I recently heard about you
project and decided to post some ideas – I know that most of them are rather
hardly to be accomplished (in fact it is not hard to be included in the game but
the problem is that the AI should be changed dramatically) but anyway – somebody
may have the time to realize them.
First of all, I think that
every game needs some kind of “spice” – it doesn’t matter how good the concept
and the implementation are, if the game looks sterile it becomes more like some
kind of application that you are forced to deal with against your own will. And
I must admit – although I love them so much – that this “spice” is something
that the most “civilization” type games lack. A good approach in this direction
was the Firaxis’s idea of creating fractions with significantly different
abilities that force you to assume some type of gameplay. Perhaps it won’t be a
problem something similar to be included in FreeCiv. It also could be added some
more random events making you adopt your plans for the new situation and
challenging the flexibility of your mind.
Probably another thing that
could make the game more colorful is the extending of the trade factor - for example a fraction has to discover
some technology and/or gain access to some map square with a specific resource
to be able to produce specific product so that the city/fraction
can establish a traderoute with another city/fraction that needs it. Probably it would be good that the
city/fraction producer gain significant bonus in this trade. The more
technology needed for producing and the better raw resources should
make this trade bonus higher and rise chances of accepting the goods
in the other cities. For example although MS Windows definitely is not the
best OS it is sold all around the world and the incomes
from MS taxes come to US while Albania for instance does not
have the technology to be the leading force in the Hi-Tech business. Also it is obvious that the main trade products change
as the new times come, it is normal that the
newer products are more attractive for the people.
One more radical idea would
be the allowance of the change of the taxes/science/luxuries percents for the
different cities so that there could be created trade and academic centers. This
would give more chances for success for the “micromanagement” type of players.
It also would make every city look much more different from the
others.
Well, I think I have to
stop here. I have much more ideas but I think that these are more than enough
for now.
Vasil Mantarov
