Wishlist for Civ 5

[Morten87]

Wishlist

Diplimacy

Thought I'd make a wish list of what was missing in Civ 4
Perhaps "2K Games" will use it.

Well initially, I want more focus on war and diplomacy.

More options in relation to diplomacy, which means one can work out secret deals with other nations.

may negotiate a contract that consists of protection while the other party is responsible for and manage the luxury resources. example. United Nation offers protection and get luxury resources of the other nation.

Nations working together to spy on other nations.

Prohibit major nations to attack the small nations.

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WAR

Instead of using "Great Generals" to build armies, perhaps there had been an idea to make it so you can either build the "Great Generals" or you can upgrades units in the field to "Great General". if they have received enough upgrades. I dont like to use Great Generals to build armyes.

I loved the artillery in civ 3. I don't understand why they removed that. There should be better artillery, that can be far from the city to bombard. The artillery should be able to destroy units, and it should be able to destroy land improvements such as mines and roads.

There should be lots of different units more diffrent Marines/Navy Seal. Every nation should be able to build a Navy Seal. Like for English you have the SAS. There should be more "rifle" companys on the battlefield.
Like in Civ 4 when you reach the modern age almost every unit is a tank. you have the mechinfantry and the moderntank, and the artillery. I think oppgrading a infantry unit to Mechinfantry is just funny. How the hell can a man suddenly become a tank? No we need more "human" units. not just metall units.

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RESEARCH

It should take more time to research. I hate when you finaly build a unit.. and 2 turns later it is outdated. there should be an option like if you like to play in the medival time then you can't research anything beyond. There for there should be more units to produse more buildings. Like in Civ 4 when the maceman was researched you could not build more swordmen. Like what empire runs around with only macemen?

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World editor

There should be a better world editor. like the editor in civ 2.

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Trading

there should be able to build a trading caravel. there you can trade with allied towns. Where you can aid an hungry town. have the caravel trasport medical supplies. on the battlefield the trading caravel could be used for faster healing for allied units.

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Ships.

Ships should be able to bombard city defenses, city improvements and land improvements. some ships should be able to carry helicopter and rockets. Therefor there is need to have the best fleet.

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Nukes.

Nukes should really be devastating

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Airfield/ ressurce base.

In civ 3 you could build tactical airfields and ressurce bases. that was fun, becouse they could give you some tactical advanteges. There should also be able to build a military base in an enemy base/ border. where units heal faster. there should be options like "build" a militarybase/base of operation, build a militaryairfield, build a militarybase/airfield, build a ressurce base. these actions could be preformed from "workers" or maybe by a "military engineer"?

Come with Idees and suggestions?

Hopefully developers will see this post, and use some of the idees

[flyinghighagain]

get a better battle system... why is it my units have to have a 95% chance of winning or they will die 95% of the time?

i'd ditch units and just build armies the complextion of the army is what makes it unique ... you can make armies of all swordmen or armies of a few swordmen and a lot or archers becuause you know the french are coming and their army is filled with pikemen.

immigration with good and bad effects. too many immigrants can lower your standard of living.. but they increase production

Tax rate

[flyinghighagain]

I wish we could figure out a more realistic way to do the tech tree.

Agricuture was founded because someone inthe middle east saw grain and was wondering how it could be manipulated to feed the people. It wasn't "discovered" in other regions but was spread to those regions. there would be no reason at all for a civ to learn masonary if there wasn't rocks nearby. maybe you should get a tech boost if you have a good reason to learn something.... like you see a heard of animals out there and they are fast and you think "maybe we should figure out how to ride or eat them".

technology should spread like a religion does
it should be based on the resources at hand
should be easier to steal it
should have more realistic tree
different trees for military culture and food all can be worked on at the same time but you can choose which one(s) to concentrate on

[Brew God]

Hello Die Hards

I have been playing the game since civ 1 when I was in college back in 1993-1995 and became hooked ever since. I believe in Civ 3 you had engineers. Civ 4 went away with that and I wish finally in Civ 5 they would put them back into the game and let them be able to build bridges to nearby islands etc. so you would not have to always have boats to pick up and drop off units or setlers etc. I love playing Islands or continents with many small islands as extras but a real hassle to get settlers etc. there since you need boats. Marines or other units should have the function of building pontoon bridges.

How do you all feel or think about this idea. Would this idea take away aspects of the challenge of the game in any sort making it easy some how?

Also another huge note....in Civ 3 I believe when you went to look at the city internally...etc. You could click on option of looking at the city. When the window opened you could see the Great Wall Of China around your city, Aquaducts, Churches, Pyramids, etc. In Civ 4 they took this feature out as well. Does anyone miss that feature. I DO.

All thoughts and opinions pro and con would be nice.

Cheers.

Brew God

[Audevourahn]

Wishlist:

1- borders that are negotiated, not pushed by culture. borders are established by armies and statesmen, not actors or musicians.

2- The ability for large cities to develop despite a lack of farmland nearby. I don't see huge farms around new york city. they import food from elsewhere in the country. i always wanted to see cities able to send out workers and bring in food from farms farther afield than the "fat cross".

3- the duration of hostilities and the length of missions for expeditionary forces determined by realistic supply lines. nothing i hate worse than seeing a mess of tanks that have swept across asia, crossing numerous other lands far far from china showing up on my borders in europe with no penalty for having come halfway around the world. shouldn't they have run out of diesel??

