Easily implemented last minute changes that would make civ3 better

[korn469]

This thread is dedicated to hopefully getting firaxis to change a few things in civ3 which are fairly easy to change but aren't in the rules.txt and would have a great impact on how you play civ3

the most important change they could implement in my opinion would be

*make it so that every city has to have at least one worker (ie you can't turn the entire population into entertainers) but hopefully they could make it so that every city had to have two workers

with this change then on deity managing happiness would actually become something to pay attention to...this one change would prevent many exploits of the game, such as turning all of the workers (in a democracy or republic) to entertainers to avoid civil disorder...since military support cost now come out of the treasury one could home all of their units to a single city turn all of the workers into entertainers without this improvement and then conduct war better than any other government

if each city had to have two workers, then on deity civil disorder could be real threat...without proper planning then happiness could stunt your civs growth...the city could no longer turn who it needed into entertainers and then buy temples or army units to quell disorder

because of the ability to turn every citizen into entertainers then a player can always choose when they want to have civil disorder, this should not be the case, the player should have to cope with civil disorder without the crutch of being able to turn everyone into entertainers...this would also increase the use of luxeries for something besides score pumping

*a city that is starving should have increased unhappiness

this should be easy enough to implement and it makes perfect sence...usually in civ2 and SMAC when people started starving nobody seemed to mind and sometimes this could actually lead to an increase in the happiness of the city

*an occupied city without military units should automatically have civil disorder

this would slow down conquest and would be easy to add

as i think of more i will add them...if you have suggestions please add them and if you have comments i'd love to hear those also

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by korn469
this would slow down conquest and would be easy to add

as i think of more i will add them...if you have suggestions please add them and if you have comments i'd love to hear those also

If you add that, you must also add immigration to allow you replace the occupied population with your own people. You must also add an "intergation" or "assimilation" model so the occupied people will become your own population eventually.

[Colon™]

Statistics, graphs and pie-charts, and lots of them, and in nice surveyable screens as well if that wouldn't to be much of a problem thank you.

[Eagle one]

I agree to Korn469, that occupied city without military units should automatically have civil disorder! An occupied city cannot just work like any other city of your empire. As in real life, they will try to get back to there old civilization. And so if there is no military unit in, they revolt.

I also agree to Colon. Detailed Statistics would add a lot of fun and wouldn't cause a lot of work.

[Eli]

Change the font. The "U" looks like "V".

And as Colon said, STATISTICS! Lots of them, for everything. Including the average losses of howitzers per year.

[Miatezhnyi]

[SIZE=1]

*a city that is starving should have increased unhappiness

this should be easy enough to implement and it makes perfect sence...usually in civ2 and SMAC when people started starving nobody seemed to mind and sometimes this could actually lead to an increase in the happiness of the city

I like this idea, though it seems to me that you would have to change how government switching works somewhat. Dropping to a state of anarchy between more respectable government often leads to starvation in big cities....the starvation would make the civil disorder much worse than it already is sometimes.

[korn469]

Miatezhnyi

maybe when you are in anarchy starving cities shouldn't upset your people anymore than it does now, and that penalty would be solely for civs that are not in a state of anarchy

and i still think that if firaxis does not implement that all cities have to have at least one worker then players are going to do the same army laundering that they did in SMAC (it was easily done) and in civ2 (shakesphere's theater) and thereby escape most if not all of the penalty from low police democratic and republic governments

[Vanguard]

How about different types of settlers? You could, say, build farmers, ranchers or miners. Farmers would form a farm city that would gain extra food production. Ranchers would gain extra wildlife production, etc.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Vanguard
How about different types of settlers? You could, say, build farmers, ranchers or miners. Farmers would form a farm city that would gain extra food production. Ranchers would gain extra wildlife production, etc.

Ahm.... there are a few pronlems:

1) It is not an easily implemented last minute change
2) It would not make Civ III better (too much micro managing)

[Admiral PJ]

On the issue of assimilating new cities etc,
how about they have a Newspaper improvement, that can be government controlled to spread propoganda among citizens to make them see your way of thinking , and stop trying to regain their city once you've conquered it.. that is if you can write newspapers in their language yet . .

I hope we can edit new buildings abiliites better at least, perhaps enabling us to have 2 library buildings buildable, to help with scenarios and allow cheaper libraries later on under the name of a Newspaper Office..

[tniem]

Originally posted by Vanguard
How about different types of settlers? You could, say, build farmers, ranchers or miners. Farmers would form a farm city that would gain extra food production. Ranchers would gain extra wildlife production, etc.

