high priority for me.

Colonization type units

I want units to be interchangable with citizens, to be given jobs within cities or elsewhere, so more like Colonization than SMAC.

The above is a moderate to high priority for me.

Donegeal · December 9, 2003, 08:34

Editor

Add worker jobs.
I like both the CtP and CivIII version of terrain improvements, but just for the sake of arguement, I will be going from the perspective of CivIII. I want to either be able to add worker jobs or already have them in. Examples: Loved the ability to Irragate a second time in CivII. Give this back. I have also be wanting a good way to deal with Urban Sprawl/Suburbs. Currently, for astetic reasons, I use the Urban Sprawl graphic for rail roads. Looks good, but then you get the Urban Sprawl everywhere. I have been wanting a "Suburb" tile improvement. The graphic would be similar to a "town". Suburbs would only be allowed to be built in the inner eight squares surrounding the actual city (maybe even giving cities the ability to build naval/costal things even if they are one tile back of the coast) and only on flat terrain (Grassland, Plains, Desert). Have a suburb add one or two of each food/shield/commerce (added food to show that the city is now larger population wise, added shield to show that there is infact more than one city working to complete something, and added commerce for all the extra trade that goes on). Building a Suburb comsumes the worker.

Ok, maybe not with the "only flat tiles" deal. It doesn't matter to me so long as "Suburbia" is well represented in the modern age (just like it is in real life).

Brundlefly · December 9, 2003, 10:17

To those posting essay responses to this thread, a request: Please do not double-space. Also please be as brief and to the point as possible. Please don't post the same sentence a dozen times within the same post. Some of these posts threaten to take up an entire page. I don't know how others feel, but I rarely read more than 10 sentences of a post anyway... Often times someone is able to make a very good point in a post using about 5 sentences, but if that post gets sandwiched between a couple of essay posts it will likely go unnoticed.

TheBirdMan · December 9, 2003, 10:39

Units - bombarding from the distance.

Modern artillery which is limited by a small number of movementpoints should be able to fire from the distance.... say 1 tile behind the frontline.

Another way is to introduce a kind of missilelauncher, where it is possible to fire airborne "units" against an attacking enemy (something like the cruisemissile in the modded versions of CTP).

If we take the CTP-way to do it, the artillery-unit should look like this (only the most important values are shown):

UNIT_ARTILLERY
{
MAX_MOVEMENT 200
FUEL 0

SHIELD_HUNGER 46
FOOD_HUNGER 0

DEFAULT_SPRITE SPRITE_ARTILLERY
####### special flags ########
MOVEMENT_TYPE_LAND
LOSS_MOVE_TO_DMG_NONE
SIZE_LARGE
......................................... CAN_CARRY_SMALL_AIR
......................................... TRANSPORT_CAPACITY 5
VISIBILITY_CLASS_0
VISIBILITY_CAN_SEE_0
CAN_BOMBARD_LAND
CAN_BOMBARD_WATER
CAN_BOMBARD_MOUNTAIN
SEA_CITY_CAN_BUILD
}

and the missile like this (only the most important values are shown):

UNIT_CRUISE_MISSILE
{
SHIELD_COST 375
POWER_POINTS 500
MAX_HP 5
ATTACK 0
DEFENSE 0
FIREPOWER 4
ZB_RANGE_ATTACK 220

VISION_RANGE 1
MAX_MOVEMENT 400
FUEL 501
SHIELD_HUNGER 12
FOOD_HUNGER 0
ADVANCE_MICROCOMPUTERS
OBSOLETE_ADVANCE NULL
###### special flags ########
MOVEMENT_TYPE_AIR
NO_FUEL_THEN_CRASH
SIZE_SMALL
CAN_BEACH_ASSAULT
IGNORE_ZOC
HAS_NO_ZOC
CAN_BOMBARD_LAND
CAN_BOMBARD_WATER
CAN_BOMBARD_MOUNTAIN
SINGLE_USE
SEA_CITY_CAN_BUILD
}

FinnishGuy · December 9, 2003, 10:48

I'd like to get back the little fanfare that you heard when you changed government in Civ2.

