I've been reading Civ 5 previews and taking some notes on the new features Fraxis is adding to it. I'm going to post them, along with a few of my thoughts, to hopefully get some discussion going on the usefulness of these features with regard to Elemental. Remember, even if my ideas aren't any good, a catalyzed spark from someone else might be.

This is a long post and I went to public school; so bear with me.

Hexagons – The new square!

With Civ 5, Fraxis has decided to switch to a hexagon based grid system for a few of the primary reasons:

Less jagged and better meshing geographical features

Easier movement (6 directions instead of 8)

Eliminates wonky diagonal movement

It'll be interesting to see the two big TBS releases this year using two different grid layouts. I'm wondering if players will take notice of the gameplay variations that each style brings.

Finite Resources – “We require more minerals!”

In the newest iteration of Civ, capturing a resource like iron will no longer allow swordsmen to be spammed. If a player controls an iron resource, it will allow the construction of X number of iron units, like swordsmen. If the player wants to construct more than X number of swordsmen, or iron dependent units, then they have to find another iron node on the map and capitalize on it.

I think this concept, slightly modified, would fit very nicely within Elemental; especially with the recent addition of global resources and resource stockpiling. Each non-perishable resource node would have either a certain number of extraction turns or a certain amount of resources stored within it. Once the node is used up it would disappear. Subsequently, another node of the same resource would spawn somewhere else on the map.

I'm hoping this would mix up the mid to late game when the resource nodes become completely tapped and new nodes need to be found. It would also help in instances where a certain type of resource may be concentrated in one player's domain. Once the lucky player depletes a node, it has the chance to spawn in a different player's domain; allowing a new person access to the resource.

Dynamic End Turn Button – Just plain neat.

This is just a fancy title for an “End Turn” button that changes if a city or unit is idle. Imagine a player just ended their turn and they forgot to queue any construction in a city; too bad. They just lost one turn or more of production. Who knows how long that city is going to sit idle before it's noticed.

With the addition of this feature, the previous scenario won't happen. The “End Button” will change and take the player to the idle city to queue construction before the turn is over. This makes sure the player doesn't accidentally leave a city idle and forgotten.

Elimination of “Stacks of Doom!” - Anti-Blobbery

Civ 5 is taking a radical departure from the previous games in the series in order to combat unit blobs. It's only going to allow 1 unit to occupy a land tile at a time. This prevents stacking 20 tanks into one square and then running everything in the adjacent tile over.

I was wondering if something similar could be applied to Elemental to prevent unit blobs. For example: only allow 1 army in a tile and restrict how many units can be in each army. It's basically logistics from GalCiv except it only allows 1 fleet per tile.

I'm sure someone else has a better idea.*See Brads post*

City Invasion – Cities, now with teeth.

Tired of having most combat take place within cities? So is Fraxis. In an attempt to force most of the fighting to be strategic and away from the cites, Fraxis has given cities the ability to defend themselves. This ability is based on population and defensive structures located within the city. Also cities are only allowed 1 unit to be garrisoned inside. This forces the player to defend offensively.

I think something similar, but not as extreme, would be good for Elemental. It would hopefully cause most combat units to be in the field, instead of picking their noses in a castle.

Elimination of Transport Units - Wooo!

Civ 5 will be eliminating transport units to streamline unit creation/management. When a unit needs to cross the ocean or whatnot, it'll automatically fold up into a boat that needs to be protected. It's the same concept that was used in Rise of Nations.

We haven't seen transport units in Elemental so far and I hope we don't. To me, they just add micromanagement and tedium. I'm hoping the game uses a similar "no transport units" setup.

*Once again, see Brad's post*

That's all for now. Feel free to comment.

Information Source: http://www.explicitgamer.com/blog/2010/03/civilization-v-what-we-know-so-far-2-0/

*Edit: This info isn't relavent in the Elemental forum, so I'm moving it into the PC Gaming forum. I'm also editing my text so I don't come across as telling the pros how do it. My intent was just to look at Civ 5 elements, make suggestions and spark debate. But as Brad notes, I don't have all the info.