Civ 6 - The Next Big Thing?

If this should be in Ideas and Suggestions, then .. well move it there. But I don't deem it to be "Ideas and Suggestions".. probably is going to end up as one

But I have a question for everyone. What do you think is going to be the next big thing they introduce in Civ 6?

As far as I know. Each game (not counting 1 and 2 since I've never played but even them I'm sure brought in something brand new) had some kind of revolutionary mechanic that the previous games didn't have.

Civ 3 brought in borders (right?)

Civ 4 brought in basic Religion, updated warfare (introduction of Promotions system), more management options (Civics)

Civ 5 obviously re-volved everything

So what could Civ 6 bring that we haven't yet seen?

I personally feel like we could do with more empire management mechanics (yes, micro-managements) so that we have something to do if we're not warring.

I think CiV's innovation in this list would be hexagon tiles. I think CiVI will introduce new political developments and try to historicize the gameplay a little more; for example, RFC-type timed spawning could be an interesting single player mechanic for the base game, but more likely they'll adapt culture to fit new political developments, so as to accommodate multiplayer as well. Likely, culture will be overhauled.
I mean right now to win a cultural victory you have to develop little suitcases called tourism. It's pretty weak IMO.

I would love to see something tracking civ features that have come and gone. I am not sure how granular you want to get. For example, was it III or IV that first dropped separate defensive/offensive strength? How about Army units?

For IV, in addition to Religion and Civics, we had corporations and Vassals as The Next Big thing. I don’t recall warfare being all that different.

I also would not characterize V as “re-volved everything”. We got hexes, 1UPT, and Ideologies. The rest, even SP being so different from Civics, actually seems more incremental. The religion mechanic is so different, and we now have faith as a yield, maybe that should count as new as well? EDIT: Also tourism and CV.

VI will bring compatibility with touch-only UI -- so will ship for iPads and tablets.

No one predicted the big changes from III to IV, nor IV to V. So I think Sid will surprise us with at least one aspect of the game which is completely new and different. All these threads, and I don’t recall any ideas for The Next Big Thing.

Maybe we'll get a perfect apex between historic and gameplay-friendly warfare. Maybe we'll get realistic space usage and cultural/political developments. Maybe economic output will be based on resources instead of terrain.
Maybe pigs will fly.
The next big thing will probably be small tweaks to a few key mechanics (IE, all units have 2 moves, culture drives government and policies replace technologically-based political innovation, civilizations have traits and are very very unique), sprinkled among some very profound changes (1UPT, etc etc).

I hope we get more terrain customization features again--stuff that got taken out in V from previous iteration like alpha centauri and III&IV.

examples:
- can't replant forest in civ V
- can't build artificial water or land: (canals/islands) like was possible in alpha centauri
- also can't build modern bridges, tunnels through mountains, chunnels under ocean or any of that.

I'd love to see all of these become available with appropriate costs/balance. Maybe big projects require a great engineer. Instead of his tile always being a manufactory with the appropriate tech you could build a civil engineering feat like the golden gate bridge (spanning a water tile), a canal, or an artificial island!

I'm sure civics will be reworked again, hopefully cultural victories and the tourism/culture mechanic will be more polished and make more sense. It'd be cool to get more then 3 ideologies as well. The current list reflects the branching of ideas in the 20th century into: democracy&capitalism, communism&socialism, and fascism&totalitarianism. But there are also many countries that chose other options. For instance, there are capitalistic (sort of) communistic countries like china. There are also capitalistic monarchies like Thailand. And there are also democratic socialistic countries like Sweden. I'd love to see these hybrids become available where there is a difference between the government structure and the economic choices/freedoms the government allows the people.

I'd love to see the return of global corporations as well and vassal states. And I've always wanted revolutionary activity to be reflected in Civ V. to do this we'd need a return to local happiness emphasis where if certain populations became too dissatisfied they would revolt. Instead of joining a nearby civ they could also choose to become a separate country and start on the tech level of the civilization they left. We could add a whole bunch of historic civs that came from such revolutions and have a chance of occurring. managing revolutions would be done as in Civ III. Station lots of troops to prevent it or attack the dissenters if the secede. You would get no war penalty for recapturing seceded cities as long as you did it quickly enough. Returning to a more local happiness model would also make war make more sense where your native population can have celebrations when you win a war whereas the captured cities are very unhappy. Civ V averages all this out for a rather nonsensical war model.

Meaningful diplomacy. The end of:

1) I'm England. Germany attacks France.
2) I attack Germany so France is not destroyed.
3) France says 'you're a war-monger!'

I like your ideas danaphanous!

The Next Big Thing in VI could be bringing back every significant feature ever dropped. Integrating the best of everything would be a sufficiently large task for a 25th anniversary edition that they could skip any new features!

It looks like Ed Beach, designer of expansions Brave New world and Gods & Kings will be the new lead designer. He has been working an unnamed project, probably Civ VI.

He is also boardgame designer, so maybe his boardgames have a hint of what is to come?

Just check the features on his 'Virgin Queen' game, pretty Civ-like huh?

