Desires For Future Civ3 Patches

[GodSpawn]

Wow, that's a big list! Very good. Some observations:

(A) Some of the items in the list look to require a lot of implementation work - not likely to appear in a patch. For example, providing additional zoom levels may requre an inordiante amount of work, depending on how it's implemented.

(B) The ramifications of some of the items need to be taken into account. For example, the idea that colonies should have a cultural border: Does this mean that a colony could be taken culturally by an enemy civ? If not, you could use colonies to form a culturally impregnable firebreak on your outer borders, which might break the game. But if you DO allow colonies to be taken culturally, you need a way to compute the colony's cultural value.

(C) Some items need to be further expanded. For example: "Reduce late game tedium; incorporating some of the ideas/changes mentioned could possibly do just that." Some concrete examples here would help significantly.

Also: "Continue to solve the overabundance of corruption problem." Should this be done by reducing the effect of corruption due to distance or number of cities, giving bigger reductions for certain government types, increasing the effect of certain city improvements, making forbidden palace cheaper, or some combination of all those? What would benefit the game most?

(D) The list needs to be priortised. Even if Firaxis used this list as a basis for what to put into a patch, they'd need to know what subset to work on - there's no way they'd be implementing more than a small proportion of the items.

Personally, I'd put stacked movement at the top of the list.

[GMO]

Editor Ideas for a new patch to CIV3:

1) There should be an option where you can change the number of years per turn. I might want the time in CIV3 to go slower so I might want only 1 year per turn right from the start of the game, or I might want for time to go faster so I might want 10 years per turn in the early part of the game, then go to 2 years per turn later. If there was an option I could modify the turns per year.

2) There's no option to say you don't want a particular unit in the game, whatsoever. For example, let's say I don't want tactical nukes and ICBMs. There's no option to say 'don't include this unit in the game'. In the editor now, I can make the units expensive and say that you need 3 resources to get the unit but there's no option to say not to include the units.

These could also be options in the game itself, so these could also be General ideas.

[Optimizer]

If Farmlands are brought back from Civ 2 to take over the food bonus of Railroads, the Railroads could benefit a civ's food supply in a more logical way:

Cities connected by Railroads should have a shared, regional food storage. When the storage is filled, the happiest city would grow (if it is allowed).

This adds
*realism, (Railroads transport food to where it is needed; they do not produce it.)
*strategy (You can now specialize your cities on food, industry or something else.)
*and beauty. (The landscape wouldn't be filled by rail.)

This would also decrease micromanagement in the late game.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by GMO
2) There's no option to say you don't want a particular unit in the game, whatsoever. For example, let's say I don't want tactical nukes and ICBMs. There's no option to say 'don't include this unit in the game'. In the editor now, I can make the units expensive and say that you need 3 resources to get the unit but there's no option to say not to include the units.

What about making them unavailable to all?

[hoevenpe]

I am still missing two options:

- upgrade individual units inside an army / remove a unit from an army. This pervents armies of knights during the modern age...

- customize the auto-worker option. Now they build mines on grassland for instance, I want them to irrigate grassland all the time. Just being able to customize this whould speed up the game dramatically (no more individual workers to command)

[TechWins]

The Reference Post, as of now, represents all the ideas from the original/old thread. I will try to update the list to its fullest by Wednesday, because I will be gone (visiting my friend in Michigan) for a week come Wednesday.

BtW, I usually update my post following the list instead of having to make a new post stating that I updated the Reference Post.

[iof3bears]

I would like to see the following two points added but they may be in the too hard basket.

1) If you have a railway build on a square which is within your cultural boundary but not within your 21 square's of a city, once all 21 squares are used, citizens should be able to use shield producing squares, outside of the 21 squares but within your cultural boundary.

2) Similar concept to the above, but add say a technology called refrigeration, which allows the same as above but for food.

These squares would only produce shields or food if a railway was built, and not food until refrigeration was discovered.

For food production maybe even the requirement to build a supermarket.

[Qilue]

I'd like some form of scrollbar for the "Investigate City" list.

Once the number goes over 40 (or something like that), the list extends off the sides of the screen making it near impossible (without a lot of reloading and guessing) to find the particular city you want to investigate.