They already are moving in that direction by seperating settlers to only building cities and having workers to do tile improvements. My guess is there will be more advanced of each group in late game to do each task better, more efficiently and in the case of workers to allow more terraforming.

[Admiral PJ]

More types of settler?
well in my scenario i'm doing now based on the multiverse scenario for Civ2 TOT
i made a Colonist (Pioneer) unit, which is a slow improvement settler with attack of 2! and defence 2 1f 2h
it comes with the 17th century tech of Colonialism, and i also intended it to be used as a Millitary Engineers similar unit (for lack of unit slots left)

So.. if Firaxis don't do it, maybe theres some scope for modification by scenario makers (modifying the base original game).

Remeber also the big problem with making game rule changes or strategic things, is that the AI may need to be added onto which is a big problem in programming terms .. so it would be hard to implement new game concepts to the AI near the end I would say (such as recreating ecological wildlife damage etc) .

[Vanguard]

I think multiple settler types would be fairly easy to implement. You'd need a little more artwork, but all you really have to do is change the little guy's hat and the color of his clothes. AI rules would require some thought, but the build AI is already going to be very complex and is probably a work in progress. I don't think this would materially increase the AI programmers job any.

This wouldn't increase micromanagement any... it's a one time decision that adds a bit more strategy to your early build decision. It would also be a signifigant, but easy to understand, novelty in settler building strategy. IMO this game is going to need all the novelty it can get.

[korn469]

It would also be a signifigant, but easy to understand, novelty in settler building strategy. IMO this game is going to need all the novelty it can get.

besides being a novelty what problems do multiple types of settlers solve? i'm still a little lost on that one...i'm fairly certian that settlers will get be replaced by city planners or something like that in the modern age so civ3 should have two types of settlers

my suggestions were tyring to solve three problems all related to happiness

*army laundering...this removes the penalties of republic/democracy in civ2 and Free market/cybernetic in SMAC, and once you remove the penalties you remove the game balance...if this problem isn't addressed in civ3 then it will ruin the game, because unlike in civ2 army laundering will be a much more widespread problem since units are supported by gold from the treasury
*the ease of world conquest...it is too easy, and once you subdue a population you should have to have some kind of occupation force
*again usually starving people are indicative of world conquest (starving the cities back down to size) but people shouldn't ever be happy that their government is so ineffective that it lets them starve

[CapTVK]

A quick start option like Civ2 that goes beyond 2000BC. This would be ideal for MP-games. Everyone could start out with several cities and assorted units in 500,1500AD, 1750AD etc...

This would dramatically speed up the game for us wanting to have a go at it with tanks and nukes.

[CapTVK]

Oh yes, and NEWSPAPERS HEADLINES!

Bring back the headlines from the original Civ1, please. They gave the game a unique touch that was missing in Civ2. The fun part was that you could change the headlines in a text file.


"Sid Meier fiddles while Civ3 burns!"

[Sandman]

As I've said elsewhere, civilian nuclear shelters.

>Saves your population in the event of a nuclear strike.
>Terrain and Cities still wrecked.
>Still have to put up with suggested radiation effects.
>Doesn't work against terrorist 'suitcase' bombs.
>Really expensive.

Any thoughts on this?

[Sandman]

Another idea I've just had.

You should be able to play as the Barbarians. Instead of starting the game with settlers, the Barbarian player would start with a few military units and perhaps a ship at a later stage in the game than usual, when the conventional players have maybe four or five cities. Once you've captured a city, you settle down and it becomes the capital of your new empire. I would also like to see AI Barbarians doing this. Not only is this historically accurate, but it would be an exciting alternative to the normal start-up routine.
Naturally it's a bit hit and miss, but I think it would make a fantastic and easy to implement side-option.

[Admiral PJ]

I think mechanical diggers could be used from the 1940's onwards as advanced setttler/engineer worker units. They'd just replace engineers maybe, giving more non combat game options.
Civ 3 barbarians are already going to build camps i think.. where they can repair and make new units i guess, they wouldn't work as a normal civ probably, they need to be able to pop up randomly at least to make the game more interesting if your winning and give us something to fight if we only have 8 civs available.

[CyberbugFredrik]

Yes, statistics - and lots of them! Why not? They will be very easy to implement even at this stage of the game. I would like lots of information, pie-charts, exact numbers, calculations and such.

Here are just some examples:
I wanna know how strong my military power is ten turns in the future provided that my production remains the same.
I wanna know how many turns it will take until my population will become displeased with my pollution if I continue to pollute as much as I do now.
I wanna see how my general reputation is among the leaders of the other nations.

That would be great to browse through while you are waiting for your turn.