[Freeciv-Dev] Pie in the sky wishlist for Freeciv

[Vasco Alexandre Da Silva Costa <vasc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Civ IV slides got me going, so here is my pie in the sky vision:

This will be centered on game mechanics, because that is what I feel needs
more improvement right now.

Game mechanics improvements should try to:
a) minimize user boredom/irritation
b) maximize user addiction

=== Let us start with a):
I always hated how fighters cannot overfly an enemy tank. We mentioned
this here before. Units should belong to a sphere i.e. air/land/water.
If the spheres do not overlap and the enemy unit cannot strike at the
other unit, it should be able to move into it.

Ships should bombard land units, not plain melee. Just like in SMAC.
It is debateable if we should allow multiple square bombard range or not,
but a ship's guns should only soften up land targets, never kill them.
This would make ironclads less powerful for example.

It should also be a requirement that only land units can conquer a city
(isn't this true already?).

Armies are a good idea, because they reduce micromanagement by grouping up
many small units. Unit groups must have a game representation that enables
group moves, attack and defense. There should be some bonus when using an
army vs many units.

Trade routes should be automated or removed.

ZOC should be removed. I agree with Soren on this. But you should not be
able to enter a square with an enemy unit defending it.

Pollution needs some re-thinking. Having settlers clean up the mess is a
chore, unless you can automate them to clean up pollution. But IMHO the
best idea is to have pollution just reduce a city's production and
population growth rate, without corrupting tiles at all.

Global warming should not come as easily either. Larger maps should
accept more pollution before global warming because the planet can soak
it up better. Larger maps can have more cities, so this will help.

City disorder should reduce production progressively, each turn bumping it
down a notch, it is too hard now.

Managing many cities and many production queues is very hard. Perhaps we
should drop the city assembly line concept and create user defined spawn
portals (the user selects the target city) which funnel the production of
several cities. Call them projects or something. Oh yeah, this should
render caravans obsolete. We could have this be a lossy function which
means far away cities contribute less to the spawn portal production
unless you have better transport tech. There is a limited number of spawn
portals per player, which can be increased with special techs or
buildings.

=== Now for b) the addiction factor:
To create affection we need to create an object of affection. Something
special you can name and improve. Cities are sort of impersonal. They do
not move, etc. What is necessary is an avatar, or even better, heroes.
How dreadfully unoriginal, yes, I know. :-)

Heroes should have a name and skills, which can be random, picked
or purchased at a certain cost, with tech requirements. They should also
improve their attributes with experience.

Nation specific traits. Units, skills, etc. This can make the game more
varied.

Improve the social factor with better diplomacy and coordinated
actions.

Something akin to the Galciv or SMAC council would also help.

---
Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa @ Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa