Suggestions: City Tile Control, Empire Spreading, Sea Access Ports, Technology
I for one am really looking forward to this release. The potential to improve a game always exists and the civilization series is not without its needs.
City Tile Control "Regions"
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I'll be referring to the tiles that a city controls as a Region. Think Total War series.
In Civ4 control of the 8 tiles surrounding a city was instant, and another 12 tiles were added after reaching the first culture level. I never liked this concept, just guaranteed control despite being past water, beyond mountains, or across desert. Natural features like rivers, mountains, forests, deserts, and oceans/seas are the most common borders for every country in our world. Perhaps this concept could provide a basis for the way control spreads around a city; push against mountains or water, then spread further the opposite direction instead of just circular from the city center.
Furthermore, the shape of a region being circular is quite silly. The amount of land each tile represents, times 21 using Civ4 city control, is a ridiculously large area, and its shape would realistically be very far from a circle, shaped by natural surroundings, coastline, and neighbors. As a player, if I drop a city somewhere I want to place it to capture resources and have decent food/production numbers. In Civ4 that could mean missing out on some resources simply because they are 1 tile out of reach, they just don't fit into the city's circle. Too bad.
I would propose a different method of spreading control from a city across its region of influence. When founding a city/region, begin with control of the immediately neighboring 6 tiles, then as the city's population increases(not culture), grant the city 1 additional tile that touches a tile it currently controls, but -not- water or mountain tiles. This way a city spreads based on something tangible: the user's needs. If you want a horse resource and it's 3 tiles away from your city, don't fret- get your population up and pick to control the tiles toward the horse until it's in your region.
This method allows regions to be used the way the user wants them to be, rather than just what the 2-ring circle of influence allows. This also would eliminate the need to drop cities everywhere just to capture resources. The distance you could spread in any direction would have to be capped, maybe around 5 or 6 tiles away. Also, city regions wouldn't be circular... variety is aesthetically pleasing! Watching a city/region slowly spread to fill an area between the Himalaya and the Ganges, or between the Alps and the Po, rather than just being a circle covering whatever land/water in its zone, would greatly improve replay value in my opinion.
As a last tidbit on regions, your first city is always the most important in your civilization until far later in the game, so I would highly recommend allowing this region to control more tiles, a whole extra 'ring' of tiles, in civ4 terms. Consider it your home region, the core of your culture and power, your most protected territory in the empire- it's naturally larger and more populated than your other cities/regions.
Empire Spreading
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Settlers make me mad. Constructing a settler, then moving the unit around until finding a good spot and hitting the 'found city' button, makes me want to close the game and play something else. The idea that you as leader have to tell your people to get up and go wander around for years(early in Civ4 it's hundreds of years) to found a new city is beyond silly, it hurts my head. I know it does happen sometimes but certainly not over those timeframes. Besides, the vast majority of cities simply grew around one resource or another, be it food or mineral.
I would absolutely love to see some type of budding method put to use- when a city grows to control 10+ tiles and one of them is at least 3 tiles away, you have the option to turn one of those further tiles into a new city. Or perhaps it could be automatic, with the new city springing up on top of a resource that is under your control but 3 or more tiles from your city.
Budding aside, a unit to begin a new city/region does need to exist for building on islands, or simply going around another civilization for one reason or another. The worker would do this job perfectly!
Sea Access/Ports
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In Civ4 if you don't build your city on the coast you simply do not do any sea trade at all, cannot build ships, and generally miss out on a huge opportunity to be profitable. But in reality plenty of "inland" cities were serviced by nearby port towns. Rome is a prime example, built several miles from the medinterranean sea, and serviced by the nearby port Centumcellae. I would highly recommend allowing "inland" cities to use a worker to build a port town (just like building a village in Civ4) in a tile that is adjacent to the city and also adjacent to water. This way cities that are near the coast could gain the exact same benefits as a city placed directly on the coast.
Furthermore, if Civ4 is anything to go by, the vast majority of rivers are not represented by anything on the map, simply too small to do any trade or travel. On that mindset, I propose the rivers that -are- represented on the map should be navigable by small ships, including all trade ships. Cities built along rivers should have "sea trade" access to all other cities on that river or any other connecting body of water, sea, ocean, lake, or joining river. It would be neat to let all exploration units(like a scout) use rivers for very quick travel as well.
Technology
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Before diving into techs, let me explain my play style: Rush a religion, rush horseback riding, conquer my neighbor. Rush catapults, conquer the next neighbor. Rush macemen and conquer the next neighbor. ETC. It's far too predictable, leaves little to the imagination, but it gets the job done. I always study the same things in the same order simply because it gets the results I want. But in reality, you can't point your finger at a technology and drive toward it in a definite amount of time based on funding. And what about the times where discoveries were made that were not what was being studied?
Civ needs variety like this, unpredictability in the tech race. Allow results early, or late. If it says 2000 science units (beakers?), the tech should be acquired as early as 1000 beakers, but no later than 3000. In other words, let the scientists have a chance of a breakthrough after hitting 50% study, and also let them be confused and take far too long to complete it, let it go overbudget up to 150%. This would have the same overall rate of tech advance, but some would be early and others late.
As for unpredictablity in the results of the study, how about flagging each technology as cultural, military, or development? Then let the player choose what category to study, but not what specific technology. Choosing develoment to start a game might get you mining, agriculture, or the wheel, you just don't know! This really would add replay value to the game as every civilization would grow differently, with differing abilities and specialties. It might also prevent large gaps in the tech tree forming, by having low-beaker techs(easy techs) a higher liklihood of result from study rather than high-beaker techs.
Lastly, the spreading of technologies from one civilization to another really does need to occur in some form or another. Tech trading sure, but techs should also be learned from conquered cities/regions or perhaps even from winning battles. Kill Longbow units and you should have a % chance at grasping the idea how to upgrade your Archer units, for example. In Civ4 the map overlays showed the spread of culture with solid colors where just one occured, and mixed colors for a blending of cultures on those tiles. Areas like this should provide some technology crossing, borders with other civilizations, cities that do a lot of "sea trade", etc... should have chances of learning technologies from those civs, and vice-versa.
Ending
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Okay, that was long winded, thanks for reading, please criticize. It's 4am, I'm going to bed!
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Originally Posted by shenryyr
