Suggestions for Civilization III (page I)

If you want to add new suggestions, please mail them to Allard H.S. Höfelt.

Because of the recent revival of interest for Civilization III following the announcement of the co-working of Hasbro and Firaxis, I have decided to re-open this site that was previously shut down. It is now 100% functional once again after several months of passiveness, and you can add your own suggestions to the list by mailing them to a.h.s.hofelt@student.tn.tudelft.nl.
Please type "Civilization III suggestions" for the subject.

After many hours of playing both Civ I and II, I have made a list of cool things to add to the game in the third version.
If you also have a good suggestion and want to be added to this page, please mail me and I will put you on this page and credit you.
All suggestions in blue are new.

• It can be very boring to see all enemy battles, and also their moves. There should be an option to turn them off.
  Also, all on-screen messages should have an auto-close time so that they will automatically close after a few seconds, so that when the player is waiting between turns and does something else (some turns can take minutes), there's not a stupid message on the screen so that the player will have to wait some other minutes.
• Diplomacy in Civ II is much too simple. I think there should be many more things to do in negotiations with other leaders, for example trading cities, units, etc. for money or something else.
• I think the civ II mapeditor has many, many things to be improved. Some new options could be:
  1. the ability to select certain parts of a map, to cut and paste them into others, or to resize your selection to for example twice its size;
  2. the player should be able to easily change all of a certain terrain in your selection (or everywhere) into another terrain type.;
  3. the player should be able to simply resize a map to twice its size or twice as small.
• In Civ III, there should definitely be an option to import old Civ II scenarios. Otherwise, the hundreds of scenarios on the web will not be played anymore, which would be really a shame!
• I think certain units (not too many) should only be buildable with certain city improvements, or even only with certain wonders. Like giving anyone who builds barracks a new unit (that cannot then become veteran, to keep it fair)
• Improvement of missile movement. Now especially the ability of nukes to land in cities etc. doesn't seem very realistic. I propose some sort of a compromise; why not transport them in some kind of a truck (like a Freight) from the town that built it to the place where it should be launched or loaded upon a ship? This also makes railroads much more powerful. Also more different missiles would be cool, some with a destruction radius of 2 etc.
• Different kinds of cities, for example colonies. These could be formed by special settlers, or by an explorer, or even maybe by any military unit, and could be used not to grow but to enrich the mothercountry. A colony could be improved into a city under certain conditions, for example if a real settler settles, or something. These colonies could be an advanced form of fortresses, for example. The great advantage of these outposts are that the different empires overlap each other more, and allowing battles between nations just for terrain.
• On the other hand, however, frontiers between civilizations should be better marked, maybe only by making a cool small map like in Civ I, in which was reviewed where the frontiers were during the entire game. Maybe roads also should be used more personally, because I often irritate when my enemy uses my roads which I made for regular trading to conquer me.
• Barbarians should be far more powerful, and especially far more organized. For example, they should have minor cities (not bigger than colonies are for real players), and should be able to join several villages into a real civilization when there is a place empty (just an example). They should be able to (really) attack, with a reason (and everybody, not just the player), and to form alliances. These barbarians could represent natives etc.
• Wars should be longer. In Civ II, it often happens that a civilization makes war with another, takes a city, makes peace, and the war stops. This is really a shame. Just as the human player often does (I at least), the computer should make more use of Blitzkriegs; conquering a whole civilization almost at once. Perhaps this could be dependable of level of hostility, reputation, etc.

The following ideas are less game-changing, and are more detailed.

• The player should be able to change as one looks like, and how others look like. Some kind of a mix between CivNet (never played) and Transport Tycoon Deluxe (where you can pick between unlimited faces). This is very useful (as in CivNet) if the game is multiplayable.
• Of course, I actually don't need to mention this because I know there have been complaints from the beginning, but I still do. The random maps are really, really, absolutely BAD. This should absolutely be normalized.
• There should be more possibilities to destroy cities. Also, when conquering cities one should have the possibility to completely destroy it.
• I think some nations should be eliminated and some new ones (maybe even seven new ones). For example, Europe is far too crowded, and there have been many greater civilizations than those in Europe. The Zulu's should have an enemy in Africa. The Far East (Indonesia) and Australia should contain some new ones. Also some civilizations should be removed, that were not really important. The Dutch for instance could appear, because they were far more important than many other ones not mentioned. Here's a list of some new nations, made by husu@cc.joensuu.fi:

  Abessinians - nice competitor for Zulu's.
  Songhas - another competitor. Africa is more important than many believe.
  Javanese - here's that Far East Civilization - they were important power around 1300-1500.
  Incas - Can you believe South America hasn't had any civilizations?
  Mayans - Well, I think them as a pathway to S.A for Aztecs.
  Australians - Because Australia won't be colonized too often.
  Arabians - Far more important than Germans or even French.
  Austrians - Well, you gotta have even one new European civilization.
  Canadians - To be competitor of Americans.
  Portuguese - Pedro Chaves thinks they should be added (see his suggestions on page 2).

