If you could add one new improvement to Civ3...

FrostyBoy · October 12, 2003, 21:28

What would it be and why?

I am not talking just about city improvements, I am talking about any aspect of the game.

Just one!

Elias · October 12, 2003, 21:51

I would make it so some units would much better vs. other certin units (similar to rise of nations) Example cavlary would get a bounus when fighting any non mounted non ranged unit.
in games i have seen cavalary loose in battles to spearmen when they could just ride in circles aroun the spearmen and shoot them all

marcuspeddle · October 12, 2003, 22:13

Elias' idea is a good one and I would add unit trading. I'd like to supply arms to my allies in PBEM but it's impossible.

Elias · October 12, 2003, 22:36

Yeah there is a thread on it somewhere named somthing they should really add in diplomacy. there is a lot of controversy on the subject.(pleas excues my teribble spelling)I would love that being able to give tons of military units to little underpowerd civs when they were at war with massive superpowers.Similar to the afganastan incident.

G'Kar · October 12, 2003, 23:29

Yeah, unit trading/gifting would be a biggie for me.

The_Aussie_Lurker · October 12, 2003, 23:39

Hi Guys,

Just so you know, I don't want you to think that the title of my post suggests that I don't like Civ3! I really, REALLY do

!!! I do have a list of things which I think would improve the game, without adding too much complexity to it!
If I HAD to pick a single one, though, I'd have to say Variable Unit Mainainance costs (i.e. Battleship costs more than a tank, which costs more than a swordsman-etc, etc!) As I think it will make people think a lot more about the long term cost of supporting a large and technologically advanced military!
This improvement, however, would have to come with the concept of unit 'trading', as it would give smaller, less wealthy nations a chance to have high-tech military equipment, courtesy of their wealthy and powerful allies, without the huge costs ('traded' units should have a fixed 1gp/turn cost)

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

FrostyBoy · October 12, 2003, 23:49

Yeah, these are good ideas!

peterfharris · October 13, 2003, 00:10

I like these ideas, unit trading and variable maintenance costs for different units. I would also like double irrigation (Civ2 style farmland) because I like BIG cities.

alva · October 13, 2003, 02:18

Dynamic tiles.

IE tiles going from grassland to mountains and back ( think Iceages and such.)
My guess is this would improve on the notion of 'rise and fall' of empires.

Tiberius · October 13, 2003, 04:40

Uhh, only one?!

I'd rather post my No. 5 list

(some of them were mentioned already anyway, so I just post them to show my support, while some are just small, but important improvements)

1. News reports
1a. Extended News Reports for PBEM games, including a summary of what has happened in the last turn with my own units/cities (or better a Replay capability, but at least a log file)

2. Civil wars !

3. Unit trading (or at least gifting)

4. a useful UN (more diplomacy options)

5. Tourism (more than just obsolate wonders becoming tourist attractions; make tourism an important gold source in the modern era, as it is in reality!)

tourism ideas

Nothing groundbreaking as you can see

FrustratedPoet · October 13, 2003, 05:01

For PBEM:
I'd like to see a text-only log file created in the same directory as the savegame that list all the combat results for any given turn. An in-game way of viewing this would be better, but I'd settle for the .txt file thanks.

For single-player:
Civil Wars would be extremely cool.

Harovan · October 13, 2003, 05:56

Unit trading/gifting

True alliances

(let allies enter each other's cities and remove the possibilities to declare war at each other during the alliance)

Limit the possible number of units per tile

Limited railroad movement

Zone of control.

I mean the true one. I know, the AI is poor at handling it, but... Who needs the AI for chrissake? Disable it in singleplayer, but make it an option for multiplayer games

Fleets

Naval armies. May be naval leaders (a small, fast vessel, which can travel to the next port)

Limited carrier based aircraft

I'd like to see a B52 landing on the USS Nimitz.

A useful UN

Wait... that wouldn't be realistic, would it?

... etc ...

Wait!

He said only one...

vulture · October 13, 2003, 06:44

I'd have unit trading in there as my first choice, as long as it could be done without leaving the AI vulnerable to exploits (and as long as the AI can handle it compotently, rather than being something the humans can make use of but the AI not).

My second choice would be something like Elias's suggestion - units having advantages and disadvantages vs other units. Even something relatively simple like the panzer general system works pretty well, and could be expandable in an editor - create a new unit 'class', and give other units an attack value vs. that class of unit; you could for example make helicopters a new class of unit, and give all existing units a new attack value vs helicopters (some of them would be useless vs helicopters, some would be very powerful).

Asmodeus · October 13, 2003, 06:47

It would be cool if a city that produces masses of food but cant expand any more (eg population 12 but Sanitation not yet invented) could distribute the spare food to other cities via the normal road network. Especially useful for those long term investment cities in the jungle or tundra. The same could apply for very productive cities that cant build any more improvements as an alternative to building Wealth.

alva · October 13, 2003, 06:52

Quote:

I mean the true one. I know, the AI is poor at handling it, but... Who needs the AI for chrissake? Disable it in singleplayer, but make it an option for multiplayer games

This in itself would be a great improvement and should be fairly easely to implement and could be for many other features.