4- more options for what to improve on the terrain. even with the changes in civ 4, it was often still best to just have farms and mines. i want more options. i want options, like being able to build expressway highways vs rail, and the pros and cons of each changing the course of the game. canals that allow passage of ships.

5- fully customizable government setups with sliders displaying the various spectra of national social choice. sliders for democracy vs totalitarianism, state control of economy vs free market, high taxes vs low taxes, public health care vs private health care, religious vs secular, tolerant vs xenophobic. These choices should effect how the country runs, how other countries react, stability, etc. fully customizable, so we don't just run the same old formula every time we play.

6- research paths that never come out the same each time. say chose research between 6 areas- engineering, cultural, pure science, military science, economic science, religious studies. and instead of just one area, make it so you can use sliders and set priorities, and then the game just spits out some new building, civic, unit, religion as times passes, without developing specific techs. again, make it so we don't just follow the same bee line formula each time we play.

7- more varied military units. ability to customize units if we want, or just use built in ones.

8- set up rules so that a trireme can NEVER NEVER NEVER defeat a battleship. EVER!!!! holy crap, since i first started playing civ on my super nintendo as a toddler this has made me mad . modern units should never be defeated by ancient ones, unless its like a fluke thing, where some guerilla swordsmen descent from the jungles onto some (unarmoured) light infantry at night. it should be a special and rare thing- maybe even resulting in some great cultural thing like a famous book being written about the event. some units should just have a rule built in that these pairings can NEVER result in the loss of the modern unit. EVER!!!

9- more of an economic result visible for building roads between cities. trade should build up between the cities, and not just an extra gold per tile for the road, but business being done between the locales. special and interesting things should occur because of this, like businesses being formed, and buildings like banks and markets just randomly appearing in the cities

10- more random stuff!!! like when you build a road between rome and antium, you get a message saying its been named after you, or a general, or that a big rock conert was held in celebration, or that since you bypassed town b to connect towns a and c, town b has suffered economically, while a and c are booming.

when a temple is built, give positive results like a spike in population has come from the preaching of the cleric saying that birth control is bad. or have a group splinter off and create a settler, as they are no longer content with the religion forced on them from the new temple, and they're going to go found Massachusetts or something.

less ability to see the numbers behind the game- make it more mysterious and ephemeral, such as in real life- if there is unrest, don't give a bunch of + and - showing happy vs malcontent, but give it just some name, like a dissatisfaction with healthcare, and fix it by bumping up healthcare spending or something. civ 4 was pretty good this way, but didn't do enough. i want more random, more exciting and intriguing results for my decisions, not just math- but a feel, a sweep of culture, time and experience. make things feel new, and make the gameplay based around decisions, not based around crunching numbers. i want mystery and excitement and intrigue with every play.

i love civ. please make me love it even more!!!

[Morten87]

Bridges woulde be awsome. I loved that ideea. There should be different levels on a river. mybe small, middel, huge rivers. were you need to have a bridge to cross. all rivers should be avalible to travel by boat. atleast middel and huge rivers.


Paratroopers.

Paratroopers should be able to attack the same turn you airdroped them. I feel you loose alot of the element of suprise when you have to wait a turn.

[Civfreak]

One thing i really loved about civ 3 was the damage done after bombardements to the ground, it reflected in a realistic way a country ravaged by war. But something that ive always wanted to see in Civ is anti-personnel mines, it would be awesome to give the ability to infantry to place some mine in a square and only you and your allies would see it. It could act as a bombardement on the unit and stay there until it is cleaned. And untouched mine fields would have to be cleaned in order to harvest the square. Bombardement damage and minefields would show in a more reallistic way the damage done by war to a country

Another thing that wasnt there in Civ 4 and should definitely be back si the ability to build a fortress or better... to make trench lines. The first world war was all about trench lines and theres nothing in civ so far that represents that. Trenches would really give players the need to research for better tools to make war, such as tanks and airplanes. Also trench lines should be done by the units, not workers. Because in Civ 4 if there's a strategic position to hold that isn't a city the best way to do it is put some units and wait for de 25% bonus to defense.

[Morten87]

Agree, there should be more options on what you want to do. There should be a military engineer who could build trenches/ deploy mines/ build stratigic defences/ Bases/ ect.

And Yes there should defenetly be scares on the lands destroyed by bombardments!

[krc]

Hello Die Hards

... I wish finally in Civ 5 they would put them back into the game and let them be able to build bridges to nearby islands etc. so you would not have to always have boats to pick up and drop off units or setlers etc. I love playing Islands or continents with many small islands as extras but a real hassle to get settlers etc. there since you need boats. Marines or other units should have the function of building pontoon bridges.

...

Cheers.

Brew God

Rafts! Super-cheap. Require fishing (or whatever the first water-related technology turns out to be.) Can carry one settler unit or one scout, nothing else. Super-flimsy. Sink if anything attacks them. May sink anyway if left at sea. Can only be used for one voyage.

Unless, of course, you build the Kon-tiki wonder....

[mcniece_racing]

my personal ideas for improvement of gameplay
1) More advanced deplomacy and "round table" talks with multiple world leaders
2) Separate Air bases/Airports as this would make for a more flexible defence system
3) The ability to build elaborate defensive networks for greater strategy
4) Better animation for fights and battles
5) A more simple yet more complex world builder
6) More civilizations up to 30 plz
7) More random events
8) A Better online play system

[Ainvar]

My wish was always Mix Master of Orion. So going to the nearest star would not be the Last goal.

