Ideas for a new expansion

So a lot of people have been complaining about warfare in the game, especially early on due to lack of gold, too much unhappiness, etc. Then there is also the problem of a warmonger penalty during all eras, which can get really annoying mid to late game when trying to keep friendships.

So here's a few ideas for the devs:

1. Better honor tree. Perhaps make walls, castles, etc provide 1 GPT or make barracks, armories, etc cost no maintenance. This will help deal with the gold income.

2. Better Autocracy ideology. Okay, this is actually fairly obvious but have a tenet that gives some science to combat the 5% penalty per city. Maybe each military academy provides 3 science. That would emulate a country's policy of committing their scientific resources to the war effort.

3. New units. G&K did a good job with this for early and mid game units and BNW added bazookas and XCOM squads, but it really felt lacking. I like the idea of "Great War" units, so maybe add tactical units such as flamethrowers, poison gas, biological weapons, etc. A flamethrower unit could be ranged and have a bonus vs fortified positions like forts and citadels. Poison gas could be very effective against infantry and act like a one-shot weapon, or perhaps reduce a city's population without actually dealing damage like a nuke does. And maybe biological weapons can only be used against cities, which could drop the population every few turns and spread to other cities, similar to how religion spreads.

4. New World Congress/United Nations proposals. Embargoes against rogue nations are okay, but maybe a proposal to have a coalition against an enemy nation that doesn't incur a warmonger penalty. Finally we can take out runaways without everybody hating us.

5. Actual alliances. Let's face it, defensive pacts and DoFs suck. I mean, if it's supposed to deter attackers, why is it that I get roped into an unwanted war EVERY SINGLE TIME?!?!? Maybe civs with the same ideology have an option to enter an alliance where they join you if you attack a nation with a different ideology. And maybe they won't ask for free luxuries or 5000 gold all the time.

6. New warmonger civs. I'm talking like Romania with Vlad the Impaler or Prussia under Wilhelm (not sure if that really constitutes as Bismarck's Germany, but whatever). Or maybe update existing warmongering civs such as Japan to make them good at let's say, production or food as well as war.

Rant over.

Overhauled early diplomacy system. Diplo shouldn't start with the WC. I like options, give me more of them and make the AI understand how to use them as well.

Make early game warmongering worthwhile. Right now it's best to hang tight until Arty unless you are a Civ blessed with say battering rams or siege towers (though again, it's not really worth it that early unless it's 1v1).

There's a lot that could be done, it's Civ so it's practically endless, but we are not getting another expansion before CiVI.

I don't see how this is enough material to warrant an expansion.

Regarding #3 MORE units?? I would vote for less tbh. How often have you used GDR? It is already confusing enough to keep up with all the different unit types in the late era.

Regarding #4+5 I don't think it is necessary to add alliances. The UN just has to be modeled closer to its real-life brother. Breaking a repeated DoF should be near-impossible. Imagine Germany invading Poland today. The diplomatic effects would be devastating. The game lacks this. I am not saying it should be included, but I think this would address both your points.

Regarding #6 Japan and Germany are said to be changed with upcoming patches. Again, this is not new expansion material.

I think they should release revamped Germany/Japan with a WWII scenario pack. One for the European theater, one for the Japanese.

That sounds like a patch, not an expansion.

I wouldn't mind some policy tweaks, mostly for honor and piety could use a hand as well. Adding science to autocracy wouldn't really fit because autocracy was meant to help for every victory condition except science, I'd rather they tweak it by replacing futurism with a better culture policy since +100 tourism for a GP is very weak. The final tier culture policy is a little weak compared to the freedom and order ones as well imo. Other than that though I think the autocracy tenets are fine, the 2nd tier policies are really strong for domination wins which is pretty much the only time you should go autocracy.

As for units I don't think we really need anymore late game units, the endgame is already extremely saturated with them. Something to fill in the gap between lancers and anti tank guns would be really nice though and I'd love to see a few more naval units in the early game since you only get triremes and the galleas until the Renaissance.

Five things:

1 - Trade route & Caravan

a) Range of Caravan upgraded by 50% (with Animal Husbandry)

b) Production of Caravan: 25% faster

c) Defense of Caravan: Caravan receive a defense. Defense = 75% of your military strenght if you have more military unit than Caravan. So if you have two Warriors (8 + 8) and an Archer (5), the defense of your first three Caravan is (21/3)X 0,75% = 5,25.

If you have more Caravan than military unit, it's 66% (So with 4 or more Caravan, and only two Warriors and an Archer, the Defense of each Caravan is (21/3)X0,66% = 4,62).

So in Industrial, if you have many Artillery (one of the best unit) in comparison with many Rifleman, those "21" will decrease the Defense of your Caravan...

The same rule apply for Cargo Ship, by calculating the average power of your naval unit, then X0,75 or X0,66.

So if you don't have any Trireme of Caraval of..., the Defense of your Cargo Ship is... 0! Logic, no?

d) A new tech: Trade. You can search "Trade" in the Era you want. A tech with no pre-requist, but can't be found in an Ancient Ruin.