I miss it.

Brundlefly · December 9, 2003, 11:09

BirdMan's post is a perfect example of what I was talking about in my previous post. I'm sure the ideas in that post are valid points, but this is an idea-gathering thread not a technical discussion. 1% of the people who look at this thread will have the time and interest to sort through the script language in that post and figure what it means. The thread becomes cumbersome with huge posts like that. This is just a high level discussion people - keep it simple.

MarkG said the same damn thing on page 1 of this thread..

TheBirdMan · December 9, 2003, 11:51

Don't worry bfg9000. This is the first time I visited this thread - but not the last time.

I will arrange my future posts with a header for the quick guys and (maybe) a little more detailed part for those who wants that (people like myself

).

ixnay · December 9, 2003, 13:10

I'd like to see the city view screen become a little more useful and have it a la Civ1: Showing animations in the city screen when they drop into revolt, build an improvement, get conquered, etc.

As much as this would slow the flow of the game down I'd still watch it.

DarkCloud · December 9, 2003, 13:43

Quote:

I'd like to see the city view screen become a little more useful and have it a la Civ1: Showing animations in the city screen when they drop into revolt, build an improvement, get conquered, etc.

As much as this would slow the flow of the game down I'd still watch it.

But would you watch it after the 10th time the revolts occured? the animations, since they would be useless and hidden in the interface, would quickly lose their flavor...

KorvaKikkeli · December 9, 2003, 13:59

I really hope they make the AI stop treating the player differently from the other civs. It's the only thing that really bothered me in Civ3. It can't be that hard to code a proper AI, hire better programmers if you can't do it

They did it in Galactic Civilizations (granted, it's a different game). For me it really breaks the mood of the game when you notice that the AI-civs gradually start giving you crappier deals even if it would hurt them more. And for no apparent reason. Theoretically, in the deity level, it shouldn't be too hard to code the AI to make "best possible" moves and give them a long term plan according to their civilization characteristics.

Another minor point is that the small minimap should really center itself according to cursor location on the big map. I don't know if it's fixed in the newer installments.

KorvaKikkeli · December 9, 2003, 15:51

Some other thoughts, that I forgot from the previous mail:
I think something that would really make the whole gaming experience better is better focus on different details on different civilizations and better research on other subjects besides the obvious history and military units. For example, the graphics could be different on cities, advisors and other units even if they have the same stats. Also if Firaxis comes up with some other ideas or concepts for the sequel, all those could be more civ-specific. With Civ3 I don't really feel much different whether I'm playing Aztecs or Germans.

TheBirdMan · December 9, 2003, 16:01

I have 4 high priorities.

The AI should be able to handle every concept of the game with a decent skill.

PBEM is a must from the start.

MP is a must too (though I am not playing MP (on-line)).

Firaxis should back up the game for at least a year (make nessesary patches).

Dknight · December 9, 2003, 16:07

International Conferences

I really liked how diplomacy was implenmented in Alpha Centuari, it actually feel like you have to do with other nations. What I suggest is to have a system of Conferences where you can deal with more than one nation in an international event such as the brink of war, or there being a middle man to stop a war. Alliances could also be made at Conferences so you're not only helping out specific nation but starting a group.

Planning for Wars with Allies

From the Alpha Centuari train of thought again, I really like how you cooperate with your ally when fighting an enemy. But I hope Civ 4 could improve on it, but "carving" out the enemy before the war begin, or making certain cities yours and telling the computer NOT to take that city because it's agreed upon before hand. Or if taken have to give it to you when the war ends for you. So it'll help shape the world after the war is finished and not like the pockets of cities we have after a war in Civ 3.

Brent · December 9, 2003, 16:07

Should I post separate ideas in separate posts? I'm just trying not to increase my post count more than I have to. Am I posting too many ideas? Should I only post those that I give a high priority? Or do others tend to agree more with the ideas that I give a low priority? I wasn't posting the exact same sentence over and over, I was giving my priorites, each sentence was specific to the previous idea. Your point is still valid, however. I guess from now on I will instead type one to five asterisks, or should I not say what my priorities are? Should I wait until we have separate threads before posting more ideas, and would it be more acceptable on separate threads to post at the rate I have been?