I use to do Civilaztion 1 then once I finished I would play Masters of orion. They always went great together.

[Empire167]

would love to see a combat screen event thing happen like in master of magic. would be bad arse.

[saksingj]

Why is this thread being doubled?

[slavab]

Some of the ideas mentioned here are great and I'd really like to see them implemented:
- Military bases which could help healing units and extend their range (it could be possible to create them also within enemy territory as a condition of peace treaty)
- Borders which are not affected by culture - this is really lame. Political and cultural borders should be separate things. Cultural influence could spread over to the neighbouring civs giving additional money and prestige for the 'more cultural' civ. Political borders should be more stable, possibly established based on some important landmarks like rivers, mountains, etc.

For me the most important thing is the current approach to the infinite city sprawl problem. I like to create cities, I like to create them on islands, to create such 'frontiers'. Please explain what is the fun in building/capturing cities and them releasing them or raizing? I would like to see less penalties for expanding my civilization.

The second improvement would be to see some actual synergy effects from having multiple cities. Current system of resources is very good, but it is just a beginning. Transport of food or even population between cities (of course this would require some financial incentive to the relocating people who or would cause huge unhapiness) should be possible. Maybe workers could build channels between cities to facilitate transport of goods and increase trade income?
Now cities are more or less individual, specialized entities. Maybe there could be buildings which influence neighbouring cities? University in one city could provide bonus to other cities nearby which didn't reach some arbitrary population threshold.

[Pry87]

Diplomacy needs improving the most I think, you should be able to tell them flat out that in no situation you are giving them the tech they keep asking for, so they ask for different things etc. And conversely you should be able to say do this or we will attack you etc. Plus you should be able to conduct secret negotiations with vassal states to try and encourage an uprising. Essentially more dynamic negotiations, and as previously suggested having diplomatic conferences would be good with multiple leaders.

Religions should be able to shrink as well as grow, also would be nice to see atheism in the game, especially later on, maybe giving a bonus to science instead of gold.

Canals for ships should be possible as well, but only later on and they should be expensive to build and maintain, such as the Suez and Panama Canals.

It would be good to be able to set up a ferry service between to bits of land as well, so you can automatically transport units across short distances of sea, although it should take a turn at least and should be able to be destroyed by an opposition fleet

The economic mechanics need to be changed from BTS the "inflation" rate was just silly, where inflation only rose and didn't shrink at all and the only way to have a large nation was to have state property.

Also could be good to be able to set up different states within your nation, then be able to encourage emigration from one to another.

Also potential for civil war would be good, even if it was as simple as in civ one where if a nation lost it's capital it broke into two, or if you have alot of cities that are unhappy they could start an uprising. So that your nation doesn't blindy follow what you say (especially later on) but you could have control mechanisms for this such as religion or a secret police force.

Anyway I'm sure whatever you put in will be awesome! Haven't been disappointed by a Civ game yet!

[gooboy]

i agree with all the ideas you guys mencioned but it would be cool to be an option that lets build your own civilization with its building mode or the leaders and the units too but when i say this i mean not costumize an existing civ i mean i new one your civ. i think thats whats like a gasme you BUILD a civ about.
and also the jungles and the terrain should be more realistic

[gooboy]

i forgot you should also be able to create new religions

[GreaseMonkey]

Battles halfway between:
Call to Powers stacked battles- All units fight at same time, each unit has specilised role
Galactic Civilization 2 ground invasions- Progressive fighting, pre-battle strategies, loyalty, Manpower vs. Technology advantage

Ability to target a enemy city with a nuke; but which will only fire once the enemy sends its first nuke up, like CtP2

Ability to set Complex patrol routes; very useful for Naval Groups and Border Patrols

Have Scientology and Jedism as a religion ;p

[mmmfloorpie]

Mines would actually be a great idea... Say you are a small nation that borders on a huge nation. You could use your workers to mine the hexagons around the border during peace time.

If the other nation decides to invade, when they go to move their armies over the border, they will take damage from the mines. This could be something that evolves through the time periods as well. It can start out of just growing a thicket of thorney plants then progress to those medival barricades of sharply pointed spears, to razor wire and then finally to mines.

You could also mine your harbours/water ways so the enemy ships have a chance of sinking if they try to get in to bombardment range of your cities or they try to use a vital water way to land troops.

It would also be neat if the process of capturing enemies had to be a little more sustainable/complicated. I'm sure most of us are used to the "slash and burn" method of caping cities, but they should try to make it so your armies do require supply lines and you can't just sit 50 units in a captured city and after 10 turns everything's alright. I'm not saying bring back the city flipping thing from Civ 3 where you lose all your units and the city if there is a revolution... It would be good though if you could build things right away, but, there was a chance the item being produced could be sabotaged or the drinking water could be poisioned, harming your armies, or anything like that. Just make it a little harder to take control of enemy cities/make it harder for your enemies to hold on to your lost cities. I'd be so sick of the AI just steam rolling over me and it seeming like there was never any consequence to the computer.

[sambadger]

I suggested more religious diversity in another thread, as well as more corporate diversity; let us get like 12 religions and corporations. The religions should also do a better job of representing the historical religious situation; Zoroastrianism should be an early religion for instance (certainly earlier than buddhism, which was conceived of in 700 BC not 3000. I never got why they made Buddhism such ean early religion.) Likewise, make it easier to attack and get rid of religions.

