Ideas for v1.18f?

[Ironikinit]

This is a pretty obvious idea, so sorry if it has been said or is already in (tell me if it is!).

Anyway, it would be great if I could order a stack to wait. I mainly use stack command for bombard units. Sometimes I want them to wait and cycle through the units to have, say, a couple tanks or infantry move first. I have to press W however many times, cycle through the units, maybe have them wait again, etc.

I know people have suggested a Wake All units command. A good spot for that would be on the military advisor screen.

[Spiffor]

I'd like to see the popups between turns being summed up in one, big popup just before your turn starts : your diplomatic advisor would tell you which war started, which peace treaty was signed, who had discovered / traded what knowledge in one screen. (about being warned when foreign civs discover new techs, I miss this feature of civ2 dearly, and this could be implemented in civ3 : you know indirectly what the other possess if you go discuss with them, so there is no problem of imbalancing the game : permanently checking by your opponents if they dscovered a critical tech just makes the game more tedious).
All of this info would come from your embassy or spies, so you don't heve this info with enemies before spying. For major info, such as a declaration of war concerning yourself, the diplomatic advisor still should popup.
Having a sum-up screen would avoid having to click 16-popups-a-turn away, and would permit to recieve more info (for example, your cultural advisor could inform you when someone starts a wonder without being tedious)

[star mouse]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I'd like to see the popups between turns being summed up in one, big popup just before your turn starts

An idea I had would be for a "newspaper" to pop up with all the news. The things that pop up on the map can go in here, along with WLT?D, civil disorder, changes in foreign relations and so forth. The newspaper would have links, so if a city has pollution there's a link to click to go to that city.

[francoImpaler]

Originally posted by jimmytrick I could go on and on like this but I know no one will have read past number 4 anyway..

I read them all and I like them all but it sounds more like a SMAC expansion than CIVIII.

One thing I would like is the ability to steal strategic resources. Particularly those that the AI has not discovered. Lots of ways they could implement that function.

[planetfall]

Am I the only one who gets bored by the time we get to the modern age? All that is left is destroy, destroy, destroy. There is nothing to build except Alpha Centari. What if I don't want Alpha Centari and want to fix this planet before spread to another system?

How about some alternative wonders:

• Sputnik satellite. Gain culture. Small Wonder.
  
• Apollo earth orbit. Gain culture. Small Wonder.
  
• First Moon Landing Double gain: culture and drop other civs culture value by at least 1/3rd.
  
• Ocean Habitat gain culture. Small Wonder
  
• Nobel Prize Foundation gain culture. Great Wonder.
  
• Mars Expedition great wonder. gain culture and tech advances -1 turn.
  
• Media Monopoly great wonder, gain culture, other civs lose 1 hit point per military unit
  
• Religious AntiMedia Leader, Martin Luther King small wonder, lasts 80 years each time, needs to be repurchased after 100 years. Reverses Media Monopoly vs civ that has media monopoly during 80 year life span.
  
• Spiritual leader works like Great Leader, and is generated after created all small wonders and catheral in each city. Gain is much culture and during selected war, reduces AI HP by 2 each unit for war duration, but cannot reduce AI civ below 10 cities. This is a defensive value not offensive bonus.
  
• xyz what other small and great wonders need to be added if not going for spacerace victory. Can you think of any that make sense in reducing other civ's culture?
  

GAME BUILD QUEUE
Just like the city queue, a default queue where I can set the default built order for new cities: warrior, temple, worker, library, granary, etc.

[planetfall]

How about subscreens

Air Units only
Naval Units only
Land Units only

How about find/goto/click cycle thru
Obsolete units eligible for upgrade or disbanding?

[hetairoi22]

Originally posted by planetfall
... Can you think of any that make sense in reducing other civ's culture?

Hmm. here's am idea:
Mass Media / International Propaganda Program Small Wonder, Decreases the culture generated by enemy cities by 25%. Max down to 4 per turn. Maybe only cities with Television Stations (Imp).

Sending your own propaganda and culture via TV and Radio increases the "presence" of you culture in that nation. Maybe only works if you have a "stronger" culture than them.

What do you think? Is it lame?

Originally posted by planetfall
GAME BUILD QUEUE
Just like the city queue, a default queue where I can set the default built order for new cities: warrior, temple, worker, library, granary, etc.

Great idea!

[kilane royalist]

The most pressing requirement for the next patch is to fix the game balance of levels.

In earlier Civ games, everything was about cities. Sure control of space had its uses, but in the end, cities meant everything. So it was possible to balance the game by making cities harder to build and grow. The greater difficulties were not so unbalancing as to make it worthless to build big cities, but they were enough to make people seek ICS and OCS.

