20-02-2002 19:40									#91
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: But that's enough for now

Yes, that's enough. Let it sink in for a while.

	20-02-2002 20:27									#92
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Something I really miss from Civ 2 is the citizen happiness display. You could learn a lot about what was making your citizens happy or unhappy by seeing the step-by-step application of luxuries, martial law, happy improvements, and global happiness wonders. Right now, citizen happiness is something of a black box. I'd love to get a glimpse inside that box.

	20-02-2002 20:45									#93
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I think that the whole Planes sinking Ships issue could be brought to an end, if we had an option, in the Editor, for air units to sink ships, as an ability. Why not?

Otherwise, I'd like the AI to upgrade its units. Maybe it already does in 1.17, but I've not yet played much using 1.17. However, it's a great patch, because of the stack movement. And also balances mounted units well.

	20-02-2002 20:56									#94
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

all i really want to see right now and its more realistic for a patch than most of the things people have been saying, is when playing more civs than the f4 diplomacy screen can hold and one civ gets eliminated, other civs should be "loaded" in. i just recently accidently started WWIII because i was playing 16 civs, and a lot were eliminated. as a result only 2 others were in the f4 screen, so i couldn't see the web of MPPs that the AI had made.

	20-02-2002 21:04									#95
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by TKG all i really want to see right now and its more realistic for a patch than most of the things people have been saying, is when playing more civs than the f4 diplomacy screen can hold and one civ gets eliminated, other civs should be "loaded" in. i just recently accidently started WWIII because i was playing 16 civs, and a lot were eliminated. as a result only 2 others were in the f4 screen, so i couldn't see the web of MPPs that the AI had made.

There is a way around that, Shift- right click on one of the empty spots I believe. I only play with the standard 8 so I can't be certain about what the shortcut is.

	20-02-2002 21:06									#96
	Full PM-box? Change here!

oh really? thanks

	21-02-2002 04:05									#97
	My wish list... Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

I know many of these can be modded, but...
1. Have jungle be harvestable too (maybe just 5 shields);

2. Have founding a city on forest or jungle start the city off with resources (maybe 1/2 of clearing value rounded up, i.e. 5/3?);

3. Be able to move a galley into sea squares more easily prior to Astronomy. I know it's meant to protect me, but moving 1 square at a time is agonizing! Option? (same thing for Caravels & ocean before navigation);

4. AI trading - rebalance the per turn vs. lump sum. Especially when paying, it should be glad to pay per turn instead of up front, and it shouldn't be as insulted by per turn payment options.

5. When the AI puts pieces into a "thin" piece of your territory (trying to move through your territory and settle some open land beyond it), it shouldn't be able to "bounce" the pieces through (the automatic move after the second challenge seems to help them on their way much more often than it sends them back).

6. Limited terraforming! Don't make this part of the normal automation, make it really expensive, but make it possible. I just started on an island with only _2_ good growth spots. I ended up using a lot of pop rushing because the other cities weren't growing beyond size 2 anyway, so I may as well have them _slowly_ grow to size 2, then whip for another unit.

7. [Make it easier to unload units from a ship when the ship is next to land. For some reason the "L" command doesn't work for me - have to click and wake.] Willem answered this I think.

8. Have option to suppress the "domestic nag" for growth.

9. Give back the summary of happiness like DaveV said.

[Edit:10. Allow hills to be irrigated (no food bonus, just allows irrigation to be continued through hills)]
- belchingjester

Last edited by belchingjester on 21-02-2002 at 21:20

	21-02-2002 04:10									#98
	Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by Encomium A better map: iron and coal is too hard to find, and all resources are too hard to see on the map.

Have you played with the resource icons from This thread? I agree, Firaxis might want to get these in the game.
-belchingjester

	21-02-2002 04:38									#99
	Re: My wish list... Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by belchingjester 7. Make it easier to unload units from a ship when the ship is next to land. For some reason the "L" command doesn't work for me - have to click and wake.