Religion: Streamlined from Here I Stand, the new rules for religious conversion and rebellion allow actions to be resolved quickly, reflecting the already entrenched presence of both Catholic and Protestant factions across the key areas of religious struggle.

World Map: Oceanic expeditions are now under direct player control as they sail to the Caribbean and beyond to seize plunder, found colonies, and attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

Diplomatic Influence: Alliances with minor powers (and major powers that can be activated in games with fewer than six players)

Patronage: Your royal court will be visited by artists, writers, scientists, and architects

Espionage: you can ask your ambassadors to spy on foreign courts, send out handgun-armed assassins, invest in cryptology, and even recruit Jesuit priests for undercover missions of conversion.

****

His boardgames have heavy diplomatic options and dealmaking, so hopefully VI will have that going on!

I also remember when G&K was released about how they would have liked some sort of "terraforming" (canals? dams?) but couldn't do it with the current system, so maybe Civ VI will have some sort of different levels of map elevation and more graphical dazzle.

Sherlock said:

Meaningful diplomacy. The end of:

1) I'm England. Germany attacks France.
2) I attack Germany so France is not destroyed.
3) France says 'you're a war-monger!'

Click to expand...

Or:
1) would you please attack Germany with me... They are real bullies!

2) Yeah ok! Lets do it buddy... Oh BTW I would need you to open border so I can get my army on the battle field.

3) GO TO HELL!! March them aroud you sucker!

???????

Happen to me twice...
Nothing I could do to get the borders!! NOTHING!

^^^
There IS a diplomacy option for this "sort of". Under "discuss" is the option "shall we declare war on X". It sometimes works and avoids penalties with the civ you enter with. It's your equivalent of them asking you to go to war. Unfortunately I don't know if the option is there if the civ is already at war with them but I haven't checked. But yeah them denying open borders usually happens if they dislike you. Unfortunately they won't change their mind even if borders would help you defend them.

Let's hope they don't ignore the community this time.

I.E Spearmen/Pikemen are broken against mounted ranged units. (3+ Years broken).

Probably culture and diplomacy will be reworked heavily. I could also see "historical events" like a lot of modders have introduced for Civ V already. Also Barbarians are probably going to be updated.. Hopefully.

Sharples said:

Let's hope they don't ignore the community this time.

I.E Spearmen/Pikemen are broken against mounted ranged units. (3+ Years broken).

Click to expand...

...What?! Mounted ranged units are by far the strongest units in Civ V (there are only very few: Chariots, Chariot UUs, Keshiks and Camels, argueably the two strongest UU in the entire game). They're not even weak to Pikes because both Keshiks and Camels can just move out of danger after shooting..

Pikes/Spears are much, much stronger against Horses, Knights and Cavalry. If you're using any kind of ranged unit without blockers then you're just using them wrong. That's your fault, not the game's fault. Crossbows get slaughtered by Muskets, but they're not supposed to beat them in a melee...

TheMarshmallowBear said:

I personally feel like we could do with more empire management mechanics (yes, micro-managements) so that we have something to do if we're not warring.

Click to expand...

In the later stages of the game I will sometimes spend three to four hours playing 20 turns, you're saying you want even more micromanagement?

Are you readjusting tiles in every city, every turn? Because if you're not, there you have your suggestion already implemented!


Some things that really need to be reworked:

Spying (it's <snip> nothing)
Science and great people, to an extent (when getting a great engineer/merchant is bad for you you know something is going really wrong..)
Tactical AI (embarking units for no reason, can't even move&shoot with ranged units, unable to deal with choke points, I think we've heard it all)

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Imo, the biggest evolution civ vi should offer would be AI development. Just a solid more organic ai with all of civ v would make a perfectly acceptable game.

So AI plus a few gameplay addition and overhaul and i d buy that instantly.

TheMarshmallowBear said:

Civ 3 brought in borders (right?)

Click to expand...

Civ 3 also added strategic resources and national wonders. They changed the gameplay quite a lot.

"Big innovation" huh. Hmm....
you know, 'all-new combat system' is a cheap answer to that. Stratego-tactical combat, somehow perfectly calibrated to make everyone happy?


edit: psh, heck, a new great person system would be sparkly enough for me.

I wonder if the cultural victory could be redone with just a hundred small tweaks to make the cultural influence build up through even more aspects of play.
For instance, if technology trading comes back, then the acquisition of, say, Writing makes your civ's writing system forever tied to the original discoverer, giving automatic cultural influence. If you acquire currency, then you use their currency. And so on for any applicable technology. Also contingent on tech trading's requiem, actually being offered a significant resource and rejecting it could carry automatic domestic consequences. In sum, the player would be constrained to actively maintain a coherent diplomatic stance toward every player, same as the AI (in theory *coughcoughwhatisElizabeth'sproblem*).

Many moons ago, a user proposed a diversification of "noncombat hostility" mechanics, of , say, economic warfare and such. I believe I replied in thread, and gave it a sour reception, but I have changed my view of such. An increase of the avenues to power and glory is welcome, particularly in the diplomatic victory department, which has never been better than when it was a de facto supremacy victory. Before all that though, I believe the point was to enable more ways to divide and conquer your foes, creating real alternatives to the current 'kind word and a gun' situation of measuring all in reference to military subjugation, whether actual or implied. You know, the way that in Civ IV you just play domination of course , there's no other way to dethrone your foes. Granted, with the forecasted AI improvements (read: bahahaha!) some emphasis on the Human's military genius and the theatre of it is to be expected, but still.