However, the designers of CivIII have failed to realize that the "piece oriented" chess type logic of the earlier games does not apply to this new game. Instead, like Go, cities are more place holders for space. They are important, but the problems with them mean that sacrificing a city for other gains is a realistic trade off in CivIII. In previous games, one would very, very rarely trade a city for anything.

Thus the current approach of putting the screws into city building does not work as a game balancer - it merely makes an early win ICS strategy more and more attractive. I found it not that much harder to win with Aztecs at the top levels than the bottom levels.

The two pillars of this change are culture controlling territory, and the resource race. It should be these two elements where game balance is achieved through. For example - at higher levels, cluster the resources closer and closer to the AI, so that no amount of REX/Rush will allow you resource dominance. At higher levels, tilt the culture wars more heavily against the player, as production already is.

In otherwords, instead of flogging city building for game balance, the designers should start to realize that they have created a new animal here, and search for other advantages. Other features would be nice, but this is crucial.

For interface I want one thing: a situation board. Rather than the domestic nag which interupts processing, I want to be able to have one screen with a list of cities and their problem. I want to be able to hit a button, go to the city and fix the problem, or another button to clear it from the board. I want to be able to set which problems the situation board has, for example, not just building problems or happiness and food problems, but most of all, cities where an enemy unit has been sited.

[Fremantle]

Originally posted by star mouse
Anything to make every square in my empire productive. I hate those occasional squares that I can't work because they're not in a city radius.

This is where the concept of colonies could be used more extensively, locating a colony on that prime bit of grassland next to a river, then trading that food/production/trade to a connected city in your empire.

The effects of such a mod would be

a) allow megapolises - cities can grow beyond the limits permitted by the resources available in the city radius. Such cities could have more specialists without losing food/production/trade, pumping out science/culture/tax

b) allow desert/artic/coastal cities to grow or be more productive - this is along the lines of the civII trade food option, except you wouldn't be reducing a cities production etc., but utilising an otherwise wasted tile

Perhaps coastal colonies would automatically have harbours, so you take advantage of that coal resource on a one-tile mountain island (c'mon Firaxis, that is one the most infuriating quirks of the game).

Colonies could be built outside of your borders, the same as they can be now, but an addition of a fort and a military garrison would convert them to cities after a number of turns. In this way 3 workers could give you 2 cities, 3 workers being cheaper than 2 settlers, and reflecting the way real cities sprung up. This would allow alternative growth strategies, and add more depth to the game.

Colonies would be stuck at size 1 cities, producing culture and trade, but not able to produce units or city improvement.

Not sure whether this can be done with a patch though.

[star mouse]

Originally posted by star mouse
Anything to make every square in my empire productive. I hate those occasional squares that I can't work because they're not in a city radius.

One thing I would love to see in CIV3 would be CTP's Radar tile improvement, which lifted the Fog of War for a radius of several tiles. Many of the unusable tiles are on the coast, and that's the perfect place for the Radar.

[planetfall]

1. Change Manhattan Project from Great Wonder to Small Wonder so only those who build or steal technology have nuke capability. This seems better than the All or None current method. {even with 1.17}

2. Allow megacities, at X size which is possible in modern age, city boundaries will grow from 2 tiles out to 3 tiles out. Can you imagine a city extending 4 tiles out? Megacities would offer a new challenge in trying to keep a ton of people happy.

[TheRascalKing]

Originally posted by planetfall
1. Change Manhattan Project from Great Wonder to Small Wonder so only those who build or steal technology have nuke capability. This seems better than the All or None current method. {even with 1.17}

2. Allow megacities, at X size which is possible in modern age, city boundaries will grow from 2 tiles out to 3 tiles out. Can you imagine a city extending 4 tiles out? Megacities would offer a new challenge in trying to keep a ton of people happy.

And the city icon itself could be bigger, too. That would be really cool. =D

I always thought it would totally rock if, on every square you used, a few little buildings would show up. Wishful thinking I suppose.

[Willem]

Originally posted by TheRascalKing

I always thought it would totally rock if, on every square you used, a few little buildings would show up. Wishful thinking I suppose.

No it's not. There's some irrigation graphics by Zeb_Fisher in the files area that have some barns, stables and some small buildings. A big improvement over the default graphics.

[Master Marcus]

This is a long thread, so maybe some of my thoughts were already dicussed a thousand times, but I think the more often is a good way to see them fixed in the next patch.