Just move the ship like you were trying to move on to the land. The unload option will pop up.

	21-02-2002 19:06									#100
	Re: Re: My wish list... Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by Willem Just move the ship like you were trying to move on to the land. The unload option will pop up.

Thanks. Haven't got a chance to try that yet - left my civ disk somewhere else last night.
-belchingjester

	21-02-2002 21:05									#101
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

I'd like to see the corruption options changed in the editor so that we have more control over the communal model. For example, there are 2 basic models right now, centralized and communal. So we would select either of one these, then choose varying degrees of each. i.e Communal Problematic, Centralized Minimal etc. This would give us a lot more options if we want to create new government forms.

	21-02-2002 21:26									#102
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by JFB OK, now for cultural ideas. How about the tech FILM, allowing movie theatres to be built, after five are built you can build a great wonder called Hollywood, that takes some amount of culture to your civ from any movie theatre in any civ that is built? I personally think that the late game needs more culture buildings and options. What about museums or something? This could give people another direction for a win if they want to spend the resources to research and build culturally. More variety of gameplay.

I think it would make sense to hook theaters to Free Artistry (culture/happiness improvement - too much like colosseum?). Have their happiness impact increase after discovery of Electronics (like colosseum in Civ2).

You could hook museums to Scientific method - maybe they could also magnify effect of scientist specialists.
-belchingjester

	21-02-2002 21:54									#103
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Context Menu (what pops up when you right click on a unit)

"Wake All" - essentially this would wake all units in that square
Reason - This would improve the time it takes to work with many units later in the game.
"Group" and "Ungroup" (or "link" and "unlink") - this would allow you to group all units within a square into a "single unit" so to speak. You can then move this group to your destination and select the ungroup command to use the units individually.
Has no advanages. The units are still individual units when attacked.

Cannot attack as a group.
The AI does not use this feature. It's sole purpose is to help the human player get things done faster (with less tedium). Since the AI does not care about tedium it does not need the feature. And whenever an AI encounters a group, they are seen as individual units cause they are.
If you move a group of units into a tile with some other units, you can just hit the group command to group everything in that tile into one.

Reason - It would improve the time it takes to move many units later in the game. Since this method doesn't require any complicated setup process for each "grouping" it could be quickly and repeatedly done in a turn to get things done.
"Group" (workers) - this is not a different command, but for workers, the "group" command needs to work a little differently to be more effective. Whenever there are workers in a group and you tell the group to perform some terrain improvement, one by one, each worker in the group should contribe to the improvement till it is done. Each worker that works on the improvement is effectively removed from the group. Thus, you can move on with what's left in the group to another location and work on more improvements with the remaining workers.
Reason - This would prevent the added tedium of having to ungroup workers or the annoyances of not being able to use all the workers in one turn.



Corruption
Corruption has always been a part of the Civilization series. However, Civ3 introduced such a level of corruption that it is almost crippling. For example, when playing on larger maps, the enormous level of corruption causes some cities to almost not even be able to produce anything at all. Because the corruption is so high in these cases, a person is unable to build any corruption lowering improvements (including a palace) without rush building.
True Colonies (of your civ) - Currently it's near impossible to build a palace in a city far away from your Civ's center. In this you could declare a certain group of cities that are not connected to your palace cities by territory to be a colony. It would then be under your military control. You could chose to impose taxes from them or not. You could requests goods from them or not, etc... etc.... However, they would not have very high corruption (unless you begin to make them mad such as demanding high taxes, taking all 3 of their silks instead of two if they only have 3, etc....), and as time goes, by not integrating them into your Civ (so they have more representation).



Readily available information
One of the shortcomings of Civ3 compared to Civ2 is the lack of readily available information on the game, trade agreements, and other civs. This section is to address the issue of information which is vitally important to any good strategy game based on solid numbers (which Civ 3 is BTW).