Perhaps add an inquisition civic where you can persecute infidels. This would get you money, make people of your religion happy, kill a few citizens, and have a good chance of removing a religion from a city. Naturally, it would make everyone else angry, and any foreign leader of that religion would loathe you. Liberalism, free religion and pacifism would find your government type objectionable. Also, this could lead to other interesting phenomena like migration and civil war.

[sambadger]

First off, obvious civs:

Americans
Arabs
Aztecs
Babylonians
Brits
Chinese
French
Egypt
Ethiopia
Germans
Greeks
Japanese
Incans
Indians
Iranians/Persians
Malians
Mayans
Mongols
Phonecians/Carthage
Romans
Russians/Soviets
Sioux
Spanish
Sumerians
Turks
Zulus
the leaders of these are already established in past civ games

My own wishlist:
Cuba (There are no Latin American powers)-Batista (Financial ?), Fidel Castro (protective ? organized, perhaps expansive?)
Brazil (see above)-dont know what leaders
Thailand/Siam
Burma
Vietnam-ancient leader (spiritual), Ho Chih Mihn. Vietnam is a distinctive culture, I hope it is included, alongside Burma and Siam.
Israel-an ancient civilization, it is funny judaism is included and not Israel. Regardless of what you believe about modern Israel, ancient Israel was a fairly important civilization in the region's development, especially down the road when it influenced Islam and Christianity.
Java-another good SE Asian culture; Indonesian culture isn't represented either in Civ, despite having half as many people as all of Europe!
Rajastan
Nepal
Mughal
Bengal-I don't know about the virtues of splitting a few little states off of India, but it might be interesting, and might do a better job of representing the cultural and political diversity of that continent. The nation of India today is made up of a number of empires which the British and their Indian allied Rajas united by force.

[ATC 1982]

Even though I am American I hope to see a Canadian Civ either in game or Expansion

[mmmfloorpie]

Even though I am American I hope to see a Canadian Civ either in game or Expansion

Or at least a Canadian leader for the British civ.

[saksingj]

Or at least a Canadian leader for the British civ.

But Canadia has no leaders (except the governor general).

[Luft46]

Some good ideas so far, mine are:

1) larger rivers should be navigable by ships to a point. If another civ controls where the river reaches the sea, passage rights would have to be negotiated. Locations where rivers enter the sea would really be premium sites.

2) cities situated on a river (and not on the coast) should be able to build naval units

3) dams should be able to be built individually by workers, which would provide some kind of bonus. Rivers that are dammed would mean the river downstream would change. If another civ is downstream, that could cause problems for that civ's farms, etc.

4) Bridges to islands located no more than one hex away, built by workers. There should be a Bridge Building Tech to research. Maybe a Golden Gate Wonder would help shorten bridge building time.

5) Tunnels through mountain ranges, buildable by workers - perhaps very long construction times and a tech to research before this is allowed.

6) I'd like to go back to allowing mountains to be worked, at least allow 1 production or something. I hate dead areas in the city radius.

7) I know this would probably not work, but I think it would be pretty cool if, after getting space flight, you could then have maybe a moon or Mars map (limited) where you could mine extra resources, maybe even set up domed cities.

8) Cities should be able to help each other, sending food, medical help if a city is unhealthy, etc.

[volstateprof]

I have noticed that the majority of these requests could be fulfilled with the inclusion of a civ3 type of scenario editor. The editor could be improved to become more powerful allowing the individual player to have far more control over the options that appeal to him the most.

For example: Winning Conditions

There could also be several diplomatic settings with some having more features, and some being a bit more basic.

The civ 3 editor is responsible for keeping this game playable and fresh. It is easier to modify the rules, create scenarios etc so there are more new ways to play.

I have only played civ 4 a few times, and do not even have it on my computer because it seems to me, (I accept this is just speculation) that it was designed for a different kind of gamer, one who is more focused on graphics than on substance and complexity. Civ 3 graphics are far inferior, but with the editor I am able to tailor games that appeal to my interests, which lean more towards military campaigns( I am a retired Colonel from the Air Force)

I would be willing to pay extra for a seperate product, an editor if neccessary.

I like Armies, how about having admirals to make fleets. This option is in my opinion more realistic as after a combat, casualties are accrued and the effectiveness and strength of the army deteriorates until you have time to rest, reinforce and re equip.

Armies could perhaps also be upgradeble, this would eliminate having out dated armies. If that is too complex perhaps they could be allowed to unload units from armies. Then they could be upgraded and rejoin armies.

I think it would also be interesting to develop a synergy system for armies. Perhaps an algorithm to allow an increase of capabilities and strength of an army in particular fields, this would be similar to Galactic civilizations which allow you to put different types of ships in fleets that are suited for the particular opponent.

You could have the following characteristics:

Hit Points/Strength

Offensive rating

Defensive Rating

organic artillery rating

Combat Engineering rating

Recon rating

Organic airpower (primarily helicopter aviation, maybe a FAC aircraft and recon aircraft)

The overall Rating in each of these categories for the army would be a sum of the parts with bonuses because mixes of different types of units produces a stronger more flexible whole. For instance, we know that armor attacking without Infantry support is far weaker than with Infantry support, this is why mechanized infantry was developed. adding helicopters allows more firepower, recon and flexibility. Engineer units could be Flamethrower units that allow you to have attack bonuses against field fortifications.

Thus you could build armor heavy armies for open terrain and fast movement, while building infantry, artillery and engineer heavy armies to defend and assualt cities or fortifications. I am using modern weaponry but this would be applied to every era.

