MISCELLANEOUS IDEAS

[Krylloan]

HISTORIES

I also think entire game histories should be able to be recorded, so, after the game’s over, you can watch exactly what the enemy was doing when you couldn’t see him, even looking inside his cities. With quick playback, pause, and rewind, also, jump-to-year. The quick playback should have fast-piece slide, and flash production changes, buildings built, sciences discovered, on screen below the city. You should also be able to select which civs you view. Also, you need a civ I style vquick replay. If this is done, then I think you should create a history file which is the real history of the world, so you can watch the entire history of the world, or as good a likeness as civ can get. With each city building buildings at the correct times, growing at the correct rates, and battles being fought with the correct units and correct army sizes at the correct dates and places. Maybe with some nice colourful movies along the way. This would be quite difficult to get right, but I think this could be a major selling point, for educational value as well as entertainment.
And fix the powergraph so it stops having a low ceiling.

NEW BLDGS / WONDERS / UNITS

BUILDING IDEAS
Launch Pad (Allows spaceship production, Apollo project production in city), 100 materials, 200 labour. Cost 6 gold/turn. Requires SpaceFlight.
WONDER IDEAS
Model T ford: Increases road movement by 1. 400 materials, 300 labour. Requires Automobile.
Stonehenge: Gives astronomy. 40 materials, 80 labour. Requires mysticism.
Manhattan project: All the usual plus: A message ‘Enemy nuclear weapons production detected’ whenever an enemy builds a nuke. (This is real, US monitored Soviet weapons production by levels of radioactive particles in the atmosphere during the cold war). No hint of which enemy built the nuke should be given. (Message should be given at beginning of turn.)
UNIT IDEAS ADM
Minelayers 0:2:1
Ocean Minelayers 1:4:3
Mines attack with Attack 10, 1HitPoint, 1FirePower, 1 Defence. Laying mines takes 3 turns. Of course, they’re invisible (even to yourself?)


CURRENT BUILDINGS

1: You cannot tell how many buildings of each type you have if they require no upkeep or they cost 1 with Adam Smith's TC.

2: If would be handy to have a sell all of a building type button (like when you permanently capture the pyramids and want to sell all your granaries)

3: On the trade advisor display, i think there should be a selection of all the buildings types you have built, so you can select each, and scroll down and see which cities have the selected building. Or, maybe another button which sets up a table with cities along the y axis and small columns for each building(pic only) along the x axis, and each element in the table has a tick if the city has that building, or a blank if it doesn't.

OTHER IDEAS

1: A science tree displaying the entire chain of sciences would be useful. Especially one that updates when you change rules.txt.

2: When a unit tries to move onto a square with a sub, it gets told the sub is there. I think it should attack, or be forced to defend if it is a 0-attack unit.

3:If an enemy bomber and land/sea unit occupy the same square, a land/sea unit should be able to attack what’s underneath without affecting or being affected by the bomber. And a fighter destroying the bomber should not affect anything underneath.

4: The science lightbulb icon has only four states, empty, low, med, and high. This makes it hard to tell quickly and accurately how much science you have. I think it should have at least 10.

5: I think the unit's ADM and HF should be displayed beside the unit's status when it is displayed on the sidebar. Otherwise you have to go to the help menus, which is annoying.

6: All sciences that you have all the prerequisites for should always be able to be researched. This leads to more targetted research. (Less realism, but better game play)

7: Multiplayer. There should be the options of: All on one PC, Modem, Null Modem, Network, Internet and even E-Mail games (These would be slow, but it’s like those games of intercontinental chess via post that people used to play.) Oh yes, and a postal multiplayer option. These all can have both human and AI playing. Maybe even different difficulty levels for different players.

8: Each civ could have it’s own characteristic abilities. (Should be optional)

Eg
Babylonians: Capital city: Wonders cost 8/10. Always happy. All cities: Happy +1.
Zulus: Attack strength 150%.
Romans: Movement +1 on roads (All roads lead to…), 30$ per turn.
Americans: 10 free sciences. $500 at beginning. (That’s less than they had when they started here)
Egyptians: +1 food from desert/plains. Cities don’t decrease with hunger. 9 rows food per city.
Vikings: Sea Movement +3. No trireme sinking. +1 trade from sea.
Mongols: No support for units, food, materials, or money. No financial cost for production orders.
Indians: 8 rows food per city. No aqueduct/sewer system necessary.
Chinese: Extra 3 food per city.
English: Sea Movement +1. One extra worker for cities >3.
Japanese: 1 extra labour per worker.
Aztecs: +1 trade per tile.
Polynesians: Start with 10 settlers and 2 trireme. Each city builds at size 2. (Replace Carthagians)
(ps, I’m not a descendant of these even though I’m from NZ. But you should have these representing the pacific islanders, australian aborigines, native indonesians and papua new guineans, maoris etc, I think they make up a massive group. They’re one of the four main sapient races (Caucasian, Asian, African and Australoid))
Carthagians: I don’t think these should be in the standard Civ III civs.
French: Science x 1.7.
Sioux: No pollution. Happy +(10-production) while production<10. Attack +1 for units with attack <5.
Greeks: All govt forms immediately. Low corruption.
Russians: Defence x 1.5. +1 food from first tundra or ice tile that city uses.
Germans: Materials +1 per worker.
Celts: Militia scatter like partisans before partisans available. Units inside city have defence +1.

MY VOTES (Other People’s Ideas)
Spherical map? No
Using populations instead of city size units? No
Provinces? No
Populations of units? No
Grouping and un-grouping units? Yes
Random events? Optional
Bridges and Canals? No
Borders? No
Realism vs Gameplay? Gameplay
Complexity vs Simplicity? Simplicity