--upgrading slightly the research point cost of most techs from mid-Middle Ages to late Industrial; and though I agree to let the "aggressive" AI trading like in 1.17, I want a coding fix because seeing all the AIs having the same 3-5 techs ahead of you within a single turn at Monarch+ is a bit irritating - especially those involving Great Wonders, spaceship parts, ...In my mind the ideal setting for Regent/Monarch is that nobody should be able to reach Industrial before 1500 AD, and Modern not before 1850 AD - whatever the map size & number of civs.

--it should be easier to plant a spy against a strong civ ( both for the player and the AI ) when having embassies established, and reduced cost to perform minor missions.

--stack bombardment for artillery.

--they should rework the Hall of Fame more like SMAC: with infos such as final world map, ending year, and even the game version ( 1.xxf ) on which the game was completed. Also the high scores should be priorized upon map size and diff level.

--I want to see the era transition picture also when getting it by negociating the last required tech ( actually skipped unless you get the tech by yourself ).

--to the contrary of SMAC patches, Firaxis didn't make so far noticeable graphic enhancements in 1.16 & 1.17. So it's time for minor graphical improvements for things such as mines, railroads ( not the civ2-style because I actually like the curves, but more over the coloring ), ICBM explosion & meltdown, smoother blue tones on coast-sea-ocean transits , vivid greenish tones over grasslands & etc..., and why not a higher modern skyscraper in a metropolis square w animated mirror window&antenna.

[Martock]

i do wish they'd create a more impressive ICBM / Tactical Nuke explosion and sound. in Civ 2 i could at least alter the sound clip so it was a REAL nuclear explosion. to me it really should be something that is impressive and have a rather nasty affect on the environment. something that makes me say, DAMN what the hell was that? or OUCH that left a mark.

it'd be nice though to have them update the graphics and add some more units to flesh out the game. i'd love to see some zeppelins in the game as well...

i know that will have to wait until either an expansion pack or Civ 4 comes into play.

for now i'd be happier with a more powerful editor and an AI that actually respects the borders of it's neighbors. it gets a bit tedious telling them EVERY turn to get off my land.

[Willem]

In the editor there's an area that lets me choose the number of Happy/Unhappy citizens an improvement will create. I'd like to see that expanded so that I could choose the number of content citizens as well.

[Rust]

Double research time in the ancient and middle ages than speed it up in the modern era. It seems like the window for using ancient and middle age units is very small.

Mabye you could restrict trading somehow, like so many techs traded per 20 turns or limit the civs you can trade with to the two nearest until youv'e researched electricity. I think this would be better than having the ai civs agressively trading the way they do now.

[TheRascalKing]

Originally posted by Willem
In the editor there's an area that lets me choose the number of Happy/Unhappy citizens an improvement will create. I'd like to see that expanded so that I could choose the number of content citizens as well.

Can't you? I know you can modify the number of citizens born content...I guess the theory is that if it can make an unhappy person content, it can make a content person happy.


And on the nuclear explosion sound thing, I think you should be able to hear the nuke sound even if you don't have map vision in the area it goes off. Not so much because you're hearing a nuke acroess the globe but because you'd definitely have reports about a huge explosion in an unconfirmed area.

[godinex]

Keep colonies ever! they are part of our territory!

[IthacaMike]

(1) Put minimum city sizes on unit construction and upgrades. For example you can build a Spearman can in size-1 city but you might need a size-6 city to build a Rifleman or upgrade a unit to a Rifleman. 10 size-1 cities are not as useful as 1 size-10 city.

(2) A tribe cannot trade away a tech for some number of turns after it acquires that tech through trade. Or perhaps after that tribe acquires by any means. Three turns? Five turns? Slow down the AI tech swap.

[eclarkso]

I posted a similar idea on the Feb. 15th Chat thread, here is the same with a few edits:

Proposal: Just as ships have a certain chance of sinking when they end their turn on different types of water, units loaded on a ship should have a chance of perishing, independent of their 'mother ship' or other units on board. The probability of perishing could/should depend on the type of ship, the length of time that unit has been on the ship, the location of the ship (coast/sea/ocean), and perhaps tech advances (e.g., Astronomy/Navigation or perhaps even Sanitation or something).

Justification: I believe this proposal, if feasible, would create a number of positive effects:

1) Slows down colonization, WITHOUT affecting the rate of sea exploration.
-a) Lengthens the expansion phase of the game - it's harder to get settlers to empty land, but just as easy to find that land.
-b) Makes the 'Explorer' unit more useful.

2) Barbarians are more of a factor later into the game.
-a) Barbarians' access to additional units (added in 1.17) becomes more significant, since barbarian camps will last longer on more isolated land masses.

3) Realism/historical accuracy
-a) Long trips across oceans did NOT do the body good.
-b) Expected slower rate of expansion is better.