Roman Legions had Infantry, archers, and skirmishers, with seige engines etc.



RESOURCES

The only addition I would add here if possible would be resource amounts. If you have one resource you can make an unlimited number of units that need that resource. Perhaps with only one horse resource, you can only support x amount of cavalry. Or you could limit how many cities can produce units of a type requiring a specific resource. One Iron source, only x number of cities can produce cannon or knights or medieval infantry. This would add an important element to game play. Most foreign policy is connected to procurement of strategic resources. This is why imperialism and colonies were neccessary.

MANPOWER

One of the most crucial resources, Civ 3 tracks overall population, a rule that determines the actual amount of available population for military service and limiting the number of units allowed at certain population levels. You would have available manpower and used manpower in the resource screen that would allow you to plan your military.

Building of units, weapons etc.

If as in many other systems, each city had different things they could produce at the same time.

For instance, regular building of improvements and wonders, than a barracks for ground units, Shipyard for ships, aircraft factory for aircraft, automotive factory for tanks, apcs and artillery. Perhaps make the number of factories you can have limited by the number of resources you have, and make them expensive to maintain. For example have only one horse resource, that will support only three cavalry depots, have only one bronze source, it will support only three bronze age unit barracks. To make it easier to code allow only one military production facility per city. That city might be producing city improvements at the same time as producing medieval infantry in a steel age barracks.


Just my humble opinion

Thank You

Chuck Hicks

[Buddy3101]

For Unit Modders like me I wish, that we can give mutiple textures to the models like in Napoleon Total War, so that every men in a Unit formation (eg infantry-formation) has an own texture for his head and uniform, without designing a whole new model for the formation....

[Pry87]

Mines would be a good addition! With the early incarnation as traps.

[Sol.Invictus]

My wishes:

Id Love a system to take advantage of remote resources, out of the civs border (example: North-South pole), having to build a road or a small harbor to take advantage of it, and having to defend it from enemies etc. I cant remember which civ had it (guess it was civ3).

Id love a much broader diplomatic mode:
Much more options of trade: mixing anything the player can imagine in order to get the bargain.
Secret pacts.
Possibility of building military bases in other civs territory, and these bases having effect on the game.
Multilateral talks/bargains/embargos.
Posibility of aiding near cities.
More elaborate system of determinig AIs attitude towards you.
Being able to propose UN resolutions whenever I want and broaden the spectrum of options for UN resolutions. Being able to leave the UN or Ignore resolutions.
and many more cool things I cant think about right now

Id love to be able to destroy/sell(like in older civs) my buildings.

Id love navegable rivers.

Id love (picking up from another discussion in the forum) future techs to fight climate change.

And many things more that have been written in the thread!

[Pry87]

Just realised, I would quite like the return to separate offensive/defensive stats for units, rather than one combat strength.

[GreaseMonkey]

Just realised, I would quite like the return to separate offensive/defensive stats for units, rather than one combat strength.

This, or at the very least have a bonus multiplier for units attacking other units. Example would be if Spearmen attacked or defending against cavalry.

[Pry87]

This, or at the very least have a bonus multiplier for units attacking other units. Example would be if Spearmen attacked or defending against cavalry.

Yeah they had that in 4, so spear/pikemen were +100% against cavalry against and axe/macemen +50% vs melee. Should include it for city walls, spear men would just fail in an attack against a city wall (unless it was breeched by bombardment, still going to struggle up a breech with a spear)

[SedeJusticia]

1.- the first are realized: hexagons, most realistic system than squares. Thanks and congratulations.
2.- i want to can make forest and jungles, and jungles need to give more resources or one reason for not eliminate all the jungles on your land. Mayans and other civs can give special bonus in jungles, Vikings, and other in ice, etc etc.
3.-roads maintenance: i hate see all the squares with roads or train rails.
4.-higer maintenance for more powerful weapons: battleships and tanks more expensives that soldiers and light ships.
5.-The stacking of units limited in squares, and units like tanks and large ships counts like two or more units, Forts, and other buildings, and civilization or wonders will afect the stacking max count.
6.-physical trade betwen cities for food or resources, (caravans, transport, trading ships), one route for one kind of resourses, the need for a route for exploit resources outside the limits of the city (like alpha centaury). The unit need stay in the resource, and animated like aactivity in the road, if the unit are killed or the road broken, end the supply of resourses (or close of borders)

[Candlbox]

I think a nice improvement would be regarding the economy. I think a simple supply & demand system could add quite a bit of depth, make things more interesting, and not require an absurd amount of programming.

First, resources need to be more abundant, but that could simply mean having multiple units of resource from a single source. For example, a mine might produce 10 units of iron instead of 1. Some can be used domestically, and some can be traded (or stockpiled as others have suggested). The advantage of having more domestically could be a bonus to production speed or it could dictate how many swordsman, etc. can be produced at a given time.

Depending on where my country is along the spectrum of state-controlled vs. free market economy, less or more of the iron would be traded beyond my borders. If I really don't want to let anyone have access to my iron or oil, then I have to exert state control over the economy. If I want a stronger economy, I have to accept that I don't control how every resource is traded.

In past Civ games, even with a free trade system in place, there isn't much of a compromise. I get a bonus for adopting free trade, but I can still refuse to trade with anyone. If you happen not to have oil or iron in your borders, you're out of luck because there isn't trade in any real sense.