• Throne room should be abolished and palace reintroduced. Also one should be able to buy parts of his palace (for example 1000$-2500$?), and it should once again be used to balance it civilization with the others as in Civ I with the historical overviews (how is it called? Herodotos etc.).
• Units should be able to cross small parts over seas, by building a bridge, a tunnel or a ferry or something, that is always there (until destroyed), and not moveable as a ship (a ship is always needed elsewhere). Also, some river- boats should be buildable instead of 1/3 movement point, or maybe only in the later part of the game.
• It is very essential that the famous customizability in Civ 2 as well as in SMAC and even in CtP must be used and even expanded. Units and rules should be as easily modified as in Civ 2, even more easily, for example by changing the formats of more in-game greaphics to standard formats. Also, I like the cheat menu a lot, not only for scenario designing, but especially because it shows some sort of a more sympathetic relation with the player.
• In scenarios, there should be a way to make neutral cities, so that they don't belong to a civilization and can do more than barbarian cities, maybe even cooperate with one or two others, which could be told in the city editor menu (I assume that those kind of things will be still in Civ III, for they were the biggest reason for Civ II success: customizability)
• The map of a conquered nation should be revealed. This is very logical and handy. Maybe also some diplomatic relations could be altered by conquering a rival.
• Submitted by: rlantz@mounet.com
  1. Units should not be completely destroyed, but rather have a chance to retreat.
  2. We should have a chance to colonize the Moon and Mars! (with enough technologies, of course.) Instead of Alpha Centauri.
  3. Ambushes, Ambushes.

Here is a suggestions list written by Culain:

• Battles should become more realistic with an option to allow the entire battle fought out blow-for-blow. You have the option to leave the fighting up to the random whim of the computer or you can go into a "battlemap" where your forces are lined up against the forces of the enemy and you can decide exactly how they are going to attack.
  Yes, but let it be possible to turn on and off.
• There should be more "information" and "history" about the game. What is the use of sending an explorer out when he doesn't discover anything??? There should be civilization prizes/happy citizens etc for discovering the planet's longest river, tallest mountain, deepest ocean, largest rainforest etc. The game should record historical events such as large battles, enabling you to give these wars names etc and recording scores against it.
  Monuments would be cool.
• Freight should be used as transport instead of just establishing trade routes. So your city is a couple of squares away from a discovered vein of gold, why shouldn't a transport run be set up to mine that gold and deliver it back to the home city? Just as you automate settlers so should you be able to automate this.
• The advances need to be sorted out a lot better. Currently it is possible to pick a particular stream of advances while ignoring others and throw technology completely out of whack! I had a game where I was flying around in propeller fighter planes and yet had not even researched "The Wheel". There are some civilization advances that must simply wait for others to be completed.
• Future Technologies XX. There should be somewhere in the RULES.TXT where you can actually set what some of these might be (just like you do for city names), allowing you to make your own technologies. Either that or with each new Future Tech that you research you are given a "random" reward for it (i.e. Future Tech 1 provides +5% trade, Future Tech 2 provides +2% money etc) This way you are not wasting production only to increase your civilization score.
  Or it should allow new future units.
• There should be more options than World Conquest and Space Race. Why not include "Utopia"? Where your aim is to raise your civilizations "Standard of Living" to 100%? where your civ is a complete paradise. Then there is the option of "Solving the Riddle of the Universe" where you get enough technological advances to solve the mysteries of the universe.
• The diplomatic/espionage options are a little in short supply. How about assassination of the leaders? Or setting up companies within your enemy cities to siphon money from them? Instead of asking for money now and then you ask for an ongoing tribute? Manipulating the Media to overthrow a senates decision to disallow you going to war?
• I also think the governments need a lot more work. Aside from the usual alterations in costing/happiness/production etc that comes with each type of government there should also be some interaction with that government. The senate keeps getting in your way, what about bribing senators (it happens in real life), democracies where you try to get re-elected, communism where you have to look after the people, monarchy where you have successions to the thrown? (Don't you think the same king for 3000 years is a bit much?)
• Here is another point that people overlook. The game now comes on a CD-ROM... which can hold 640MB of information. They fill most of this up with animations and music to add to the game. What about allowing for more civilization types? Different city pictures? (other than just 4!) Different leader pictures? Different unit pictures etc. In single player mode it wouldn't be too hard to choose what your civilization is going to be and download that information from the CD-ROM onto your harddisk. Even in a multiplayer mode having 3-4 on your hard drive wouldn't be that hard.
  But don't make it too complex to be customizable...
• Customization. This is what I would call the BIGGEST of all the things to improve. With Civ2 they hit a winner in allowing you to modify the rules, pictures etc... but they didn't go far enough. You *still* have the same leader pictures, number of advances, number of wonders, effects of wonders etc. The game should allow you to modify/enhance or change any part of the game that isn't bolted down in the engine. You set up a "Star Wars" scenario and go to view the city and see it in Civ2 !?!?! Doesn't quite work.

Submitted by Michael Crayne

• In the game, you or the computer have a chance to offer SIGNING a peace treaty, yet all a treaty is in the game is a mutual agreement of non-aggressiveness. Wouldn't it be better, if for example you take your enemy's capital city, in real life that country would be forced to capitulate in front of their enemy and would have to agree to the terms and conditions of their capitulation (meaning money paid in reparations, handing over of territory...etc...), I think that some kind of this should be included in the game and specially so in the scenarios where you must wipe out the enemy totally. maybe this could be done in a way that a special screen shows showing the map of the world and you can choose (out of yours and the enemy that has just capitulated) which cities belong to whom. Then again if the same thing happens to you, you must agree to whatever the computer asks of you.

OTHER CIV III SITES:
Please mail me if you know or own an other Civ III site.

Apolyton's Civ III page
Apolyton's Civ III forums
Donald C. Dimitroff's Civ III Suggestion page