===========

There are a number of side-effects which could affect gameplay:

- Slower expansion means fewer cities, perhaps leading to a slower rate of tech advance? I'm not sure how significant this would be given the extreme rate of AI tech exchange.

- Would this hamstring the AI, given that a good part of its advantage is its ability to expand so fast? Even though this rule would apply to human and machine player, does it play to the AI's strengths (expansion rate/production bonuses) or the human player's (city selection sites, warmongering?)?

Random other thoughts:

- There is some precedence for this behavior already in the game--I believe Scout units can randomly die if they wade around in the jungle.

- I don't think this will be -too- unsettling for the player, as this is mainly an ancient/medieval era thing. For example, a galley on a sea square without any tech advance would have a relatively high chance of losing its units (independent of its chance of sinking), while a galleon on a coastal square would have a much lower chance of losing units, and a transport on any square would have a near-nil chance of loss.

- If a ship loses one or more units, it should wake from any Goto orders.

Please discuss.

[philler]

50% penalty when switching production from a wonder to something else.

the thread on this particular subject is here .

At first I was thinking of a 100% penalty, but come to think of it 50% would be a good compromise.

[Willem]

I want a stack bombard command, maybe Shift-B, so that I can issue 1 order and all the bombard units will all fire together. Because of their inaccuracy, you need a lot of them to do any significant damage, and it can be a real pain giving orders one at a time.

[Rust]

A computer AI that uses bombard effectively

[Willem]

I finally had a chance to try out the new Shift-Ctrl-I command, and although I really like how it works, I would really, really like it if they would go to sleep in the nearest town as well, the same way Shift-A works, instead of waiting for new orders. It would be so much better if I could just assign a Worker or two in a particular city, rather than having these Shift-A workers running up and down my empire trying to take care of pollution etc.

[BillChin]

I haven't read through all the posts on this thread. Many of posts I have read do include some excellent ideas.

I believe that the folks at Firaxis need to shift the focus back on the fun factor. Patch 1.17f gets a C- from me in the fun department. I understand that there is not that much time or resources for tweaking the game this late in the development cycle. However, ideas that make the game more fun should be given priority over the long list of rants by vocal complainers. My opinion is that the ranters will never be happy, so quit trying to please them and focus on the big picture. Civ III is a game. Games are supposed to be fun.

For every suggestion, I hope the folks at Firaxis ask the following questions: Does this make the game more fun or more frustrating? Does it give the player more options, or funnel the player into a narrower choice of strategies? If it gives the player more options, does it make the game too easy (and less fun)?

[Spiffor]

About the idea of a "newspaper" or "summing-up popup", I thought about how it could look like in the game. This screen could be called during the turn with a specific icon in the upper left of the screen. I imagined we can have a flag next to the events to show if you already dealt with them or not.
Since there will be plenty of info in the late game, I also thought we could have tabs (domestic / military etc.), where the advisors tell you news in their specific field, instead of having all the info following in one screen.
But such a newspaper would need some new art (I can't draw, that's why it looks horrible), and I doubt they will do this for a patch.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Spiffor

But such a newspaper would need some new art (I can't draw, that's why it looks horrible), and I doubt they will do this for a patch.

You never know, this and the aggressive AI trading seem to be the topics generating the most discussion these days. At least it seems that quite a number of people would like to see this sort of feature in the game. And they did listen to us in the last patch, so they might just listen again.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=43814

How appopriate changes could be made to slow down the 'space race' during the ancient/medieval eras, hasn't been discussed yet, but if you agree with the criticizm on the Formula One tech advances, please, please, please, put a vote.

Firaxis is concerned about the feelings of a civ-adepted/adapted majority.

AJ

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by BillChin
I haven't read through all the posts on this thread. Many of posts I have read do include some excellent ideas.

I believe that the folks at Firaxis need to shift the focus back on the fun factor. Patch 1.17f gets a C- from me in the fun department. I understand that there is not that much time or resources for tweaking the game this late in the development cycle. However, ideas that make the game more fun should be given priority over the long list of rants by vocal complainers. My opinion is that the ranters will never be happy, so quit trying to please them and focus on the big picture. Civ III is a game. Games are supposed to be fun.

For every suggestion, I hope the folks at Firaxis ask the following questions: Does this make the game more fun or more frustrating? Does it give the player more options, or funnel the player into a narrower choice of strategies? If it gives the player more options, does it make the game too easy (and less fun)?

I'm sure they try, Billchin, but you' re right.

In the different threads there already have been enough ideas mentioned for a civ 4 and civ 5 (maybe just a little exagerated). I hope they select every good idea when they read it, re-reading otherwise becomes a hell of a task.

AJ