Can archaeology be even more active?

The archaeology system for BNW is a great addition to the game, and it goes a long way towards making the late-game more active for players. However, I still think that the process of building Archaeologists, sending them to antiquity sites, and collecting the the artifact is a bit too mechanical and lacks any sense of exploration or discovery.

I'm wondering if the system would be improved if antiquity sites were not automatically revealed upon researching Archaeology. Perhaps the Archaeologist unit itself should reveal any antiquity sites within its line of sight?

There's a few competing design elements here though:
a.) Needing to explore with Archaeologists in order to find antiquity sites adds more user activity to the game.
b.) Not automatically revealing antiquity sites is likely to discourage players who are not pursuing a culture victory from even building Archaeologists, since they are likely researching Archaeology and building Archaeologists later, and they may not want to invest in an Archaeologist if they don't even know if there are any sites left to excavate.

I'm thinking of a system in which standard antiquity sites within your borders are automatically revealed by the Archaeology technology. Antiquity sites outside of your borders must be revealed by the line of sight of an Archaeologist unit (thus requiring a round of late-game "exploring" in order to find antiquity sites). Similarly, when finishing the Exploration Policy Tree, all hidden antiquity sites within your borders are revealed, and all other hidden antiquity sites must be revealed by an Archaeologist unit.

Does this sound like it would be a reasonable system?

Furthermore, by including a mechanic in which Archaeology units can reveal antiquity sites, Firaxis could add mechanics whereby Archaeologists could find antiquity sites in the ocean. Shipwrecks (naval battle sites), sunken cities (near razed coastal cities), and maybe even a "Lost City of Atlantis" natural wonder (a mythical wonder similar to El Dorado and Fountain of Youth) could be among the sites that could show up in the ocean. This would give more relevance to thoroughly explore the oceans in the late game.

I think having ship wrecks and Atlantis would be an amazing addition to Civ 6 or if this Bison expansion? would have this. Also sunken treasure going along with ship wrecks I guess. Or rather than gold you get Naval bonuses or the option of returning it to original civ and get culture bonuses etc. Perhaps Atlantis Found can only be set up on Huge Maps ... just a thought.

Also the new approach to having your archaeologist have to go around and search for sites rather than all of them showing up at once is a great idea. It makes the game more realistic. Also in this regard...have like those of King Tut and others be new add on Wonder Wonders in Archaeology? then make this a much larger part of the game like Firaxis and 2K has made the entire religion part of the game huge. They could easy make this a huge part of the game.

The question I have for this exploration is ... how do you find sites which are "hidden" still. When you go to exploration window it says how many sites are still available and then how many are hidden. How do you find the hidden sites.

Also ... Mods: redirect this if needed....I am having problems selling or trading art which I have already found to other cities and AI etc. Is there a link to helping on this matter.

Thanks

Brew God

Another option which came up as you spoke of shipwrecks, is to offer a GOLD option when you find a treasure. I'd also like a bit more randomness in what you can find. The value is always pretty much the same. It would be neat to be able to find some things that are more valuable and less valuable. You could also ransom artifacts from other cultures.

Why not religious artifacts? Seems like lots of artifacts in our real history have been religious in nature. Put them in a cathedral and increase the faith produced!

Seems like a no-brainer.

2 great ideas in this thread and I hope they are implemented in the next patch. It'll also give exploration a much needed (indirect) buff.

Megabearsfan, you are a scholar and a gentleman! These ideas sound FANTASTIC! Theoretically this would also give you a further incentive to annoy the other civilizations by plundering their lands and encouraging further tensions and even wars.

I'm curious; what reward should you get for finding Atlantis? Civ Rev gave you three free techs. Any ideas?

hmm, maybe we could expand on this, and make some of the wonders unable to be found unless you have an archaeologist/explorer, like el dorado or the fountain of youth? I mean, they are kinda OP,so having to put extra resources to find them is that much of a bad idea. Maybe we can add extra wonders, Atlantis being one, but others like Shambala or the ruins of the flying dutchman? but there should also be an option to disable these if you don't want supernatural stuff flying left, right and center

megabearsfan said:

Antiquity sites outside of your borders must be revealed by the line of sight of an Archaeologist unit (thus requiring a round of late-game "exploring" in order to find antiquity sites).

Click to expand...

I don't know if I like this part. Personally, I would have an extremely hard time remembering where my Archeologists had re-explored. Especially when playing on a large Archipelago map with dozens of little, tiny islands dotted across it. If there were some graphical way of representing where you have and haven't explored with your Archeologist (like the cloud/black at the start of the game) then it would be much less painful to do.

Regarding Atlantis Found....I think some of the sites dug up by your archaeologist should give clues to where to find Atlantis. I.E. you discover a shipwreck which explored 500 yrs or 1000 yrs before you who was also looking for the lost city of Atlantis. You get the option of Gold or Culture to return the ship and belongings to the Civ they are from or a last option of "read journal entries of exploration regarding Atlantis"

Make the discovery of Atlantis that you need to find 10 shipwrecks and so many sites on land? before you have enough info to find the lost city. Something like this?

Any thoughts pro or con.

Brew God