The Next XP

[Bubba]

The Next XP

Here is my wish list for the next XP. I think that the things herein proposed are moderate changes that could be added in an expansion pack and are a merely extensions of the current firaxis game philosophy . I would be interested in other’s comments or suggestions of their own “feasible” wish lists for the next XP.

1. Three new Civs: one for South America (Inca?), one for Asia, one for Africa/Europe (Dutch/Portuguese/Ethiopian?);

2. A new air unit (called attack helicopter?) that functions in a way similar to that of the helicopter in Civ II, i.e. one that can remain in the air in enemy territory instead of executing air missions as in Civ III.

3. Some tweaking of the UUs, so that the American, British, and Korean UUs can bring on golden ages. My suggestion would be to give these and only these units lethal bombardment capabilities. If that were done these "useless" UUs don't seem so useless.

4. Creation of new a semi-UU for each of the cultural groups (which I cannot seem to remember the names of, so I apologize for any errors). Some possible suggestions: European = Crusader/ Trebuchet/Crossbowmen, American = ?? (brainstorm: how about a unit that can both move on land and on the water, I’m picturing someone portaging on land and canoeing on the water or perhaps some sort of revolutionary/special ops with invisible nationality?), Mediterranean = ?? brainstorm: Cataphract or Slaver with invisible nationality to capture workers?, Asian = ?? (brainstorm: how about an assassin, like an early cruise missile or a partisan that operates like Civ II?), Middle Eastern = Camel with an attack advantage over horse units. I would welcome suggestions.

5. A modern sea unit that does not require resources to be built and that replaces the sailing vessels and the ironclad, perhaps a PT Boat?

6. Submarines should be given the ability to bombard other sea units (not the shore) in addition to their ability to sink other ships. Another nice touch, would be to limit the ability of sailing vessels and ironclads to engage submarines.

7. The ability to add events to scenarios.

8. A new wonder (Eiffel Tower?) that once created allows one Civilization to ask another Civ to stop their war with X or else.

9. The ability to ask other Civs to leave your territory in a way friendlier than “leave my territory or declare war”.

10. Some indication in the build list that I already have some sort of power plant in that city (I propose an asterisk[*] besides the other power plants listed to be built).

11. A new advance (Colonialism?) that allows construction of another Forbidden Palace-type small wonder (brainstorm: Responsible government?)

12. A new government of some sort: I propose Colonialism/Empire which would act like communism in leveling out corruption and allow someone to replicate the British experience with more success than is currently possible. I know others are partial to Fascism.

13. Some tweaking to the Modern era (with an additional advance or two; brainstorm: Cryogenics?) so that it is a little more difficult to build the spaceship and one gets the chance to use some of the modern units that are then available (brainstorm: how about adding a couple of more parts to the ship or another small wonder as a prerequisite: Mission to Mars perhaps?).

14. A new terrain improvement called “Naval Base” that would allow ships to be restored to full health in one turn and would allow goods on small islands to be connected to your trade network. This would be especially useful when playing on an archipelago map and with islands where building a city is impossible or impractical.

[Jaybe]

6. Submarines should be given the ability to bombard other sea units (not the shore) in addition to their ability to sink other ships. ...

YES!

13. Some tweaking to the Modern era (with an additional advance or two; brainstorm: Cryogenics?) so that it is a little more difficult to build the spaceship ...

You can do that yourself in the Editor. Here's what I do:

Improvements and Wonders: (Alpha Centauri Spaceship construction delayed, costs increased).
KEY for following: SS Part: Changed Required Advance; Cost
Apollo Mission: (N/C); 1,000
SS Exterior Casing: Integrated Defense; 1,000
SS Stasis Chamber: Genetics; 640
SS Storage/Supply: Satellites; 240
SS Cockpit: Robotics; 500
SS Docking Bay: Satellites; 200
SS Engine: Satellites; 1,000
SS Fuel Cells: (N/C); 320
SS Life Support: Robotics; 500
SS Thrusters: (N/C); 500
SS Party Lounge: (N/C); 240

The Exterior Casing represents the actual ship. The other parts are stepping stones in developing the ship.

[statusperfect]

Add fundamentalism and fanatics!

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by statusperfect
Add fundamentalism and fanatics!

What do you think this is, Civ TWO??!

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by Jaybe

What do you think this is, Civ TWO??!

I really enjoyed the "crazy sh|t factor" of fundamentalism and fanatics. Communism in Civ3 doen't feel evil enough and has no cheap mass troops. Maybe communism should be allowed to draft regular infantries? Or maybe they should have a "army of the people" unit which was the same as infantry but cheaper? Any way i want the "evil government" to have an "evil crazy sh|t unit" to pump out in thousands.

edit: And die in thousands for the greater good. MOWHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAA!

[Pirog]

I think that "Hidden Palaces" should be ordinary structures that can be built in every city...but they should take a very long time to build.

I like the idea of having colonies...even if you place the current Hidden Palace in a perfect way you can never get an Empire like that of the British.

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by Pirog
I think that "Hidden Palaces" should be ordinary structures that can be built in every city...but they should take a very long time to build.

I like the idea of having colonies...even if you place the current Hidden Palace in a perfect way you can never get an Empire like that of the British.

How about hidden colonies as a leader option with navigation as requirement?

[Azeem]

A "South Asian" civ subgroup with the inclusion of the Khmer or the Indonesians as new civs. India ought to be put under the "South Asian" civ subgroup as well since the people of Bharata (what we know as "India") have extremely different architecture from the East Asians.

[Fosse]

14. A new terrain improvement called “Naval Base” that would allow ships to be restored to full health in one turn and would allow goods on small islands to be connected to your trade network. This would be especially useful when playing on an archipelago map and with islands where building a city is impossible or impractical.

This is a great idea... I'd love to see it with either Navigation or Magnetism. It's the same sort of thing they added with outposts and airstrips in PTW, so we know it can be done... and it would hugely increase the fun factor (at least for me) in island maps. Good thinking.

[Kuciwalker]

Your number 7 should be number one
Events (or the lack thereof) are why I still only play civ2 scenarios.

[Bubba]

I thought of a number 15:

15. Bring back advanced farms.

[Kuciwalker]

Yes, that too especially.

[FlakJacket]

How about a combined airbase/fortress improvement? Take the number of turns each takes, add 'em together and tack on 50%. This'd be good for space saving and small one square Islands where you don't want to build a city.

Also, can you still build and use airbases in another Civ's territory like in Civ2? I'm fairly sure you can't- and it's never really come up in-game. I think if you've got a MP and RoP agreement, this should be allowable. Kind of like NATO bases in Germany or how the US has airbases here in the UK. But if the agreements are cancelled then the base is shut down- lease is finished- and the planes are automatically re-based.

[WarpStorm]

I would like to see events.

I would hate anything that adds any more micromanagement, anything that makes warmongering more powerful or easier, and anything that slows down the game.

[Dominae]

Some new AI behaviours would be nice.


Dominae

[peterfharris]

Bubba, some of those things you want are in a mod called Double your Pleasure. Perhaps you could check it out?

[player1]

Ability to turn off razing (for scenarios).

[BigFree]

How about a UU for each era for each Civ? That way there are no more 'early Civ's' or 'late Civ's' in terms of power. I'd also like to see multiple GA's, but not tied to UU's wining a battle; more like your Civ accomplishing something significant like build a certain number of improvements or discovering a new religion or technology. It would be differen things for each Civ. The rewards for warmongers are still to great; I would attempt to tone that down a bit more by making the defense bonuses for fortification higher.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Nevermind all that - where'd you get that really spiff smiley? Hehehe.

(Smileys withheld for fear of being chased with an axe or whipped.)

[Tiberius]

Dark Ages

When a civ reaches high levels of corruption and unhappiness, has a chronical lack of culture and ... well, in other words has a high level of decay, it would enter in the opposite of its Golden Ages, the Dark Ages. In its Dark Ages every civ would produce less commerce, culture and production, its cities would be more likely to revolt and join other civs, no great leaders and some other negative effetcs that would last for 20 turns.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Pirog
I like the idea of having colonies...even if you place the current Hidden Palace in a perfect way you can never get an Empire like that of the British.

I agree and disagree. I think, corruption and happiness wise, it's easy to get an overseas empire that lasts about as long as Britain's did - or longer.

What should be changed is how damn strong the overseas enemy can be - but once again, the operative word is "can". Often, your cavalry can come up against spearmen, or pikemen, overseas... if you're bad-ass enough at home.

It is hard for a "small" civ such as real-life Britain to accomplish this task, but more experienced players than I could do it, for sure.

[Panag]

hi ,

more traits , unit trading , bigger era's , bigger tech tree , more units , thats about all that should be in it

lets hope its around near X-mass

have a nice day

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by BigFree
How about a UU for each era for each Civ? That way there are no more 'early Civ's' or 'late Civ's' in terms of power. I'd also like to see multiple GA's, but not tied to UU's wining a battle; more like your Civ accomplishing something significant like build a certain number of improvements or discovering a new religion or technology. It would be differen things for each Civ. The rewards for warmongers are still to great; I would attempt to tone that down a bit more by making the defense bonuses for fortification higher.