With a very simple market for resources, the strategy becomes less about hoarding and more about effective control and use. The bonus for adopting free trade should be higher so that there is incentive to trade. Finally, in a very free market setting, trade could increase the gold produced in a city, while in a state-controlled system, trade could produce gold directly for the government (as is the case when we trade resources for gold in prior versions of Civ).

Again, I think some version of international trade could add a lot to gameplay without requiring an unreasonable amount of coding.

[Pry87]

Keep remembering things and adding them to this thread, even though I expect they already know what they are doing and wont really change much (if anything) based on it. It has always annoyed me that city walls become obsolete with gun powder, even though they weren't obsolete until much later on, during the Napoleonic wars most of the spanish cities had massive city walls that were incredibly effective, Siege of Badajoz is a good example (although the city was taken it took far longer and cost far more lives than a city without walls would). I would even argue that modern infantry would struggle against city walls without the help of bombers and artillery. Should be based more on the type of unit attacking, with cannons being able to breech the walls making them 50% less effective or something like that.

[thefluffyrocker]

I think that resources should play a greater part in the game, mainly in relation to units, to provide much more scope for strategies such as the most simply and numerous strategy of encirclement.
There is no real reason to surround an enemy or an enemy city as by doing so you only really weaken your army and actually put yourself at a disadvantage because of it. It would be great that if by encircling an enemy you cut them off from their supplies and degraded their combat ability, and maybe even to the degree that they may surrender or simply dissolve itself.

This could be supported by the inclusion of a feature many have already mentioned, which is supply bases and also by units providing their own culture. To gain supplies you need to be connected to your supply base or city by a road or transport link and if not then your unit will degrade in combat power over time until it dissolves itself.

Units could pillage the land for supplies to keep themselves going, but there is only so much to pillage so eventually they will need a proper supply chain.

The other advantage to this is that, like real military strategy, it would drag the combat out of the cities and give less focus on city defense and more on general military strategy.

The reintroduction of paratroops and airlift helicopters would also help with this and give them a very useful function and provide for more flexible battle plans than simply pile up a big army, run to a city, destroy it's defenses and smack your until against it until it is captured.

I would also suggest that bridges become actual improvements in that they have to be built and can be destroyed and that certain units cannot cross rivers without them. Again trying to mirror more real life strategy where rivers are a serious obstacle for any army to cross and the control of a single bridge can essentially provide control of a whole battlefield.


Another point, which some have elaborated on already, is that resources shouldn't be infinite and they should have some baring on the size of your army. As it is 1 oil field can supply 1 or an infinite amount of units with oil. It would be much more interesting if an oil field could support x amount of units and maybe even if the oil fields had different size's. Even better would be if those oil fields supplied a currency as such which could be distributed around your empire or sold to other nations. You could then stockpile resources for times of war so you could build bigger armies than you could otherwise supply because you built up a stockpile of oil to support them.

These stockpiles could then also be distributed to cities or supply bases around your empire so that in times of war or simply when part of your empire or army is cut off they will draw resources from the supplies available to them within their trading zone. And when that runs out the army stops.
In the case of oil for example, the units would not disband, they would simply be unable to move, and would for combat purposes have a much lowered combat values due to being unable to move.

Would also maybe suggest the limiting of the number of units that can occupy a tile. To save this from being too cumbersome there wouldn't be a strict limit like you can only have 10 units occupying a single square, but a limit so that if for example you have more than 5 units then their combat power begins to be reduced because as they get more crowded there is less scope for tactical manoeuvre and therefore their combat flexibility and power becomes reduced.
You could then stack as many units as you desired to store or build them up on a jump point for an attack before spreading them out when it comes to actual combat.

Extra edit for something i missed...
Army size should be limited in some way to your population size. You may have a huge nation size wise but that doesn't mean you have the population to build a huge armed force.

[rob42lou]

Id like to be able to set fire to a forest/jungle.

The idea works like this, units on the tile take damage over the few turns the tile is on fire, so if im rushed early and the enemy stacks units onto a forest/jungle tile next to my city i can set fire to the tile and possibly mount an offensive.

Another idea i'd love to see in the game is volcanoe's, if only in the ocean to create a tiny bit more land over time. I dislike the fact that the world doesnt change or pose any challenges to cities or people when in reality it does. And im not talking about events like 'A Blizzard takes away 2 population' because thats just annoying and doesnt effect stategy a whole lot. What im talking about is something like a mountain tile starts pluming smoke, you know to avoid it as the eruption will hurt units and make the area impassable for a few turns.

Lastely id like an advanced way to research technologies, meaning you could research part of a technology and get whatever unit/upgrade you need in a quicker time than it would take to research the whole thing. However researching in that way would take a longer time than just researching it all at once. Adding more depth in technological strategy.

[Xetal]

1.) Fight for resources/Limited resources: The most important thing I'd like to see for Civilization 5 is a system where resources are limited and are a major source of competition and fighting. In order to do this you would need to create a system that is a mix between Colonization and Civilization 4. For example, a standard iron mine might produce 10 iron/turn for your empire, and each swordsman would take 5 iron to create. The amount mined could be increased by technology, land upgrades, or upgrades/buildings in the nearby city. The amount could be diminished by things like poor morale or by the resource being over-used and turning into a "diminished" resource that only provides 50% or 25% of its original yield. Once gathered, the resource goes into a "central pool" that any of your connected cities can use.