Trade Agrements
Currently in Civ3 there is no way to keep track of a trade agreement and know when it will end. A simple, "this trade will end in x turns" pop-up message is not enough to keep track of it like a person needs to. So I suggest adding the following things to make things easier:

In the Trade Advisor screen, beside each imported item include a number indicating the number of turns left till the agreement will end. This will satisfy the need for adequate information to a strategy gamer.
I suggest putting the number of turns in black. However, as the turns get closer to 0 turns left, the text to could change color (possibly yellow and then red so it stands out?). This will allow a person to scan over the information faster and only look for what is nearing an end.
A pop-up that the agreement will end next turn. This will help the person too busy with their empire to keep track of everything.
Foreign Minister for unlimited Civs.
Well, lets admit it, people are going to be playing Civilization III with more than 8 civilizations. And when it comes time to make scenarios this is gonna be especially true. In addition, someone has found a way to add more than 16 civs. This can become a big problem for people trying the game.
Update the Foreign minister screen to show the relationship of 16 civs or if you can't do that, allow the user to change and rearange what civs show up in Foreign Minister screen at any time.

It would also be useful for you to have a link in the foreign minister screen that shows a list of all the Civs in a scroll down list and you can pick a Civ and see information on them. This is needed not only for the regular game but for the future of scenario making
Reason: Basically the whole problem is this. If you have more than 8, you currently can't get information on all Civilizations such as agreements and how they feel about you (unless you write it down on a piece of paper which is very tedious).





Miscellaneous Quirks
These are just a few suggestions that I think could add just a little flavor to the game.

Allow a sound to be played whenever a certain structure is built. This includes allowing unique sound for each of the wonders.
Reason: you can only listen to the same music/sound for so long, as a result I noticed this missing feature that was in Civ2. It gives you just a little bit of change of pace to hear something different and can add to the enjoyment of the game. If nothing else add this feature to the editor to allow us to add it in. However, I would really like to see Firaxis take the initiative and put these sounds in the game.

	21-02-2002 23:53									#104
	my $.02 Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Airbases, or letting aircraft base themselves in either fortresses or outposts. (Or both.)

Unless, of course, aircraft already can do this and I missed something in the manual or civilopedia.

Otherwise, I'll put in a vote to let bombardment destroy sea units, but not land units. The idea in the other thread about AAA ability for various ship types to give ships a chance is also a good idea.

I also think terraforming/transformation should be brought back, since the level of changes pollution brings and the time cost of transforming just one square makes repairing ecological damage very challenging. In my Civ2 games, I was always pretty good at eliminating pollution and tended to use the engineers to do things like making deserts habitable (which took several transformations) or mountain ranges. If you make it take, say 100 (or more) turns to do one transformation, it will take several workers to get the job done in reasonable time, even with industrious/democracy/other bonus I don't have the game handy to look at. In other words, if you want to repair the damage from global warming, transformation makes it possible, but it'll require more workers who might be needed to reduce pollution.

	22-02-2002 08:04									#105
	Government modifiers Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I would like to see more government modifiers. At present, we have the Despotic reduction in tile bonuses, and the Republic/Democracy trade bonuses. I would like to see a few more:

• -2 Happiness penalty - The citizens are not very happy with this form of government, perhaps because they repress the people too much. Works well with military police because undefended cities would be less happy. (Fascism)
  
  
• Communal corruption - Instead of this being a corruption setting, it should be a separate selection, so we can control the settings of corruption levels better with custom governments.
  
  
• +1 happiness on religious buildings (temple, cathedral). (Fundamentalism)

	22-02-2002 08:36									#106
	Re: Government modifiers Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by star mouse I would like to see more government modifiers. At present, we have the Despotic reduction in tile bonuses, and the Republic/Democracy trade bonuses. I would like to see a few more: -2 Happiness penalty - The citizens are not very happy with this form of government, perhaps because they repress the people too much. Works well with military police because undefended cities would be less happy. (Fascism)

Now that gov specific buildings are working, you can include that into any structures you make for them. It provides a lot more options for differentiating between the various government forms, as well as for creating new ones. I've been coming up with ideas all day.

quote: Communal corruption - Instead of this being a corruption setting, it should be a separate selection, so we can control the settings of corruption levels better with custom governments.