The diplomat · December 9, 2003, 16:47

Quote:

Originally posted by Dknight
International Conferences

I really liked how diplomacy was implenmented in Alpha Centuari, it actually feel like you have to do with other nations. What I suggest is to have a system of Conferences where you can deal with more than one nation in an international event such as the brink of war, or there being a middle man to stop a war. Alliances could also be made at Conferences so you're not only helping out specific nation but starting a group.

Planning for Wars with Allies

From the Alpha Centuari train of thought again, I really like how you cooperate with your ally when fighting an enemy. But I hope Civ 4 could improve on it, but "carving" out the enemy before the war begin, or making certain cities yours and telling the computer NOT to take that city because it's agreed upon before hand. Or if taken have to give it to you when the war ends for you. So it'll help shape the world after the war is finished and not like the pockets of cities we have after a war in Civ 3.

Civ4 should definitely allow civs who are allied to declare war and make peace as a group. I hate it when my AI ally asks me to declare war on his enemy so I do, being the loyal ally that I am, only to have the AI sue for peace the very next turn leaving me to fight the war by myself.

Solver · December 9, 2003, 17:08

Good point about the AI Birdman. It's also my highest priority. If the AI is challenging, and in a smart way so, I will love the game even if it has many bad concepts. I just can't dislike a game with a good AI.

TechWins · December 9, 2003, 18:13

Firaxis needs to hire Sn00py to do all the terrain graphics.

Practically everyone uses his artwork over Firaxis' anyways, so he might as well get paid for it, too.

Jon Miller · December 9, 2003, 18:54

I sure don't

in fact, no one I knows does

Jon Miller

Fosse · December 9, 2003, 19:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Brent
Should I post separate ideas in separate posts? I'm just trying not to increase my post count more than I have to. Am I posting too many ideas? Should I only post those that I give a high priority? Or do others tend to agree more with the ideas that I give a low priority? I wasn't posting the exact same sentence over and over, I was giving my priorites, each sentence was specific to the previous idea. Your point is still valid, however. I guess from now on I will instead type one to five asterisks, or should I not say what my priorities are? Should I wait until we have separate threads before posting more ideas, and would it be more acceptable on separate threads to post at the rate I have been?

Brent, if you have an idea post away! If you think it belongs in its own thread or another dedicated one, then do it that way... but the way I see it this is the place for posting over and over as things pop into your head.

TechWins · December 9, 2003, 20:33

Quote:

I sure don't

Well, aren't you special.

Sn00py's artwork on terrain is far superior than what Firaxis created hands down. Whether you have chosen to use the better artwork, Sn00py's, is your own choice.

Fosse · December 9, 2003, 20:48

I'd like a map that has more in common with the one from X-Com than the ones from Civ games.

I don't want gratuitious 3D... but a true sphere map like that with coordinates instead of tiles.... would be a dream come true.

Jon Miller · December 9, 2003, 22:09

Quote:

Originally posted by TechWins

Well, aren't you special.

Sn00py's artwork on terrain is far superior than what Firaxis created hands down. Whether you have chosen to use the better artwork, Sn00py's, is your own choice.

I don't think it is that clear cut

I don't think that other people do either

you are putting your own opinions as facts

I don't want the list of ideas that Techwins, Asmodean, and freinds think are correct

I want a list of ideas created by people at apolyton (including me, you and everyone else)

with no preferrence made by people who think too much of their own opinions

Jon Miller

TechWins · December 9, 2003, 22:34

I agree everyone's opinion should be equal, but the fact of the matter is that most people (here at Apolyton) use Sn00py's graphics or believe that his graphics are better than what Firaxis had to offer.

Either way, it was a joke while at the sametime a compliment to Sn00py. Take it as you will.