A system would create a more realistic competiton for resources, as well as creating diplomatic oportunities (with resource trading) and strategic decisions for use and amounts to hold in reserve of a resource. Some units, such as tanks, battleships, or aircraft would require resources any turn that they perform an action (a tank might require 1 unit of oil every turn it acts, a battleship might require 10 units of oil or 2 units of uranium any turn it acts, and a jet fighter might require 3 units of oil every turn it acts). Resource strains such as this would require some strategic decision making on if you should create more mechanized units or units like marines/army rangers. It would also create a realistic strain on resources where control of these resources would be important and the trade of key resources would lead to diplomacy in situations where nations might otherwise be hostile to eachother (see: USA and Saudi Arabia)

A resource system like this would let you store unused resources for later use or trade, or store resources like oil to use as a buffer if you suddenly need to mobilize your military. Luxury products could also use a similar system, allowing you to use them for happiness/health in your various cities (or release them to be used only in certain cities).


2.) Borders need to be decided by generals and diplomats, not by artists and musicians. A gap in culture between two nearby cities owned by different nations should create unrest and should result in reduced productivity, taxes, and eventually riots. A gap in culture should not magically change the borders between the two countries. Borders should be decided by diplomacy and by military action. At the end of any conflict between nations, border decisions should be part of the standard "cease fire" portion of the diplomacy. In addition to that you should be able to use peacetime diplomacy to trade neighboring nations for land.


3.) One thing that I have always thought was lacking from Civlization games is a lack of unit diversity. There seems to be very little strategic decision making when deciding what types of units to create. Examples best illustrate this:

Example 1: Jet Fighter. In Civilization 4 there is only one advanced fighter, the "Jet Fighter". Realistically there is a big difference between technology in newer fighters as well as their purpose. There should be some strategic thinking involved when you pick what type of aircraft to build. My suggestion would be to have at least two generations to pick from (Jet Fighter, Advanced Jet Fighter) as well as splitting them into two different types of aircraft: Interceptors and Fighter Bombers. Interceptors excel at intercepting enemy aircraft but are not designed for air-to-ground combat. Fighter-bombers aren't quite as strong air-to-air as interceptors, but they're also very useful for air-to-ground strikes.

Example 2: Cavalry: In Civ 4 there really isn't a choice between types of cavalry. There should be a light cavalry which excels at flanking and harassing fighting as well as heavier "Knights" which are heavier and slower, but stronger for striking enemies more diretly. There isn't really a difference in the level of technology between the units, just the purpose that they are created for. You can see a similar situation in infantry. After infantry you just have "mechanized infantry" with the ability to get marines which are kind of a half-upgrade. Realistically you should choose between modern marines, rangers, and a more mechanized infantry. There are advantages to having modern non-mechanized infantry and it should be a strategic decision which to build (rangers, for example, wouldn't use oil when they act where mechanized infantry would)

Example 3: Tanks: In Civ4 there is only "Tank" as a tank unit. Realistically there is a wide array of different tanks that were buit. There is a big difference, for example, between a Soviet T-28 and an American M2. At the very least you should have to choose between a "Light Tank" and a "Heavy Tank". There are similar decisions to be made in melee infantry along the ages as well.

Having choices like this to make about unit types would create a strategic element where you need to think about the needs of your empire when you choose what to build. Instead of just building a swarm of the "latest and greatest" you would have to decide what you actually needed and what you could actually afford in terms of time, manufacturing ability, and resources.


4.) Military technology dispersion and guerrilla/irregular units. This is a two-fold suggestion: The first is that once you reach certain points of technology (rifling, for example) then it should let ALL nations build and upgrade units to Guerrilla or Irregular units that are very cheap to build and maintain (and use gunpowder weapons), but that are considerably weaker than organized Infantry, Rangers, or Marines. It is silly to see one nation using aircraft and tanks and their neighbors using Knights and pikemen. Technology disperses enough that technologically backwater nations are able to throw togeather something to reasonably fight with.

The other part of this suggetion is that discarded weapons are often sold to nations that cannot build the weapons for themselves. A good example of this is outdated American aircraft being sold to places like Iraq or Israel. The best way to handle this in Civilization 5 would be to give you a choice when you are disbanding or upgrading a unit. When you upgrade or disband a unit you should be given the choice to break down the unit (which returns 50% of the raw resources, such as iron, that it took to make) or they can sell the unit to the arms market (which allows other nations to buy it, generating income for the nation selling it). This situation would help to balance the smaller nations in the "technology -vs- economy" aspect of the game as well as creating a strategic decision to make for nations upgrading their military. The price could be based on a buy/sell system. This sytem would allow a nation to put the hardware they're trying to sell on the market for the price they're willing to sell it as, and it would also allow nations trying to buy hardware to list the hardware they're trying to buy, the amount they're trying to buy, and the price they're willing to pay. The buy/sell market would allow the units to trade hands at whatever price the world market in that particular game would support. This system would also allow wealthy smaller nations to put in "buy orders" for military equipment they want and allow more industrial nations to build these and fill the orders.

In addition to the above system, you should be able to directly make deals with nations to buy and sell different units. A real life example of this would be the United States directly selling Jet Fighters to Israel.

5.) Research and Technology really needs to be handled differently. The real problem is that you know exactly what technology you're going to get and the benefits that it provides. I think a more realistic example would be to budget X amount of your budget towards different advancements that you can earmark towards a certain field (Say: Science, Religion, Engineering, etc...). Your researchers would then work towards advancements in that area. You, as a player, would not know what particular technology would come next nor would you know when the advancement would come. The actual technology tree would be randomized somewhat so that it is not predictable. I think that not being able to predict exactly what technologies you're getting next would make the game much more realistic as well as more enjoyable. One of the things that makes Civ games really interesting is that you have to react the to unexpected, and a completely predictable technology system (like the one that Civ4 has) really takes a lot away from this kind of challenge.

