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I believe that when game designers sit down and try to figure out how to tackle the job of making the next installment in the Civilization series, they need to take the approach of the scenario designers. Their exist certain frustrating things in all of the Civ titles which severely limit the imagination and creative needs of the gaming community. So I say, develop the game last, and do the hard work first.

The fun, of course, is designing the intricasies of the game. What techs you can discover, what units you can have, what the wonders of the world may be and what you can stick in your cities. Leave this all until last.

The hard work is creating not just a scenatio editor, but a Modpack Designer. Do this in the beginning. Make it simple to use with a nice interface, because the designers will be using it. Annoying things about the original games are limited amounts of tech, terrain, units, city improvements, wonders, and map sizes. They should be unlimited. If using static sprites on the old .bmp or .gif files, always allow them to be linked to another one if you need more space. If it can only hold 25 sprites, allow a second to be linked. Then, think of every possible thing that a unit could do, whether they be used in the game or not. Do not worry about game balance at all. Think of everything that a wonder or city improvement could do, and as well, do the same thing for technology. When I say everything, I mean it (well, nearly), and this would require a lot of brainstorming. Can a technology cause all horseman to receive +1 attack? Can a wonder change all grassland to desert?!!

Can a city improvement render a city invulnerable to missile attacks? Now, at this point, not one line of code should be written, not one graphic drawn, indeed, graphics should be last on the bill of tasks. Once you have this inventory of comprehensive lists, then combine them, for units, terrain, city improvements and wonders should be able to do the same thing if you want them too. So, now you have a huge list of stuff that anything can do in the game. How should they be classified? Are their more categories of things which the player could use to implement the usage of things on the list? There sure are. 1. City Improvements affect the city in which they are built.
2. Wonders affect the civilization in which they are built. Can only be built by one civilization.
3. Units are built by a city and move about the game map.
4. Terrain is unmovable, unowned (but possibly claimed), can be changed, built upon and improved.
5. Cities are built and owned. They are unmovable. They are economic and production centers. They can create military units.
6. Technology can be researched, stolen, traded, conquered or found.

Is there any other categories that we need? The answer is yes, of course. So, why break things down into just those 6 categories, make the unlimited. You can have set categories for ease of development, but allow new category templates to be created.

There are so many combinations to list, I’ll make it simple.

In the Mod Pack Designer, you create an Object. You have a few initial options when you create the Object: (these are PROPERTIES)
1. Movable or not
2. Building/Achieving limit
A. Once in the Game (like a wonder)
B. City Improvement or Unit (unlimited)B C. A fixed amount total allowed in the game (perhaps only 3 civs could get the tech "superpower")
D. A fixed amount per civilization (like a technology)
E. More than one per city
This would be the normal setting for units in typical games to be unlimited, but only 1 for city improvemnts. But, you could set it as a number for units if you wanted, or be able to build several graneries (or whatever) if you wanted in a city as well.
3. Does it have a sprite/icon (or whatever graphic is used) on the map.
4. Is it built or pre-existing on the map. (ie, terrain)
Of course, you can have set, stock categories for things like terrain or terrain improvemnts- or be able to create your own.

At this point, you can take that collective list, and allow them to be used for each object. You can assign attributes and properties to each Object. If you want a wonder that moves around, has combat stats, has production like a city, and can change terrain, then so be it. Now you have unlimited creation over all of the objects in the world. Remember, things like units and cities are now just objects, so the city object might be OBJECT 44 or something.
Here are a few brainstorms for ATTRIBUTES:
1. % of (food, or other object)) storage (50% for a Civ2 granary. It could be collective for multiple granaries set at 10% each, for example)
2. % increase in object (trade, food, etc)
3. # increase in object
4. % or # decrease in object
5. Radius of Affect (0 to unlimited, or other parameters such as "cities (object#) owned or units owned)
6. Flag Object (this could be used for example, to flag terrain to create borders)
7. Increase Radius of Affect of Object
8. Increase Movement of Object
9. Increase/Decrease (other various parameters of objects, such as attack, defense etc)
10. Bindable Object (this could be used for units like Admiral, which could be used to bind units into fleets, or you could have all your units bindable if you wanted)
11. +/- object on obect
Example: You have 40 kinds of terrain. They all need parameters set for everything. You set their production/food/trade/defense bases here. This would also be used for irrigation, roads, etc. 12. Change object to object
13. Etc. This list should be massive. List everything that every Unit, Technology, Wonder, City Improvement, Terrain and City can do in CIV2, CTP, and SMAC can do, and then add double that. :)

All things would either be OBJECTS or ATTRIBUTES. It is the Attribute list which needs to be extensive. Of course, the Object list may become extensive in time as you create them. The Categories are Objects which have the same properties but not nessecarily the same attributes (get it?).

The next thing to do is create a great map generator. I’ve already outlined a great one for Clash of Civilization, but I shall redo it for here. Make the Map generator with crude graphics first and just get it right before worrying what mountain look like, etc. Perhaps just have a tile (or hex, etc) that has an M on it.
We already have Objects which will be used for terrain. They are unmovable, pre-existing Objects.
The map program should be strong indeed, for it needs to act throughout the game. The first thing it needs to do is create the map. When you pose the size of the map, it should tell you a range of Main Landmasses which will fit into it. Say, a 100X100 square (or hex, etc) map would fit 3-7 Main Landmasses in it. The generator then creates full topography of the world and deems where mean sea level is, based on number of Main Landmasses. Then, it decides where the plates are and fault lines. Based on these, it will decide where the mountain range are. Mountains shouldn’t be just randomly placed little terrain pieces, they are important and should be in ranges. Once the Map is generated, the Map program will analyze the Map once very thoroughly to ascertain the location of all straits, choke points, and other key areas for military importance and recourse importance. All computer players will know this imformation.

A note on AI. The AI opponents should play the game like chess, meaning that they don’t really need to explore. They should know everything about the players- where their armies are, what they are building, etc. They should re-analyze the map every so often (based on difficulty level) and base their next moves off of that analyzation.

Now you have the map generator and the Modpack designer. Decide what kind of game you want to create. Is it 4000bc to 2500ad? Fine, define the tech tree, city improvements, wonders, units, and whatever other objects you want to create. Here is where you design the game, the prgrammers are really done at this point, and the designers can make the game. Of course, no Art or Sound is created at this point. So, if the desiners decide that they want an "assassin" unit, then the artists need to go and make it. Decide how the game should look and add the art.

Considering the marketing angle of this, you can make a bundle off of the mod-pack and scenario designers as well. Since from the beginning you would already have an excellent editor with in depth documentation, the living room designers would be most pleased. You could sell a separate "Game Creation Work Shop", as you would have a lot of power with a Game Editor like this one. Hundreds of games could be created. After that is on the shelves, put some animators (artists) hard at work to make additional graphics, also movies and sounds, and put out a quarterly Media Expansion Pack. Nobody can complain about these things, as they are not patches or remakes of the same game, but exactly what they are- expansion packs of art and sounds.

Various ideas for packs:
Wargamer’s Expansion Pack: This software would include sprites and icons driven by the desires of the avid "board" wargamers of olde. They would be as far from cartoonish as possible, but neither would they be realistic looking, only representative icons for "infantry, cavalry, etc.".
Space Pack: Futuristic Stuff.

I believe that if you tackle the project from this angle, it will reduce bugs, allow greater balance of the game (in the end), and allow you to work much faster to your deadline and still pump out a high quality product.
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About the author: Meteorologist in the United States Navy

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