The cost for discovering Trade is 33% higher than the tech the most expansive for the current Era.

Example: During Ancient Era, if you need 12 turn for Sailing (or Calendar, Writing, or another "expansive" tech for this Era...), you need 16 turn for "Trade".

e) When you discover "Trade", you received 2 free Caravan, and your total of your trade route is upgraded by +2. The "range" of Caravan/Cargo Ship increase by another 50%.

(Maybe a World Wonder associated with Trade, but I don't have any idea.)

***

So, you play with more Caravan, each Caravan travel a higher distance, Caravan can defend itself, and production is accelerated.

NOW:

f) If you want to
1- exchange a ressource or gold; or give a ressource or gold; or ask for a ressource or gold, to/with another Civilisation, you need a trade route with this Civilisation.
2- receive ressource, unit, faith, culture, food, happiness from a City State, you need to be friend/ally with that C.S and you need a trade route with that C.S.

So basicaly, you can manage more Caravan, but you have to make some crucial decision with them...

Do you use them for internal boost (production, food), with other Civilisation (gold, ressource) or with C.S?

Now I think Diplomatic Victory and "support" from allied C.S. during Congress have to be changed too...

2 - Mobility for "Citizen" units

Foreign Settler, Worker, Prophet, Archeologist (etc.) into your own territory doesn't prevent you to move your own Settler, Worker, Prophet, etc. in your own territory. Two Caravan can cohabit on a same tile? So Worker can do it too!

3 - New kind of production for Archeologist, Worker, Settler

a) Archeologist, and Worker and Settler during Industrial (& +) Era don't require "production" (hammer).

University: Lose a "science" slot, gain a "expert" slot.
Public School: Lose a "science" slot, gain an "expert" slot.

a1) This will slow down a little bit tech in general by making Academies (very powerfull) a little bit rarer.

a2) Each "expert slot" (filled) give 10 point. A city can have 0, 1 or 2 building producing "expert point", so each city can produce 0, 10 or 20 point / turn.

Cost of each Archeologist, Worker and Settler during...
- Industrial: 100 point
- Modern: 80 point
- Atomic: 60 point
- Information: 40 point

So you don't have to choose between "Build a Factory of an Archeologist?" during Industrial. Build your Factory, and choose an "expert slot" from your

Further more, a Factory isn't supposed to accelerate the "production" of an Archeologist or Worker. A Public School has to do so!

4 - Max Airplane / city

Max of 1 "Fighter type" airplane / city; 1 "Bomber type" / city; 1 "Missile type" / city = 3.

It isn't enough? Bring back the "airport" improvement.

5 - City State, happiness and information

a) To be "friendly" with a C.S. = +1 happiness. Allied? +2.
b) Same thing with Civilisation: Declaration of peace: +1 happiness. Defensive Pact: +2.
c) War: -1 happiness each 10 turn in war (max: -5 / civilisation). Maybe "autocratic civ" could ignore this...

d) Let me know which Civilisation is friendly with each C.S...

They best way to encourage early war is to nerf early city defense.

Otherwise if you want to focus on early war then you have to specialize your civ for that. Don't build things that don't contribute to making gold to support your military.

Pillage! Hunt barbs! Get out those carvans and protect them.

CiV is quite perfected with BNW i think. At least i dont think the ideas and strategies of todays dev team will take it any further than this. There are some things i would like to see apart from what the fifth civ game got us. Like a more personalized feeling to your civ, that you could for example customize it in different ways. I also miss the civ specific language the units spoke in Civ4 when you gave them an order or just clicked on them. A couple of leaderheads for civs (like Stalin and Catherine for Russia, Churchill and Elisabeth for England etc) is something i miss from Civ4 as well. A feature where you would be able to choose from a number of different UA, UB and UU that comes with every civ would be nice, for example Germany could have a couple of different abilities to choose from before you start the game; a scientific one, a military one and a economical one. Most of the greater civs irl was around for many centuries in some form and they had different eras and directions. A customizable civ would increase the lifespan of that civ before you get tired of it so the devs wont have to be forced to put in lots of nonsense civs that wasnt really that great or important. Quality before quantity.

Also the fate of civs irl has been decided by many more factors than war, diplomacy, culture and tech races. History has been shaped by great migration of people, plagues that lay waste to entire continents and fundamentally changed history, natural disasters etc. These factors have been ignored in civ games so far (well, civ4 had random events which was a very small baby step in the direction im talking about) and should be considered in the next civ game. A true living world is more than just a few terrain types with some resources being spawned here and there. These are my thoughts and wishes from Civ 6, because i dont think we will see anymore expansions to CiV.

I bet it is more for patch material than expansion.
Here is my list:

I. Warmongering manace. Make world a little more cruel. Make war penalty scale with eras. War in antic - sure, this is the will of gods, war in Atomic = if you start it, your own citizens should be against it.