6.) Realistic upkeep: This was somewhat covered above with the requirement of oil to allow units like tanks or jet fighters to function. In addition to this there should be a realistic currency cost to maintaining different units. A unit like Infantry, a Marine, or a Ranger should be much cheaper to maintain than a Jet Fighter or a Battleship. Likewise, a unit like Pikemen should be cheaper to maintain than a Knight. A more realistic maintenence for this units would again force strategic decision making when you create units: Can you afford to support 20 units of Knights, or can you only afford a couple Knights and have a sizable army of Macemen instead?

[Xetal]

7.) Nuclear weapons need to be designed a bit differently, including M.A.D. Start out with only nuclear bombs, then later in technology allow short range nuclear warheads, then later in technology allow ICBMs. In addition to this, you should be able to "pre-target" warheads on another nation so that if they launch a nuke at you then your nuke will automatically launch at them. Using this you could pre-target your different nuclear warheads so that if either of you launch at eachother it would ensure Mutually Assured Destruction. This is a more realistic way of handling nuclear weapons, and should produce more realistic results when dealing with two nations that are both nuclear powers. For early nuclear weapons, allowing a nuclear bomb to be attached to a bomber and having it only take effect if the bomber is successful, and short ranged nuclear weapons that could be fired at nearby enemy nations or fired from submarines.

8.) Diversity pays: One of the frustrating things about Civ3 and Civ4 is that you are penalized for diversity. You either really need to go with a specalist economy or a cottage economy, etc... A more realistic approach is that diversity pays. For each city you should get a small bonus for engaging in economic diversity. The first cottage or two being worked should provide a bit of a bonus, the first specialist or two working should provide a bit of a bonus, the first mine or two should provide a bit of a bonus, and so on. Ideally the strongest type of economy would be one that embraces using varied tactics instead of being forced into using just one.

This diveristy is also true for military use. It looks like limited units per tile is the way that you're going, and I think this is a good idea. 3-5 land units per tile sounds about right, but they should fight togeather as a unit and diversity should be encouraged. Spamming a massive amount of the same unit should be a weaker strategy than mixing footmen/archers/cavalry. The simplist way to do this would be to provide small bonuses when units work togeather (Archers, for example could get 1 extra first strike if they have allied melee units fighting on their side). For this system, it would work very well if you could attack with your small stack of units from one tile and they all fight as an army and the units that are defending would also fight as a cohesive unit.

9.) City size NOT being decided by food that is immediately nearly. It doesn't make sense for a city population to be determined by the amount of food within a couple miles. It might be more realistic to handle food on an empire level instead of an individual city level, and then allow the player to allocate how much of your food goes to which of your cities. This would limit population in much the same way it is limited in Civlization 4, but it would allow you to better determine where that population would be distributed in your empire. This approach would be more realistic and it would also be more enjoyable to play. An example of this would be the food from the great planes of America being used to feed the people of New York and Chicago.

10.) Allow an "intercept" function for land, naval, and air units. This command would make them not able to move during your turn, but if an enemy came within their movement range you could activate them to intercept the enemy (on the enemys turn). This would create a more realistic and more playable system for defending your border (especially when you're dealing with fast units -vs- fast units). This would allow a better coastal defense and allow more realistic border standoffs with land units.

That's a good start of suggestions/wish list from me. I've been playing since the orignial Colonization and Civilization 1, so I could probably come up with a couple more things, but those are the 10 most important things to me.

[Spyre2000]

9.) City size NOT being decided by food that is immediately nearly. ...snip...

Yea this is one thing that always bugged me. I like other 4X TBS games and one thing I like about the ones that take place in space, such as MOO series, is that food is handled on an empire level. I mean if one city can make a ton of money and pay the upkeep for your mega city with all it's Wonders and extra stuff then why can't cities ship food to other places?

The main issue I see though is you need to have trade routes setup. Like if a city is not connected to a resource it couldn't build curtain units. The same thing would have to apply to food I think as their needs to be a way to move the food around.

As for how to handle "City Growth" when the game has shared food I seeing being a question people would bring up. Well one way is to simply have the left over food apply the way it does in previous Civ games as cities only supplement food shortages. So if you have a city with +10 food and two others with -3 food then the "farming" city would have a population growth of +4 while the shortage cities would remain stagnant yet not starving.

The other method is have growth based solely on other factors such as current size and happiness of a city. Since it makes sense a large city will grow faster, more people to have babies, then a small village will. Thus food management and population management become much larger issues so you could actually face starvation problems much like the real world does instead of Civ where the people stop breading if there is not enough food to go around .

Though the second approach to handling City Growth would be quite a change for the series. And in other games where Population doesn't tend to stabilized based on food supply you often end up with mass unrest and eventual collapse of your empire. Which is why I think the first approach is probably better suited to fit the mold of Civ Games.

Though to keep growing truly large cities a "Food Management" option would be nice such as in the first example you wanted all 3 cities to keep growing you could tell the two with Natural Food income of -3 to try and maintain a +1 food/growth rate. Thus they would each take 4 from the primary farm city leaving it with +2 growth while they both had +1.