[star mouse]

More ideas:

* Fix whatever it is that makes the game so slow! It is ridiculous when it takes 15 seconds between clicking on the "Do you accept this deal?" message when negotiating with the AI and the AI's response. Not to mention the 5 minute delay between turns.

* If the lengthy delays are caused by recalculating trade connectivity and culture borders, optimise the algorithms used to compute these. The majority of players would prefer a slightly inferior algorithm that was lightning fast to a completely correct one that takes 10 seconds of CPU time to compute.

Calculating a trade network should be very quick if a flood fill algorithm is used. Calculating the culture borders is slightly more involved, but should also be possible to compute quickly.

* Make the end of game replay more comprehensive. Include war declarations, peace treaties, trade embargoes and the like.

* In-game city events that pop up over a city that may require attention, such as pollution, WLT*D etc. should be accessible in an "executive summary". This summary would have a city name and the event, and the city name is clickable so you can see the city if desired.

* The military advisor should alert you to undefened cities.

* Barbarians should be more prominent. Land-based barbarians should have more advanced units in the later game. Barbarians that spawn at sea should spawn as an appropriate naval unit, perhaps carrying troops. Barbarian privateers at the appropriate time would be a particularly interesting enhancement.

* Barbarian encampments should spawn a greater variety of numbers of barbarians. Usually they spawn one at a time and occasionally spawn "huge uprisings". There should also be smaller uprisings containing perhaps half a dozen units.

* Expanding cultural borders should not disperse barbarian encampments. This includes building a city right next to an encampment.

[star mouse]

More ideas:

* Provide an option, "Find resource". This would work for strategic resources and luxuries. This can be implemented as an extra button on the World map alongside the "geography" and "borders" buttons. When this option is pressed, the player chooses the desired resource from the list. The map then highlights the desired resource in bright yellow with the rest of the map being muted dark colours (black = unexplored, dark blue = ocean, dark grey/green = land).

Right now, hunting for strategic resources is a pain, especially if there's an enemy city built right on top of the resource. Even ctrl-shift-M is tedious on a huge map.

* Provide an option to animate the resources icons, particularly the strategic and luxury resources. Movement draws the eye, and this can help someone to spot difficult-to-see resources, such as coal hidden in a jungle.

[Aqualung]

General:

AI: The AI should recognize non-productive areas. It should not settle in any location where the (unimproved) 9-square basic city size cannot support a size 3 city. Leave major efforts to terraform the planet to the human player.

Barbarians: 1) Barbarians should still be a hassle late into the game (since the AI is no longer settling every single square, as per above suggestion). The Barbarians should have the most powerful units of the previous age, up to Cavalry and Infantry.

2) Barbarian ships should actually do something besides attack other ships, such as drop of "settlers" (warrior units which build encampments).

Diplomacy: Clicking on a certain Civ, the advisor should tell you about THAT civ. If I select Zulu, and then click "more" on the advisor, he MIGHT tell me "The Zulus are in AWE of our culture", but then say "The Germans outnumber us..." Keep the advisor's advice limited to the civ that's selected.

Wonders: Probably beyond Firaxis' ability (willingness), but each Civ should have a unique wonder:

Americans: Statue of Liberty.
French: Eiffel Tower.
Romans: Great Colloseum.

Expand the possible effects of wonders, so that the Roman Great Colloseum can "double the effects of all Colloseums in your empire", or maybe "All Roman Legionaries are +1 level" (Barracks produce Elite), or maybe "Resources not necessary for upgrades" (you can upgrade Spearmen to Pikemen without Iron, and Pikemen to Musketmen without Saltpeter).


The Editor:

A world-view map!

[Jezz]

I haven't read the first page of the thread so i apologize if someone already mentioned it.

1.)When pollution strikes, the citizen is taken off that square. And after i've cleaned the pollution, it doesn't put the citizen back to work on the original polluted square. Very annoying. I have to manually go in and put him back to work. Why can't the citizen just stay working on the polluted square?

2.)Also, why can't cruise missles go over water? The whole point of a submarine is to launch missiles.

3.)This one might be hard to implement, but what about allowing strategic resources to be connected when they are in the sea? Adding oil to sea seems logical to me, but i realized i can't because it would be useless. Can't build road on sea square..... So if a strategic resource is in the city radius and on sea/coast, you would need harbor and offshore platform to use it? Something along those lines maybe?

