Civ6: A blue-sky vision

G

Gatsby

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Since Civ5 was released late last year it has caused much controversy and divided the Civ fan community. All the debate about the relative merits and drawbacks of Civ5, including repeated requests from Civ5 supporters for Civ5’s detractors to come up with “constructive criticism” of the game, has compelled me to think about what my ideal Civ game would look like. Over the past few months I’ve come up with a range of ideas about what should be in Civ6 (if there ever is a Civ6). I’ve decided to put them all out there together in this thread, in an effort to paint a full, blue-sky picture of my ideal Civ game.
I have decided to use Civ4: BTS as my template, because in my opinion it represents the pinnacle of the Civilization series to date. So if there are any aspects of the game I have not commented on, it’s probably safe to assume that I would intend those aspects to be treated the same way as they are in Civ4:BTS. Many (but not all) of the ideas outlined below have already been pioneered in other TBS empire building games and Civ4 mods. I take no shame in borrowing these ideas because 1) they are good ideas, 2) the have been proven to work in previous games and mods, 3) it’s generally easier to incorporate and refine an idea which all ready exists elsewhere rather make a new one up from scratch, and 4) they will help those who have played other TBS empire building games and mods to understand and master Civ6.
This thread is as much about me getting all this off my chest as it is about seeking other people’s feedback. So with that said, here is my blue-sky vision for Civ6.

Game philosophy
Spoiler :
In Civ5 there definitely seems to have been a move toward “streamlining” Civ in order to make it more accessible and appealing to the “casual gamer”, and easier to win particularly on higher difficulty levels. Let me say from the outset that I disagree with this approach. I want a Civ game which is realistic and complex; I want an empire-building/civilization/alt-history simulator, not a cheesy war game with a building component tacked on. As one Civ fanatic put it:

A Civilization game will never be both a good Civilization game and a good casual game: a good casual game is a game that's easy to pick up, easy to play and easy to put down. A good Civilization game is a game that's hard to put down. (Leif Roar, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=411195&page=5 )

I couldn’t have said it better myself. A good Civ game should also be one that is hard to ‘pick up’ – for me, a big part of the fun of Civ games is negotiating the learning curve and figuring it all out. That way it is much more satisfying when you eventually master the game because you put so much time and effort into it, rather than just being able to pick it up and beat it on a medium or high difficulty level on the first go.
Not only would my blue-sky Civ6 be more complex and challenging than Civ5, it would be more complex and challenging than any Civ sequel to date. In real life, civilization is basically a giant society-wide problem-solving exercise; by solving its initial problems, a civilization inevitably generates more problems which it must also solve, and the solutions to these additional problems generate their own problems in turn. This cycle continues escalating so long as the civilization can keep solving problems faster than they arise. But when its problem solving capacity becomes overwhelmed by the problems it faces (for whatever reasons), then that civilization inevitably collapses and meets its demise. My ideal Civ6 game would endeavour to simulate this relentless escalating problem-solution cycle which, imo, is the essence of what civilization is all about in real life. To that end, the two key components of Civ6’s core philosophy are: a paradigm shift in the main objective of the game away from “victory” and towards survival and longevity; and the end of “Victory Conditions” as we now know them.

Standing the Test of Time
Spoiler :
As far back as I can remember, Civ and its sequels have challenged players to “build a civilization to stand the test of time”. This really does seem like a pretty tough challenge when you look at human history – no civilization or empire has thus far managed to survive for anywhere near 6000 years straight. Yet what you find in all the previous versions of Civ is that empires usually manage to survive for the whole 6000 years (4000BC to 2000AD) of a game. This sort of outcome should be an exception, not the rule. A good Civ game should make it inherently difficult for human and AI players alike to even survive for several millennia, let alone conquer the world or reach the stars. Civs/empires which manage to survive for a long time – e.g. 2000 or 3000 years– should be rewarded both in score and with in-game rewards.
Civ6 will be more about standing this test of time than achieving ‘victory’; the key concern of players will be more along the lines of “how can I get my empire to survive as long as possible” and “how long did your empire survive”, rather than “how early can I launch my spaceship” or “how high was your final score”. If you manage to get your empire to survive for a whole game, it should be because you were remarkably lucky and/or skilful (preferably more the latter), and it would also be the biggest indicator that you’re ready to move up to the next difficulty level.
This greater emphasis on standing the test of time might need to be accompanied by increasing the number of turns in games (at all speeds) along with tech and building costs by roughly 30% (wild guess), while keeping the present 6000-year timeframe. This would help ensure that players can have a decent game-session even though they can expect their civilization to be destroyed well before the game they’re playing officially ends. Players will also have the option to start at later points in history (i.e. part-way into a game), with initial bonus techs and units etc depending on starting year and difficulty level.