Quote:

A useful UN
Wait... that wouldn't be realistic, would it?

-
What do you people mean by civil war btw? Is it that a civ splits in two seperate civs? Wouldn't that just weaken the AI by quite a lot???

FrustratedPoet · October 13, 2003, 06:57

Did you ever play Civ2, alva?

In that game if a Civ's capital was captured there was a chance that the Civ might enter a civil war. The Civil War would basically split the Civ in two, with half of the cities being given to the rebels (which would basically create a whole new Civ in the game). It's been so long since I played that I've forgotten exactly how it worked.... maybe unhappiness and anarchy was involved too.... but it was very cool.

alva · October 13, 2003, 08:01

Quote:

Did you ever play Civ2, alva?

Quite a lot actually..., thank you very much...

Quote:

The Civil War would basically split the Civ in two,

That's what I said right?

Quote:

It's been so long since I played that I've forgotten exactly how it worked

Can't even remember how long ago I played my last Cv2 game

-
But my last question still stands, wouldn't that make things a little too easy (and exploitable)?
I rather fight two small civs then one large one.

Stuie · October 13, 2003, 08:10

Variable unit maintenance...

I'd also like to see diplomacy enhanced... a lot. Not just unit trading, but different types of alliances (including multi-Civ alliances), options to tell of Civ to stop its war against my allies, etc. etc. This could go hand-in-hand with making the UN meaningful in the game.

latka · October 13, 2003, 08:51

I have two and half,

Foreign works create 1/3 unhappiness and 1/3 corruption in the city region that they occupy. Come on, they are taking local jobs and they create a greater security burden to the local community to track down runaways. This was the primary reason Illinois opposed slavery, and was Abraham Lincolns platform for the senate.

Religion improvements, come on, this was and is a significant part of governmental politics, but does not seem to have much of a role in Civilization.

Theocracy government type

a) Any civ that is a theocracy has an affect on all other civs with respect to distance to the capital of that civ. Communist nations are the exception
1. Cites must pay tithes to the church with respect to size and distance. Communist nations are the exception.
2. City flips can occur with respect to relationship and distance.
b) Civs with theocracies have special exploits.
1. Friends can have saints granted to them to improve happiness. Creates better relations with the other civ, Communists excluded.
2. Enemies can have their countries excommunicated, thus causing unhappiness. Does not affect Communist nations.
3. An additional luxary (relics) resource. Only civs with Theocracy can sell or given them to others. Relics create happiness. Communist excluded
4. Can order inquisition.
a. Causes one foriegn citizen in each city to become a native, but will be unhappy for the length of the inquistion, which must last as long as 20 turns, but can last longer. 20 turns must pass in between inquistions.
b. increases gold and production by 10%.
c. beware, may cause boarder cities to flip based upon culture. Cities boardering other Theocratic nations have double the chance of a city flip.

Theocracy comes with a downside. Decreses science by 50% and some technologies can not be acquired from other civs, such as Astronomy and Medicine.

Can not make alliances with other civs that are Theocracies or Communist
.
State of relationship with other Theocratic boarder nations affects happiness of boarder cities.

Theocratic governments that conquer other Theocratic nations cities get double the gold that would normally be captured plus one happiness for 20 turns in each of their cities except the conquired one, but the units of the other nation get a +1 defense modifier against their attack and double the chance for a culture flip if captured.

Facist get a 25% prduction bonus if they boarder a Theocracy. Relation does not matter, so make sure these guys are your friends.

My arguement for all of these things for one government type is so that choice of government plays a bigger part in the game. One may wish to change to Communism if they are having a problem with a neighbor who becomes a Theocracy. Or maybe a Facisst, so as to wipe them off the map. Or maybe a Democracy if they have a good relationship but wish to wage war against another civ.

By the way, lower the max number of turns that a civ may be intransition between governments. This restriction makes it virtually useless to attempt a government switch except when one learns that government type. Let's shake things up, by changing the dynamics of the game. Maybe even have it be just two turns, but have massive unhappyness after that, which decreases over a period of 8 turns.

jackl · October 13, 2003, 09:21

I think my change would be a big overhaul of the resources/unit support system. Resources should be acumulative per turn (like gold) and expendable on support and unit creation.

For example.... i find an oil supply and build an oil well (new worker action maybe) once in production this supply gives me 3 units of oil per turn for as long as i control the well. After ten turns i would have a stratigic reserve of 30 oil.

so i choose to build a battleship. this costs me 3 oil units and 1 unit per turn for as long as the vessel is outside my borders. With the rest i can chose to sell it to a neighbour...either as a bulk lot or on a unit per turn basis. This would add a whole new dimension to diplomacy too. (imagine being able to stock up on a product and sell it once the price rises...or ask for 6 units of oil in return for 1 of uranium)
It means that those civs which control the resources can profit properly from them and that those poorer civs can still manage to buy even a small amount of the resources it needs and at least build a smaller but more modern core to its military as in the real world.
You would be able to build up supplies for times of crisis (All nations in the developed world do this) and ensure that one mine cannot supply an entire nation with its resource needs.