Oh, and i keep reading messages about long waits during the game when you click on something. One possible problem might be your anti-virus. I forgot to turn off Norton once and launched the game, and it stuttered like a crazy man.

[Trifna]

Spying was used all along through History. It is something common. Or why would CIA and KGB (well it's not the same letters now but whattever) exist? They are certainly commonly searching some info or else. In Civ III, would be great if spying was an important part of the game, as it is in real world, where no important country is puting nothing in counter-spying or spying.

[Aqualung]

Military Advisor:

More accurate comparisons. Compared to them, we have an AVERAGE (?!?!) military? He's got 26 Pikemen, I've got 40 Armor...

Wake unit without closing Advisor screen. Sometimes I'm stuck with units I can't upgrade (no Barracks). I want to activate them to move them to another city. It sucks. Wake one, move it, upgrade, click on advisor. Wake one, move it, upgrade, click on advisor. Wake one, move it, upgrade, click on advisor...

Map Editor:

Allow us to load Save games, just like CivII. I just played a cool random map that I'd like to play again.

[Willem]

It may have already been said, I know I've mentioned it in other posts, but I'd like a better control with irrigation. First, an Irrigate To: command, just like building a road. It's a pain having to make my way square by square across vast tracts of land to reach a city. The current Ctrl-I command doesn't work very well. Secondly, an automated worker command that will only irrigate my land, not chop/plant forests or build mines, just irrigate.

As well, I'd like to be able to see the maximum city radius displayed on the map when I'm trying to locate a new city, maybe as part of the grid. It's a bit annoying having to count out the squares.

Also a preference to allow me to shut off the Wonder splash screens that pop up when one is finished.

[Aqualung]

Now that you mention it:

Automate Settler:

Improve (without altering exsisting improvements) should be the default for automate. It should also be smarter. The AI irrigates and mines grassland/plains in stripes. It'll cut down forests and then mine the grassland, reducing sheild output. Your automated settlers do the same. It should mine/irrigate for optimum city production. A grassland-shield square will produce 3/3 with a railroad.

Automate - Clean Pollution: This setting should be permanent (until you click on them to change it). I've got a horde of idle workers. I've got 1 pollution, 4 of them can clean it up in one turn. Yet, when I try to automate, only 2 workers go and start cleaning. The command simply doesn't take for the rest of them. And then, once they're done cleaning, the command is over. I'd just like to set my 50 workers to auto. If there's pollution, they swarm it until it's gone. If there's no pollution, they hide in the nearest city until there is some, at which point, they come swarming out again.

Pollution:

Wait one turn before bumping the laborer off the polluted square. I can almost always clean pollution in 1 turn, so it's a nuisance to have to go into the city and replace the laborer. If it's still there at the end of the turn, then fine, move them. But give me 1 turn to clean it up without that annoying bit of micromanagement.

Advisors:

Your Science Advisor (even when you're researching at maximum speed, 4 turns) ALWAYS tells you research needs more funding. Annoying, and not really useful. There's no point, so why have that message in there? Why not be more specific. If I'm at 30/70, with +130 gold, and I could go 50/50 and still have +2 gold per turn, then tell me I can increase research. But if I'm running short, DON'T ASK!

Your Domestic Advisor ALWAYS tells you "Build more cities"... WHERE? There's not a single square on the map left open! The DA should instead give you some actual information on the size of your empire. Each map-size has an "optimum" number of cities. How about "Our empire is small, build more cities" or "Our empire is nearly optimum" or "Our empire is too large".

Your Foreign advisor tells you random things. When you select Ghandi, his messages should tell you ONLY about India. Instead of "India fears our Cavalry" and then "The Persians are impressed with our culture", "The Aztecs...", etc. STICK with India. I don't want to know what the Persians think. Tell me if India is impressed with me.

Small Wonders:

Get rid of Forbidden Palace. Replace it with a normal improvement, one which you can build multiple times. Each size has an optimum number of cities, and you can build FP once you reach half that. So if 20 is optimum, you can build FP when you have 10. But what if your empire is 40 cities? Make it so you can have an FP (PC, Provincial Capital) for every x-number of cities. So in that example, your Palace covers the first 10, and then you get 3 PCs for the next 30. Since there'd be multiple PCs, maybe make it harder to qualify, so maybe with 40 cities, you should only get 2. Make them easier to build, though.