I suppose what I'm saying is, .... please put some meat on this for the MP consumers. Even though however I come at it objectively, the "ideal game" sought by the majority really is a singularly SP-handcrafted experience...

yung.carl.jung said:

...What?! Mounted ranged units are by far the strongest units in Civ V (there are only very few: Chariots, Chariot UUs, Keshiks and Camels, argueably the two strongest UU in the entire game). They're not even weak to Pikes because both Keshiks and Camels can just move out of danger after shooting..

Click to expand...

Sharples almost certainly meant broken as in nonfunctional, not overcentralizing-good. hey it's tiny carl jung. how's the empirimancer doing?

Its hard to say, I mean obviously its hard to say since the game isn't out yet, but the things each Civ game brings that is new is something we didn't think off until it was done like corporations for example.

For my part I am hopeful that each era introduces a new gimmick so that moving from era to era feels more meaningful. Civ5:BNW did well when they introduced ideology and Civ:BE did well with the dig sites in addition to ruins so I hope both of those stay for future games (even if they are absent from Base Civ6, I hope they eventually return) and I would welcome events or activities that expand the later eras like the information era.

I wasn't a fan of satellites in Civ:BE but I would like to see them return. Its not often people say that about features they don't like but I think satellites could maybe break up the information era, starting a new war of stratosphere space, which is what they were supposed to do in Civ:BE.

I would welcome the removal of a tech web. Endless legend had it and the complaints against it are valid. Some of the earlier techs are just all around mandatory for your empire thus creating an illusion of choice (early game) as opposed to genuine choice. The only way a tech web could ever work would be if every era simply gave you 'mandatory' techs, allowing the additional techs to define your kingdom, and we already have a system like that, its called social policies.

Lastly the biggest game changer Civ6 could have, it won't, but if it did, it would make many people happy, would be removing nothing from Civ5 complete. With nothing removed, we already know civ6 will have an expansion pack on the way so how exciting would it be, since anything it contained would be 'new'. That may sound anti-climatic; "its just civ5 with a new skin!" but typically, every civ game has a thing removed from the previous title and then re-added piecemeal. Take for example religion, if that is missing from base Civ6, we know it would be added back in later (or not, as was the case with corporations).

Some system where borders are decided by you and your rival leaders, instead of being decided by your cultural borders. Your cultural borders instead decide how good it is to work a particular tile, like if you have a higher % of influence over tile A than tile B, it will probably be better to work tile A even if tile B has a bonus resource (You may claim tile B to deny it from an opponent however. They obviously won't like this).

Quick random brainstorm...ranging on the Next-big-thing-o-meter from highest to lowest...

Huge thing

• Online server play only. Chance IMHO 50%. (Becoming common. Would also address the perennial performance disaster.)
• Somewhat slimmer design, playable on tablet. Chance 50%. (I want this a lot! Would synergize with an online server architecture.)
• Diplo is the main focus of all decisions. Chance 25%. (5% but for Ed Beach connection. Don't expect good AI if this happens )
• Edit: A learning AI (deepmind style). Chance 75%. (75% the PR says it's a learning AI, 5% it actually learns )

Big thing

• Radically reworked combat system. Chance 99.9%. (0.01% the idea gets defeated by a spearman ).
• VR somehow. Throne room? diplo screens? World map room? Chance 10%. (Bit early for the hardware. Prob not til civ 7.)
• An app tied into the game somehow. Chance 90%. (Various possibilities for purpose, but I'd be V surprised if no app in 2017.)

Medium-sized thing

• All play is on a full globe. Chance 25%. (The grid would contain a few pentagons, suck it up!)
• Comprehensive terraforming. Chance 50%. (Popular idea. Can't see why they'd deny us but expect they will.)
• Get rid of tiles. Chance 10%. (We discussed before. Generally considered borderline "Not Civ".)

Small thing

• All changes to tech, resources, government, economy, units, culture, religion etc. Chance 100%. (Wouldn't be a new game otherwise!)

First, I think Settlers ability to make a city should be enabled for the first turns, they were nomads so they already had a knowledge of their surrounding before setting.

Nationalisation, appeared late in human history, city states were more the norm, they were independent which should be reflected in the tech tree and nation border, culture would be a natural cement before the principle of nation. Greeks are a good exemple.

Roads changed a lot in history and civilizations would not develop properly without them. Natural roads from population movement would follow trading route. And roads would change with time depending on tech, highway, monorail, TGV.

My wish would be to see population growing according to their needs, a coastal city with a lot of sea ressource would have a population on the border of the sea. Then we could choose which tile would be assigned for housing, trading or artisanry which could level up with time for farming, tourism, commerce or industry. Workers should then be used for other purpose like preparing tile for wonder (on a tile you want), or making thing outside a city(things cities would not normally do anyway), like an airport.

What's your ideas on that?