The End of Victory
Spoiler :
Since standing the test of time is of prime importance in Civ6, the Victory Conditions of past Civ games would necessarily assume less importance. This downplaying also makes sense from a historical perspective, because the traditional Civ victory conditions (space, world conquest, diplomatic etc) are pretty arbitrary. It’s hard to see how any empire’s achieving them IRL could meaningfully be regarded as “the End of History”, the end of the problems facing civilisation, or as irrefutable eternal proof of that empire’s ultimate superiority over all others.
The victory conditions of past Civs will not be eliminated entirely however – it will still be possible for players to launch a spaceship, be elected UN supreme leader, conquer the world etc and get a score bonus for such achievements. Moreover, such achievements will be rewarded with an in-game bonus e.g. a permanent increase in citizen happiness or production, or an extended golden age. But these former victory conditions will no longer end the game, nor will they be sufficient for a player to be declared the “winner”. The victory conditions of past Civ games would effectively be turned into ‘Super Wonders’. Civ6’s approach to victory conditions would bear a strong resemblance to the Mastery Victory concept found in the Civ4 mod Rise of Mankind – A New Dawn (ROM-AND).


Unit and combat system
The most heated debate over Civ5 has been centred on its unit and combat system. Many have lavished praise on Civ5’s 1upt system and passionately defend it as a brilliant and much needed innovation in response to Civ4’s “stack of doom” (SOD). Many others have heaped scorn on it, calling it a misguided attempt to bring a tactical warfare system to a grand-strategy game, even going so far as to blame many of the other major short-comings of Civ5 on the 1upt system.
I’m inclined to agree with the latter group’s arguments on this issue. SODs definitely had their drawbacks (putting stress on computers and increasing loading times in the late-game, “suicide catapults”, tedious and time-consuming one-to-one unit combat between stacks), but the 1upt was an extreme over-reaction to this issue. Now instead of SODs Civ5 players have to contend with unit movement logjams created by “carpets of doom” which make unit movement even more difficult and tedious than Civ2’s “zone of control” mechanic.
Many compromise-solutions have been proposed to the 1upt/SOD debate (e.g. giving units “mass”, health penalties for stacked units, and various others). To me all this effort to figure out a solution to the 1upt/SOD debate is unnecessary, because a good solution has essentially already been created. In fact it has been around for more than 10 years now. I am referring to the unit and combat system pioneered by Civilization: Call to Power.

Call to Combined Arms
Spoiler :
Like Civ5, Civilization: Call to Power (CCTP) and its sequel Call to Power 2 (CTP2) also employed a upt limit. Unlike Civ5, this limit allowed for multiple units to occupy the same tile at the same time: 9 in CCTP, 12 in CTP2. If you tried to put a unit on a tile which was already full, that unit would automatically disband (the games did warn you about this). But what really made the CTP/CTP2 system great was that you could group units in the same tile together to form an army which could move and fight in unison. This effectively did away with tedious one-to-one-unit combat between stacks. When armies engaged in combat, the units within them would arrange themselves in an optimal configuration e.g. melee units on the front line, ranged units behind the melee units, and flanking units on either side of the melee units. This meant you had to carefully plan your army composition to make the best use of combined arms: an army of nothing but cannons or spearmen would be in trouble if it came up against a well-balanced army composed of different unit types which complemented each other’s strengths.
My ideal Civ6 would employ a multiple upt-combat system based closely on the CCTP/CTP2 system, allowing for a maximum of about 10 military units of the same nationality to occupy the same tile. This system is imo the best way to overcome the disadvantages of both 1upt and SOD’s, while also offering a relatively straightforward and realistically scaled upt-combat system for a Civ game.
Civ6’s upt-combat system would not be an exact copy of the CTP system though. Air and missile units will be exempted from the 10upt rule and be subject to their own separate upt limit, similar to the approach used for air units in Civ4. Non-military units and units loaded on ships will be exempt from the upt rule. Additionally, coastal cities and forts may accommodate up to 10 land and 10 naval military units at one time, although the land and naval units will not be able to fight as one army.
As mentioned earlier, the upt limit for military land and naval units will only apply on a nationality basis. For example, an army of 10 Greek units will be able to occupy the same tile as an army of 10 English units so long as they are not at war. If the Russians are at war with both the Greeks and English and send an army to attack this tile, then the battle will only be between the attacking army and the stronger defending army i.e. the Greek OR English army.