Or failing that, make your ORIGINAL Palace a permanent building. Currently, Palaces are far too expensive to move, anyway. And since your Palace moves when your capital is taken anyway, don't even have that as an option on the build list. (I think it moves, I know the AI's capitals move, but I've yet to lose my own to find out). So when I capture Berlin, I get the German Palace, which acts just like my own Palace/FP for corruption. But that would require adding a new, non-permanent Palace. So that when I capture Leipzig, I don't get another German Palace. And also, so that IF the Germans retake Berlin, their capital moves back to Berlin.

[Vivisector]

Here's some stuff that occurs to me:

General Gameplay

1. ***** Automated pollution clean up needs to be better. At present, I can only get 2 workers to go to a polltion site via Shift-P. But I tend to have loads of captured workers available. I should be able to automatically put upto 10 or so workers on a pollution site and get it cleaned up right away. Also, it does not seem to me that the workers "stay" automated to clean pollution. That is, they seem to sit still even tho there is pollution on the map, until I come along and press Shift-P on them. Pollution is a pain in the neck and leads to enormous amounts of tedious clicking and moving. Gives me a sore wrist! I should be able to detail 20-30 workers to pollution and have them automatically swarm all over the pollution sites without further intervention by me.

2. **** Control over the flow of unit activations. At present, the game takes me thru all the non-fortified units one by one, in an order it selects. This can be quite annoying. If I want to focus first on a given battle in one area, and the game keeps jumping to other places, it's very distracting. I should be able to turn that "feature" off, move whatever units I select in the order I select them, then turn the autoselect feature back on and let the game take me to any remaining units that have not yet moved.

3. **** We need stack move! If I have 10 modern armor in one square and want to move them all across the continent, I should be able to do that in one operation, rather than swiping my mouse back and forth 10 times.

4. *** Armies should have the characteristics of their constituent units, if they are all the same type of unit. So, an army of marines should be able to do an amphibious assault. An army of modern armor should move as far as modern armor does and be able to attack twice. It seems silly that if you put these units together in an army they are actually debilitated - and you can't get them out again!

5. *** Cruise missiles should be able to be carried on transports, subs, and battleships. They're next to useless as is, because they cannot leave the continent on which they are made and move too slowly with too little range to attack anything. Leastwise, I find that my armies are on the move - fast. And by the time a cruise missile gets there, it's all over.

[Willem]

I'd like to be able to add more of my own Strategic Resources, but from what I can see, it's fixed at 8. I now have Copper and Timber, but I had to sacrifice Rubber and convert my Horses to Luxury. Plus there's room for 12 more icons on the resources graphic file, but I'm stuck with using only 24.

[Sir_Warlock]

Add a variety of 'wake all' commands in a patch, so that the player doesn't need to hunt for and find each unit manually. This is particularly important for worker units that have been placed on automatic when a war starts. The following would be good:
- Wake all units on map
- Wake all land military units on map
- Wake all naval units on map
- Wake all air units on map
- Wake all worker units on map (useful when going to war, so that automated workers can be turned off when going to war).
- Wake all units in this square.

Allow the player to check a box for each unit and improvement "Do not include this unit in build list" (manually mark a unit as obsolete). This list gets very long and cluttered by the end of the game.

Do not remove some units from the build list when the replacement comes along - especially nation specific units. As Japan, I was surprised to see Samurai (4-4-2) removed from the build list when I reached cavalry (6-3-2), especially since they were my best defensive unit - I had no saltpetre and couldn't build musketeers.

Improve city governer's choice of unit production - if the city can build Infantry (6-10-1) in one turn, the governer should never recommend longbowmen (4-1-1).

Musketmen are too expensive - I find pure Knights to be superior to a mixed Knight/Musket force. While fractionally weaker defensively, enemy fast units cannot retreat from a combat involving a Knight and the cost difference is minimal.

In general, fast units dominate a little too much - the ability to retreat from combat is huge. I suggest modifying this ability so that fast units only retreat if the battle is occuring in open terrain (plains, desert, grassland without city or fortification). This would encourage combined arms a little more. Also, should a fast unit retreat from battle, the opposing unit should be able to gain experience.

