1. AI
2. historical accuracy
3. Customizability
4. Diplomacy
5. units
6. graphics (units, map, etc)
7. terrain improvements (bridges, canals, etc)
8. combat (ranged combat, realistic combat, battlemaps, flanking attacks, sneek attacks, ambushes, etc)
9. cities (improvements, 3D graphics, etc)
10. national stuff (borders, governor regions, etc)

1. Make It Fun

9. more civs playing at once = larger maps. (combine these 2, so having more civs would automatically create larger maps, since more civs would need larger maps)

quote: Originally posted by UltraSonix on 12-22-2000 06:11 PM I think the techs and units of civ2 were sufficient... but the AI and diplomacy needs to be dramatically improved.

I certainly agree about the latter. I would add...

- At least 25% bigger tech-tree, 25% more units and city-improvements.
- ICS dead and buried, once and for all - but preferably not by "expanding" city-areas, or by fiddling with radically untested city-area model overhauls.
- Something thoroughly and cleverly thought-out, has been done about the Bigger-Is-Always-Better empire problem.
- Some new challenging and hardly manageable rise-and-fall parameters; specifically targeted at dealing with those enormous human player Eternal-China-Syndrome empires.
- Military world-domination is now much more of an uphill struggle, with help of whole range of gradually added parameters.
- At least two carefully selected totally new city-screen game-parameters (one of my favourites is the health-concept; which includes new CI:s, and some other nice addons).
- An expanded and much improved economical model, with economical warfare, market-cornering and a nice camel-replacing advanced trade-section (or tab) in that huge city-screen.
- A timeline that DOESNT go beyond 2040 AD. Firaxis concentrates their efforts on a really powerfull and userfriendly scenario/map-editor, instead. Some nice futuristic scenarios is added in the box.
- A new combat-model that have done something about the turnbased Stan & Oliver fighting-syndrome (yet not real-time), stack-able units of course, a combat-screen, and more.
- The interface: Few clicks, few tabs, large manager-screens, standard windows controls, skins...
- And LOTS of minor tweaks and changes - yet not changing for the sake of changing. Not like CTP.

Comment to many people on this forum:

I don't think history should play a very big part in Civ, because Civ is much about making an ALTERNATE history! Of course Firaxis must have the history in mind when they are making Civ3, but only as a start point.

quote: FIRAXIS, THIS IS THE ESSENTIAL CIV3! (27 March 2000, 15:16 EST/Civ3) After lot's of discussion and voting, this is the Essential Civ3 List : the fixes that need be done and the new ideas that must be in Civ3 in order to deserve the number "3" in it's title. The number next to each item is the votes it got in the final vote: Fixes 1. Trade - 105 2. Diplomacy - 86 3. Make It Harder For Civs To Last - 73 4. Comprehensive Scenario Editor - 72 5. Improved Road & Rail Rules - 72 New Ideas 1. Rise and fall of Empires - 75 2. Domestic Politics - 63 3. New Modes of Victory - 52 4. Energy - 48 5. Stacking - 46 TIE 5. Religion - 46 TIE others receiving votes Fixes 6. Bring Back News Reports - 52 7. No more Instant City Conversions - 52 8. Amazing City Veiw - 42 9. Faster Smoother Graphics/Interface - 35 10. Multiplayer Startup Option - 26 New Ideas 7. Open Source AI - 44 8. Expanding City Radius - 43 9. Detailed Replay - 41 10. Hex Based Map - 40 11. Simultaneous Turns of Play - 36 11. Different Levels of Cities - 36 13. Recruitment System - 29 14. Automatic Patrolling - 23 15. Tourism - 20 The "official" letter to Firaxis will be sent in the coming days. (Note: it's pretty encouranging to see that the first two fixes(trade and diplomacy) were already mentioned in Sid's recent message as things where there is going to be lots of imporevment) -MarkG

Also, check the results of this poll.

But since, i talk too much also...

11 MINUS 10> represent HISTORY in another entertainingly unbeatable revolutionary game.

Case closed, even if i couldn't make it to the March-officially-sent list to Firaxis.

Farewell salute to Hasbro Interactive quickie market investors, maybe NOW the designers can concentrate on the real thing without rigid timelines pressure and "the give us results before quality way of doing business".

2: More units

I fully support you on 1 & 2. Give us;

1. Unit Workshop
2. Terrain Workshop

I don't know about an improvement workshop.. That sounds tougher to implement.

Instead, my third request is;

Besides. If they aren't willing to make changes, then why make a sequel?

The aspect of S.E. that I liked in SMAC was that you could change an aspect of your civ without changing everything. You could take an industrial war-driven democracy, and turn their focus from war to research, and then 100 years later, when pollution becomes a problem, you switch your focus from freemarket to more green-friendly practice, while retaining the democracy and research-driven orientation.

I don't care how they do it.. add more slider bars, or copy the SMAC system outright. But it's unrealistic to have to change governments outright just to go to war. When WWII broke out, the allies didn't all change to communism or Fascism. There were changes in the structure and economy to be sure, but they weren't outright revolts or revolutions!