I agree, there are 2 basic models now, Communal and Centralized. It would be great if I could select Communal Minimal, instead of just having one option.

quote: +1 happiness on religious buildings (temple, cathedral). (Fundamentalism)

Ditto on my first idea. Just create gov specific buildings instead of everyone having Cathedrals. I'm making City Hall my happiness building for Democracy, rather than Cathedral. This nicely represents the seperation of church and state in that government form as well. Or how about Politburo for Communism. Mind you there will be some turmoil after I switch governments, since I'll have to rebuild, but it should make it a bit more interesting.

	22-02-2002 10:34									#107
	Increase the size of your Attachments

A small thing which could add some flavour, and was in Civ 1 :
in the Civilopedia, if I want some info about a knowledge, you could write who discovered the knowledge I have. For example, after aquiring philosophy, I could see in the Civilopedia
"Pilosophy
Discovered by the Greeks (possibly the discovery date)"
This way, I could know if my philosophy, my state religion, or my idea of communism etc. are proper to me, or if I share them with other cultures. No effect in gameplay terms, but I could get more involved in my civ.

EDIT : Well, actually, it could have gameplay effects. Someone on these boards had an idea to make tech trading less attractive, and own discovery more attractive : when you discover a tech by yourself, you get culture points from it. I assume every tech doesn't provide the same amount of culture (having your monotheism gives more culture than having your magnetism), so I think this amount of culture should be adjustable for each tech in the editor.

Last edited by Spiffor on 28-02-2002 at 08:45

	22-02-2002 12:26									#108
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Another thing I'd like is if additional science points you're leftover with would carry over to the next advance you research. The only argument against it is "Well, research in one field isn't necessarily compatable in another field" and it's a bad argument. Why, praytell? It could naturally be assumed that, as soon as something is mastered, research would then progress in a different direction, and being that each turn is at least a year long, it would only make sense that, during that year, when they discovered amphibious warfare, they would stop researching that and move on to, for example, combined arms.

Also, there should be a way to destroy units in cities on 1-square islands before the advent of amphibious warfare. I have a game in which the annoying Russians were entirely destroyed in the second age, but I could not finish them off because they had a lousy city on a size-1 island. Stupid Russians... (BTW I realize I could give a unit amphibious assault before amphibious warfare, but I think a lot of problems would be solved if bombardment could destroy any unit)

And how about male AND female leaders for each civ? I want my Stalin back!

	22-02-2002 20:24									#109
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by TheRascalKing Also, there should be a way to destroy units in cities on 1-square islands before the advent of amphibious warfare. I have a game in which the annoying Russians were entirely destroyed in the second age, but I could not finish them off because they had a lousy city on a size-1 island. Stupid Russians... (BTW I realize I could give a unit amphibious assault before amphibious warfare, but I think a lot of problems would be solved if bombardment could destroy any unit)

Ever heard of Gibraltar? Even with modern weaponry, that place is almost impregnable. Any attacking force would suffer huge losses. I don't believe that there has ever been a nation that has attempted to capture it by force, though I could be wrong here. It just wouldn't be worth it.

	22-02-2002 22:24									#110
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Originally posted by Willem Ever heard of Gibraltar? Even with modern weaponry, that place is almost impregnable. Any attacking force would suffer huge losses. I don't believe that there has ever been a nation that has attempted to capture it by force, though I could be wrong here. It just wouldn't be worth it.

Actually we could probably just firebomb it into dust.

But seriously, just because there are a few instances of nigh-impregnable islands in the real world (such as Cyprus and Gibraltar) doesn't mean we should be entirely barred from attacking such islands in a game which exists solely for the purpose of having fun. Really, if someone WANTED to frontal assault Gibraltar in real life, they could if they so chose, which one cannot say for Civilization 3.

Also, using the argument of "it would be too dangerous" in this instance would force the "zone of control" argument, then. It's far too dangerous to leave one's flanks unsecured. Thus, if we're going to completely disallow one, it's only sensical to completely disallow the other, too, but as it seems Firaxis just had a bunch of seemingly unrelated and poor ideas they wanted to try in a new strategy game and Civ3 was the poor scapegoat.

	23-02-2002 17:28									#111
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by TheRascalKing Another thing I'd like is if additional science points you're leftover with would carry over to the next advance you research. The only argument against it is "Well, research in one field isn't necessarily compatable in another field" and it's a bad argument. Why, praytell? It could naturally be assumed that, as soon as something is mastered, research would then progress in a different direction, and being that each turn is at least a year long, it would only make sense that, during that year, when they discovered amphibious warfare, they would stop researching that and move on to, for example, combined arms.

Not necessarily. The argument could be made that all knoweldge is ultimately related, but "breaks" in knowledge aren't so simply defined and the results acquiring knoweldge are often far from instantaneous. Of course, in a turn based system, you have to have "break point" somewhere, but this may contribute to a misconception in epistemology.

That being said, I would like to see the current system of instantaneous tech trading become moderated by a "learning period" where the civ receiving the tech outside of "normal" research towards the advance must wait a few turns before being able to employ it. Think of it as time spent absorbing and understanding the new information. The actual time required to master the new information could be modifed by the scientific capabilities of the civ receiving it, with possible additional modifiers from scientific ability of the civ teaching it. Also, the more techs someone receives in trade, the longer the waiting period, although the time delay for each could run concurrently. It might even be "fair" to penalize the tech the civ is currently researching, since manpower and resources would have to be devoted to bringing the new knowledge online. I think this approach would redefine the balance that appears to be lost due to the AI collaborative trade network and "tech-whoring" in general.

Comments?

	23-02-2002 21:14									#112
	More Editor Options: Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Units could require a certain City Improvement, Wonder or Government to be built.

Option to allow artillery to destroy land/sea units (not my idea).

"Long Range Artillery" option. Allow an artillery unit to fire at double range, but with lower bombard attack strength/RoF.

Allow for operational ranges of over 8.

City Improvement option: A city improvement could increase the number of free units a city can support.

My 2 cents........

	23-02-2002 21:25									#113
	Re: More Editor Options: Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by hetairoi22 Units could require a certain City Improvement, Wonder or Government to be built.

I've thought of that as well. The problem is that the AI is a lousy builder, it can't plan nearly as well as a human can and usually builds improvements haphazardly. So if by chance it doesn't construct that particular building, or very few of them, then it's left with a serious disadvantage. Unless the units are so feeble that it doesn't matter whether it does or not, making it rather pointless to have them in the first place.

	24-02-2002 12:01									#114
	Put an end to popups!

These specific changes to editor (recognize this repeats ideas from above - meant as summary):

*Add the "airpower" slot of improvements/wonders menu to units menu for sea, land units, auto blanks out for air units - provides AA ability now to units.

*move selection window for "chance of interception" from general settings menu to units and improvement/wonders menu - probably asking too much.

*Have to differ with Willem here - add "required improvement" slot from improvements/wonders menu to units menu.

*Eliminate range 8 limit on operational range.

*New air mission - "tactical missile attack" would allow designated aircraft to do air-launched cruise missile attack - not as strong on this as others, but this would allow some modding to reflect increasing firepower of bombloads with tailored "cruise missiles" make it work like a combination of bombardment and airdrop. would have to let air units carry cruise, tactical missiles.

*let helos land on carriers - follows from above.