II. Untoucheable CS. Make it more acceptable to "unite" CS into our civilizacion. Break this "all-cs" league when attacking one of CS is like attacking all of them. In standard game half of CS should not see atomic era.
II.1 But in the same time make DoW CS little more harsh. Like you cant DoW CS and threaty in the same turn (after you pick this worker). At least 5 turn timer is needed. If you DoW CS it instantly start quest "denaunce this sucker". So AI will have interest in denouncing us.
II.2 Make CS policy something more than "buy victory". Starting with putting timer on money gift of 5/10/20 turns depending on amount.

III. Add negative diplomatic modifier "Your army is weak, but your lands rich". For most dictators this is ultimate reason to start any kind of war. And getting to Atomic era with just bunch of archers is such a mood killer.

IV. Make script for city founding by AI a little smarter. No cities one tiles from the coast, or river. Or in the midle of the ocean, or artic base. Or ignoring totally glorious hill spot on the river. (which is also mood killer) Generally make AI more picky with founding cities, so it will not head crash on policy/science cost thing. Also this city spam in industrial era could end as well.

V. Units. Hit a little "all ranged, single horseman" meta. Give "cover" as level I promotion for melee. And even give it free to all meele in Honor. Give horseman line unique automatic promotion "25% fighting bonus against archerlike and artilery".
V.1 Give a option to choose what we want to make from pikeman and charriot archers. Or just decide that pikeman are musketeers, and charriot are more xbow. Or...
V.2 Flesh out whole "mobile ranged" line with inherit perk "avoid melee", kind of skirmisher. Light cavalery. Since it is not like mongolians was the only one who got the idea of shoting from horseback. Sample line:
Charriots (of fire) -> Horse Archer -> Aquebusears -> Cavalry Artilery -> AT Guns -> AT-AT walkers ;-)
V.2 Give various of UU a little more edge. If no idea how to make them unique, just give them better stats.

VI. Make grant merchant count. Double the gold gain (scaling with eras). Imagine Grant Merchant as GE, which instead of hurry wonders hurry normal buildings in several cities (with cash). Or that it is something you gonna save faith for diplo win in place of GS/GWAM. Also make it scale with influence. 30 influence in antic (if it was possible), but smething like 210 information. So the GM will be a tool for diplomatic victory (combined with not so easy buy the CS).

VII. Revamp policies. Tradicion and Rationalism are ok. (ok, not overpowered) But everything else is meh in various ways. There is no longer time for collecting 5 branches, most games will end with just 2 branches and ideology, so make every choice count.
VII.1 Honor, Give 4 free mentanece units, so there will be means to hunt this barbs, kill units, or keep them as garrisons. Add more free/unique promotions, so Honor army will be really better. Like faster healing, or more fighter when flanking/being flanked. Free cover for meele. Give one easy smile per city, like for walls. Keeping garrison should be more like emergency than requirments.
VII.2 Give one free smile per Temple. Change temple bonus to flat gold, not % which never is worth it. Add some culture from temples. Kick tolerance to opener. Kick free prophet as 4th policy. Temple bonus +2faith. Overpowered? Desert folklore is overpowered.
VII.3 Patronage. Some buff to merchant confederacy would be nice.
VII.4 Aesthetic. Since cultural victory is no longer collect large number of SP, then aesthetic could grant some tourism/cultural influence. This whole thing "spend social policies so you can get more culture to get another social policies which are good for a change" is not definicion of fun.
VII.5 Commerce. Why Wagon trains are not giving free caravan (slot) is a mistery.
VII.6 Exploration. Being everything and nothing is fine. Just be better at it. Add "free archeologist, and 50% discount when training some". So theme for digging will be strong. Add some bonus to naval combat. And science from sea resources (from underwater research).

VIII. Some buffs to underdog civs. Germany, Denmark, and Japan need it most.
VIII.1 It would be nice if Denmar stick to the theme of Vikings. Maybe skirfiles promotion could be generic for all infantry units? It is not like they are that powerful. It would be nice if Berserkers could attac twice, that would be some real power. As for second UU: Drakan. Powerful triteme, with starting costal raider and prize ship, and ability to cross ocean for a price of health.
VIII.2 America, could have +2Gold for each specialist which will synergize well with buythetile UA, and general warmongering. Extra sight could be given to Iroqused, since Indian are more keen than colonist.

IX. Research Agreements could benefit more civ which is behind in tech, however full rationalism and PT could even it out to some degree.

X. Ban hammer. If someone don't want to play against some civ for whatever reason, let him. I kinda see the point of SP not willing to strugle against Shaka, or MP who dont want someone to end with Japan or Arabia.

XI. Costal City Blues. Costal cities could be given some more specific stuff.
XI.1 Marina, with discovery of Plastic it would be gold/hapiness building similar to circus.
XI.2 New lux "Seals". It is not more disturbing than killing whales or foxes, or ivory.
XI.3 Workboat could cost twice less, since at begining if you end with both luxes being sea it is arrow in the knee to any action.
XI.4 Cargo Ship could cost twice as much as caravans. So there will be more trade of high stake choice.
XI.5 With discover of Ecology there could be new improvment. "Offshore Agriculture" Which would allow to spend work boat to make +1 food on any shalow see tile. (this would not be accurate, but this is just a game)