HEXAGONAL TILES
I think hexagonal tiles would remove the annoying corners, make distances more real, and improve gameplay. The numeric keypad could still be used, without keys(4&6) or (8&2) depending on the orientation of the hexes. (I think they should have a flat horizontal edge). This would also improve on ZOC’s and make islands look nicer, more rounded.
UPPER LIMITS
Also, make the limits for the max amount of cities, units etc way beyond what the largest map is capable of reaching (memory is big these days). And make the maps be able to be enormous, ie at least 2048x2048 (only 4 mega-tiles. If each tile is 4 bytes or less, this would still only be max 16 megs.)
I know this makes you have to start using ints to store locations instead of bytes, but that shouldn’t increase the size too much. You also need a large amount of civs, ie 255 civs active at once + barbarians. This is excellent for multiplayer. THIS COULD BE A MAJOR SELLING POINT FOR CIV III
CONTINENTAL DRIFT
Continental drift? (Yes, I know it takes many millions of years, but it’d be fun to see NY(32) slowly submerge). Adequate warning of submerging cities should be given(50turns), so city can build settlers and ship their populations elsewhere (settlers need to be able to increase the size of any city, regardless of it’s present size)
MAP VIEWS
A map view where the squares which are used by each city are displayed would be nice.
There needs to be a view where you can remove cities and units without removing roads, irrig, mines etc.
(Ps, if you recognise some of this, yes I am pvt 1st class sph38 from Firaxis)