*Add "made obselete by" slot on units menu - removes unit from build options when made obselete.

*a base unit like the warrior for each age, that makes its predecessor obselete - 111 goes to 221 goes to 331 goes to 441 or something like that - maybe not in the next patch, but in an xpack.

	24-02-2002 12:32									#115
	Re: Re: More Editor Options: Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by Willem I've thought of that as well. The problem is that the AI is a lousy builder, it can't plan nearly as well as a human can and usually builds improvements haphazardly. So if by chance it doesn't construct that particular building, or very few of them, then it's left with a serious disadvantage. Unless the units are so feeble that it doesn't matter whether it does or not, making it rather pointless to have them in the first place.

Firaxis could set priorities to which improvements/wonders the AI would build or somethin'. Or would that be make the game to predictable. Or Soren must "just" improve the AI... IMHO they should add the option anyway. The more options the better I say!

Any ideas...?

	24-02-2002 15:07									#116
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Surrender of units. When the probability of losing is over, say, 90%, the unit surrenders. It's realistic and would cut down on complaints about goofy combat results.

	24-02-2002 16:33									#117
	Inflate your Upload Space

Nice idea Ironikinit! Maybe there should be a chance of not surrendering, like mounted units don't always retreat.

On my way home from church, this idea came to me:

What if you split the "Bombard" setting in the editor into two options:

"Bombard" and "Ranged Fire".

Bombard units can only destroy improvements in a city, and cannot damage units. Well, maybe if the square they were in was attacked, like bombard units do now. I dont know if this new kind of "Bombard" units should be able to kill citizens? They could be hiding in the structures of the city or somethin'.

Ranged Fire units would be able to damage units ONLY. Again these should be able to attack the attackers of its square. I dont know if they should be able to kill citizens. These units, if they had an attack rate, would be able to capture zero defense units and if they attacked another ranged fire units they would use their normal stats; a/d/m (if they had any).

If you gave a unit both options, it would work almost like bombard units work now.

Bombard units would be Catapults, Trebuchets, Mortars and Rocket Launchers.

Ranged Fire units would be Bowmen, Longbowmen, Crossbowmen, Flamethrowers etc.

What do you'all think of this? Is it to complicated/stupid/hard for the AI to understand? Comments are welcome.

EDIT: These ideas could also be used for air/missile/sea unit of course.
Like Chemical weapons (missiles) could only attack units.

Sea units with both options checked would work EXACTLY as they work now.

	24-02-2002 18:26									#118
	my 2 pence Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

i would like in the editor:
civ specific and any civ starting places
changing wonders more: manhatten proj as a small wonder mainly

and in game:
better diplo
better foreign advisor screen, and others better (doubt it'll happen tho_)
less crashing

apart from that its ok

	24-02-2002 19:46									#119
	Put an end to popups!

This would probably be a non-trivial one to implement but anyway:

Have air missions be possible to be done with 'packages'. I'm imagining you hit a button saying 'create air mission' or something. Then you would select the air units that would be part of the 'package' (a mix of bombers and fighters). Fighters would duke it out first and surviving defensive fighters would hit bombers. Surviving bombers would hit the target.

	24-02-2002 22:28									#120
	Increase Your PM Length

A couple of things:

In the governments section of the editor, I'd like there to be two settings that need to be checked for corruption. The first would be for selecting one of the two basic choices of the current models, centralized or communal. The second would be the degree of each of these, i.e. Rampant, Minimal etc. Right now there's no way to adjust the communal model, other than the trade bonuses.

Secondly, with gov specific buildings, I'd like to be able to multi select different gov types for various improvements. So for instance, the Cathedral could be used by every gov form except Communism. I would also like to be able to select a principal gov so that, using the same example, the Cathedral would be more effective with Republic than with Democracy or Monarchy. Or maybe make it so that a principal gov would give the structure some bonuses, rather than reducing things with other govs.