Not all speed 2 units should be able to retreat (Knights, Elephants, Samurai, Jaguar Warriors, Impi come to mind). Give elephants an extra attack factor or discounted cost - India's special unit is no better than the Knight it replaces at the moment. These units would still prevent an enemy fast unit from retreating, just not be able to do so themselves.

Add "Steel" as a prerequisite for "Replaceable Parts". In my games, I very rarely build a rifleman because it takes so little time for Infantry to be available - only a couple of technologies later. This assumes I have rubber.

Add "Resouces never run out" as an option when creating games. It's very irritating to lose the game because your only oil disappears.

Add the small wonder "Synthetic Materials" to the game. Building this wonder allows construction of Oil and Rubber dependent units even if your civilisation does not have them. This could also be a city improvement, allowing only it's city to build these units.

Upon capturing a city, do not change control of it's territory until the end of the player turn. This would reduce the potential for rapid advance through an enemy railroad network somewhat - I've taken an enemy capital, starting from twenty squares away, in a single turn by capturing the cities in sequence, each allowing rail movement up to the next.

Alternatively, change the way railroads work slightly. Instead of allowing unlimited free movement, charge the usual 0.33 movement points per square, but allow units with 0 or fewer remaining movement points to move on them. A unit could still go from one end of a large continent to the other in one turn, but could not then attack.

Give "Radio" a game effect, such as reducing the effective distance from the capital for corruption purposes. (Possibly only if the city has an airport as well).

Allow only one airlift to an airport each turn (so that the two dozen airports on one continent don't allow rapid reinforcement of a bridgehead on another). Just flag the receiving airport as used for the turn as well as the sending one.

Restrict airlifts to infantry class units - tanks and mech inf should always go by ship.

Bombardment attacks should be capable of destroying naval units.

Bombarding a square with enemy bombardment units should provoke return fire. (Bombarding a city with a dozen radar artillery in it should be rather dangerous for an ironclad.)

Consume the worker unit when a Fortification is built (this should have a cost other than time, these were major projects).

Allow workers to construct Airbases, consuming the worker.

Reduce the 'distance factor' for corruption for Expansionist Civs so that they can actually use cities on the other side of the world.

Round the number of population used to Hurry a project up, not down - so each population does only provide 20 shields, rather than 39 as at present.

Don't allow changing a project after it has been Hurried.

If production of a unit is Hurried, it should be of conscript experience level. Possibly even "Slave" with one hit point if hurried by a despotism.

Allow Barracks to benefit (+1 experience level) units drafted by Militaristic cultures.

Reduce the cost to Hurry a unit to 2$ per shield for Rep/Mon/Democracy (same as upgrade cost, to avoid the tactic of pillaging/replacing your own resource to allow faster production of units).

[Grrr]

Armies: There should be a small (1:25 or so) chance of an army's leader being killed during combat, which will lead to a logistical fall-apart of the army, in which the most powerful unit fights until death, then the next most powerful unit, and so on, until either all units in the former army are destroyed, or the unit which was attacked is destroyed.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

***** And make it possible to irrigate hills! All over the world people engage in very effective agriculture on hilly terrains.
We've all seen pictures of terrases on which crops are grown.

[star mouse]

Originally posted by Crazy_Ivan80
***** And make it possible to irrigate hills!

Good point ... I would limit the bonus food to +1 regardless of terrain improvements and government. But it's worth it if it allows a more productive tile on the other side to be irrigated.

[exsanguination]

Originally posted by Disgracian
General Gameplay


Waypoints are also a nice idea/ Program patrol waypoints for units. Especially useful for enabling your navy to patrol coastlines.

YES!!!! YES!!!! This is a MUST!!!!!! This would make securing borders easier and toting your 'stick' easier!!! No more manually patrolling units!!!!

[hoonak]

1-1-1****) Being able to see the resources you can trade for (NOT ‘with’)...However, the ability to see what resources the other Civ has available should only become available once you have an embassy established with them...The bonus for this is that you don’t have to enter diplomatic negotiations with other Civs to see if they have a certain resource or not.

This is great and I want to take it one step further. I would like all intelligence I have about anothe culture displayed on one screen BEFORE I talk to them. This is an example of what I want.