There could be large deposits producing 20 units per turn or smaller producing 1 or 2 units per turn. Imagine the north sea oil fields in the uk and the kuwait oil fields...the fields in kuwait could supply most of western europe but the north sea oil could not supply England alone.

Finally the resources could disapear and reapear at any point as they do now...only this way if a 20 UPT supply dries up it could reappear as another 20 UPT or maybe two ten UPTs or a ten and 2 fives. That way we would have the unexchaustable supplies required by civ with the added realism of actuall resource consumption and trade.

Thats what i rekon anyway.

FrustratedPoet · October 13, 2003, 09:42

Quote:

Originally posted by alva

Solomwi · October 13, 2003, 14:58

A resource locator. It wouldn't change the way the game is played, but would eliminate having to scour the map every time a new resource is discovered to see who has how many hooked up. You don't need a new map to see them, so it's not like the information's hidden, but it would be much easier to have a table showing how many domestic resources of each type each civ has hooked up or inside their borders.

Solomwi · October 13, 2003, 15:09

If given a second choice, each city would be able to donate or withdraw one food unit from a central food bank. I never did like the massive cities one could create in Civ 2 with food caravans, but do want to get rid of that nuisance city that can never be made to produce an even amount of food without giving up some production or having that one eyesore tile that is roaded but not railed (say, all desert except for 5 flood plain tiles). One food given or gotten by such a city would stabilize it, without really changing the game.

cptben · October 13, 2003, 15:40

I am not millitary type, so I don't have leader (I think i got 4-5 since the games went out)

So with the scientific leader comming up, that will help me, but how about: Religious Leader.

Can be create when a town builds, temple, cathedral and religous based Wonders.

he could boost happiness in the city he is and can help complete wonders.

Could also works with latka's theocracy government

PrinceBimz · October 13, 2003, 16:10

I like unit trading, thats a great idea. Other then this, I really don't know, CIV3 is simply an excellent game

One thats about to get even better with C3C

Arrian · October 13, 2003, 16:12

PBEM: what Frustrated Poet said: some sort of tracking of combat results, so that the defender knows what the hell just happened.

Both SP & MP: a "balanced start" option (offered at startup). Each tile could be assigned a certain starting value. Then, each tile w/o the original (fully expanded) radius of where each settler starts is balanced out to within a certain range (in other words it doesn't have to match exactly, it just needs to be relatively close). I'd say that only ancient age resources would count (iron/horses) in the calculations.

Obviously this still wouldn't provide really even positions, because it's not just the capitol location that matters. The surrounding terrain, where you will build your other cities, is important too. But it might help. I've seen some horribly inbalanced starts in MP, and if that's not your cup 'o tea, this might help.

-Arrian

Tiberius · October 13, 2003, 16:18

How about Great Artists, kind of "cultural great leaders" . Each time when a city expands its cultural border, there would be a chance that a great artist emerges. Another option could be to have top 5 cities generate Great Artists, on a random basis.

We could use them to boost the cultural output of a city for a number of turns or to build a great wonder.

Rhothaerill · October 13, 2003, 16:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
I've seen some horribly inbalanced starts in MP, and if that's not your cup 'o tea, this might help.

cough...Vox Controli...cough

Regarding a lot of the rest of this thread most of those ideas are definitely good ones. My main ones would be unit trading and PBEM combat tracking. But I REALLY like jackl's idea for variable and cumulative resource consumption!!!

Arrian · October 13, 2003, 16:45

Vox's start spot wasn't really all that bad. It wasn't good, to be sure, but neither was GS's. Forced to choose between the two, I would have went with ours, yeah, but it's not a huge imbalance. There were other factors involved too (coughfreesettlerfromonlyhutpoppedcough).

Fact is, compared to many of the other civs, we didn't have very good starts. Having said that, I wasn't even thinking of PTWDemoI when I made my suggestion.

I was thinking of PBEM games I tried starting with a couple of friends, and we'd have to restart over and over and over before all three of us had decent starting positions in the same game.

-Arrian

Rhothaerill · October 13, 2003, 16:58

No it wasn't that bad of a start in terms of tiles, just the fact that we had no room to expand without...ahh..bumping into GS. I didn't join Vox until after the war, but I've read some of the back threads.

Now back to the thread, I was just reviewing the posts again, and I also really like the idea of an increased UN for more diplomacy. Right now, most people only build the UN to keep the vote away from the AI. If it had other diplomacy options (injunctions, the ability to put non-denominational units into the field to try to stop other wars, etc.) now that would be very interesting.