Excluding the last part (rewards for warmongerers still too great), I fully agree.

More UU's!!! I'd love 4 for each civ. It could be difficult to implement though: what do you propose for the Ancient UU of the Americans for example? Maybe there could be some UU's shared by some civs? Or perhaps 4 UU's, but not for each distinctive era? Imagine eg the Americans having two UU's in industrial en 2 UU's in modern era? They would make a very strong modern civ (as in real life) and in a game one might consider to not let the Americans grow too big or too strong for too long, as their later UU's could change the ingame balance of power?
But no doubt that more UU's spice up the game !!

Concerning the multiple GA, 2 or 3 sound good (1 is soooo lonesome ...).

AJ

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by Bubba
The Next XP

1. Three new Civs: one for South America (Inca?), one for Asia, one for Africa/Europe (Dutch/Portuguese/Ethiopian?);

3. Some tweaking of the UUs, so that the American, British, and Korean UUs can bring on golden ages. My suggestion would be to give these and only these units lethal bombardment capabilities. If that were done these "useless" UUs don't seem so useless.

4. Creation of new a semi-UU for each of the cultural groups (which I cannot seem to remember the names of, so I apologize for any errors). Some possible suggestions: European = Crusader/ Trebuchet/Crossbowmen, American = ?? (brainstorm: how about a unit that can both move on land and on the water, I’m picturing someone portaging on land and canoeing on the water or perhaps some sort of revolutionary/special ops with invisible nationality?), Mediterranean = ?? brainstorm: Cataphract or Slaver with invisible nationality to capture workers?, Asian = ?? (brainstorm: how about an assassin, like an early cruise missile or a partisan that operates like Civ II?), Middle Eastern = Camel with an attack advantage over horse units. I would welcome suggestions.


8. A new wonder (Eiffel Tower?) that once created allows one Civilization to ask another Civ to stop their war with X or else.

12. A new government of some sort: I propose Colonialism/Empire which would act like communism in leveling out corruption and allow someone to replicate the British experience with more success than is currently possible. I know others are partial to Fascism.

13. Some tweaking to the Modern era (with an additional advance or two; brainstorm: Cryogenics?) so that it is a little more difficult to build the spaceship and one gets the chance to use some of the modern units that are then available (brainstorm: how about adding a couple of more parts to the ship or another small wonder as a prerequisite: Mission to Mars perhaps?).

1. could be solved by implementing a 'create new civ' option --> choose out a couple of ethnic faces, two traits, one of the existing UU's ...

3. Yes, good idea, or better: get rid of them and implement better ones. These UU's are simply a disgrace to gamers of those countries (the usefullness of the man of war --> what a joke, sure Firaxians must have noticed this too I presume ?

4. yes, or simply more UU's and more units

8. new and more wonders, yes

12. more governments, yes

13. ok

In short, I also tend to agree with Panag

AJ

[Spiffor]

- Complete scenario abilities, at least on par with complete Civ2's

- Unit Trading. Please, please, please, please, pretty please. It would be a real pleasure for a diplomatic mastermind

- Allowing units of different Civs on the same tile

[WarpStorm]

Yes, unit trading (and gifting). I've been playing GalCiv some lately and one of my favorite features is giving units to a race to attack someone I don't directly want to go to war with but wouldn't mind seeing tied up in a hard war (and the AI will do this too!).

[Alfonso]

My suggestions:

- In the beginning of the game, To choose one between several UU by civ.

- To be able in the beginning to choose feminine or masculine leader of the game, for example, in the Egyptian to be able to be Cleopatra or Ramses.


New buildings:

- Mills: They increase the production at early times of the game.


New Wonder:

- Consejo de Indias: This reduces the corruption in the continent where you construct it, it cannot be in the continent where you have the Palace.


New units:

- Helicopters Apache, to attack units from the air.
- Antiaircraft missiles.
- Appearance of naval leaders to form Navies.

[Panag]

hi ,

the units trading should be without the technology of the unit (!)

have a nice day

[Spiffor]

Actually, unit trading wasn't in in the first place (after some debate among Firaxians) because they feared the feature would be abused by players dumping their old units to AI-civs, and let the AI pay big money in upkeep.
The AI cannot refuse gifts, even if they are poisoned, and it was tricky to code an evaluation of such gifts, so the idea got scrapped.

Today, I have thought of a very simple way to prevent this kind of abuse : make it impossible to give / trade units that are obsolete for the reciever. High-tech units are still welcome.

[player1]

Ability to turn off razing (very usefull for some scenarios if used in combo with disalowed culture flip).