Intelligence data on the Japanese:

• Government: Monarchy
• Cites: 22
• Strongest Offensive Unit: Longbowman
• Strongest Defensive Unit: Spearman
• Military Strength: Slightly less powerful than we are
• Overall Happiness: Very happy
• Economy: Weak
• Science: Somewhat backward
• Culture: They are impressed with us

• Stategic Resources:available to trade
• horses
• coal

• Stategic Resources: unavailable to trade
• (none)

• Stategic Resources: looking for
• iron

• Luxuries: available to trade
• silk
• wine

• Luxuries: unavailable to trade
• incense

• Luxuries: looking for
• (none)

This would allow me to refresh my memory quickly and easily before I begin negotiating with another culture, before I declare war on another culture or when I resume a saved game.

[Willem]

Originally posted by star mouse


Good point ... I would limit the bonus food to +1 regardless of terrain improvements and government. But it's worth it if it allows a more productive tile on the other side to be irrigated.

Well you can set this in the editor if you really insist. That's one of the beauties of this game, you can customize it any way you want. Within certain limits of course.

[Lancer]

I'd like to see more mid-ocean islands in continental maps. Hawaii/Azores make useful bases for projecting power.

[Willem]

I'm building new cities all over the place trying to keep up with the AI's rapid expansion. And quite often I'm repeatedly trying to count squares in order to find the spot I've decided on for my next location, in order to tell my units where to go next. It would be nice if I could put some sort of marker or flag down when I first make my decision, so I could easily see where to send my units afterwards. This would probably be useful in battle as well, since I could have a clearly visible rallying point.

[mattbolas]

I believe that the most important thing to fix is the use of "Strategic resources"
to restrict when units can be made. While the concept is interesting it is not implemented in a manner that the game can function and flow like real life may occur.

Comprise:
Maybe Fireaxis can restrict the max number of units produced, rather prohibiting building any units. Fireaxis could add a option to the standard game that the user could simply could turn on or turn off the restrictive Strategic resources rule or select an alternate rule.

I have used the editor to turn off the restriction on a unit-by-unit basis in a custom scenerio, and the game appears to function fine. In my custom scenario I have no restriction on building units related to Strategic resources. The Strategic resources are traded and sought after as trade items.

However the process is time consuming for each custom game and I would really like Fireaxis to consider adding the option in the standard gameplay setup area as well as coming up with a comprise like I have sugguested.

[Vercingettyrex]

.) ***** Sort out trade advisor screen so its more useful. ie Matrix display. Nations down one axis. Goods along the other. What they demand. What they Have and I want. What I trade (and time to go before expiry). What I buy and length before expiry.

2.) ***** When I finish moving a unit I'd like the next available unit to be selected to be close at hand. NOT ON ANOTHER CONTINENT. For instance at present I find that after I move a unit. The AI selects the next unit but this in some instances is totally random and maybe in a completely different location. I tend to focus on a local area before moving onto another area of the globe. I don't expect the AI to read my mind, but proximity of next unit selection by AI would be helpful. Keeping the selection to units in a stack would be helpful.


These are my two bugbears at the moment hence the *****.

3.) * Why can't the spy options or special options just be buttons that are available through advisor screens rather than 3 key functions?

4.) ?? Espionage. I think this is a design thing, but as yet I haven't worked out a viable strategy for this which makes me wonder whether half the options are worth using.

[zorbop]

***** a better way to incorperate corruption. maybe it could be calculated by the distance it is from capital by calculating movement points. so building roads lowers coruption

manhattan project should be a minor wonder

THE MANUAL SHOULD BE EDITED!!!

there should be a new form of settler(like engineers in civ2) one that would start a city with certain improvements.

more bonusses should come to expansionist civs, like faster sea movement or settlers at the cost of 1 pop

and finally GUYS WITH STONE AXES AND POINTY STICKS SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BEAT TANKS!!!OR EVEN HURT THEM
expanding on that, certain units shouldn't function at all verses others, and should either be captured or simply die.
E-theres no way a warrior could hurt a tank, so there shouldn't be combat between the 2, the tank should win auto.
E2-a gally isn't equiped to fight a sub, so the sub shouldn't be hurt by it and should win 100% of the time.