Artillery bombardment
Spoiler :
One of the (few) drawbacks of the CTP combat system was that even though you could only have a maximum of 9 or 12 units per tile/army, a player could still occupy all the tiles around an enemy city with armies even though the city itself could only hold 9 or 12 units for defence. Civ6 will address this drawback in two ways. The first will be to confer a small extra defensive bonus to any units fortified in a city in addition to any other defence bonuses offered by walls, fortification and city culture etc (think of it as a “Homeland Advantage ” bonus if you like). The second involves adopting a combat system feature from another TBS empire-builder game which came out around the same time as CCTP: Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (SMAC).
In SMAC artillery units were able to performed ranged bombardment, which partially damaged all units in the target tile while leaving the bombarding unit unscathed. Ranged bombardment could only be harmful to the bombarding unit if there was another artillery unit in the target tile which could counter-bombard. In Civ6 artillery units (as well as some naval and air units) will also be able to bombard enemy armies in nearby tiles without directly attacking them, and inflict partial damage on all enemy units in the defending army/tile. By combining SMAC-style artillery bombardment with CTP-style armies, Civ6 will present players with a challenging trade-off between moving units in large armies which are vulnerable to collateral damage from artillery bombardment, and moving units in smaller groups which are prone to attacks from larger armies. More advanced artillery units (e.g. radar artillery, mobile SAMs) will be able to counter-bombard, but counter bombardment will be less likely to hurt the attacking artillery unit than regular bombardment, and will only be able to inflict damage on the attacking artillery unit itself (rather than every unit in the attacking artillery unit’s tile). Artillery, naval and air units in Civ6 will also be able to target defence installations such as city walls in order to soften-up cities before an attack.

Resource Limits for Units
Spoiler :
To help reduce the chance that Civ6 game maps will end up being covered in “Legions of Doom”, Civ6 will also have resource limits for units sort of like Civ5. This would be a relatively straightforward system of allowing a civ to field a limited number of a certain unit at any one time per resource owned e.g. ten swordsmen for every iron resource controlled (this limit could be scaled for map size). These limits will be non-rival between different types of units. So for example, let’s say you have 1 iron resource, and both axemen and swordsmen require iron to build, and every iron resource allows 10 swordsmen and also 10 axemen. This means you can have 10 swordsmen AND 10 axemen at any one time, rather than being limited to 5 of one and 5 of the other.
However if two unit types are on the same upgrade path (e.g. axemen and macemen, or swordsmen and longswordsmen), then the resource limit will be rival e.g. you can only have a total of 10 axemen OR macemen per iron resource at any one time. This mechanism helps discourage players from trying to get around the fielding limit by stockpiling obsolete units as the game progresses. It also provides an added incentive to upgrade units regularly, as players will not want find themselves confronted by an enemy with a more modern army.
The limit to how many non- resource-requiring units you can have at any one will be based on the number of cities owned. Again, this will be non-rival between different unit types which are not on the same upgrade path. Limits for these units may be somewhat higher than the limits for resource-requiring units. The trade-off is that these non-resource units will generally be of lower quality or more defence-oriented than resource-requiring units.
If you lose a strategic resource or city, then you will not be allowed to build any more affected units until you no longer exceed your per resource (or city) limit. Additionally, oil and coal dependent units will be unable to move (due to fuel shortages) until you no longer exceed your resource limit. You can get back below your limit by disbanding some of your affected units or recovering a sufficient number of resources or cities.
Oil and coal dependent units can also be put in ‘sleep’ mode, so that the number of active units no longer exceeds their resource limit. Units in sleep mode are unable to move or engage in combat, so players will face another trade-off: either have all of their oil and coal dependent units immobilised but still able to defend; or have some of these units mobile (and able to attack and defend) while the rest are completely immobile and vulnerable. Having sufficient strategic resources to field an army will therefore be particularly important in the later game, and players will have the option to effectively shut down an enemy’s military by taking out its strategic resources.

War Readiness
Spoiler :
Another CTP concept which my ideal Civ6 would include is war readiness. In CCTP and CTP2 you could choose to keep your military at one of three states of readiness for combat. These levels were called “stand-down”, “on alert”, and “war”. Keeping your military at stand-down level lowered your military upkeep costs but also significantly reduced the strength of your units, and you were therefore more vulnerable to a surprise attack. War mode allowed your units to be at full strength but also increased their upkeep costs, and on-alert mode was a compromise between stand-down and war. There was a time-lag involved in changing your level of war readiness, and your units wouldn’t instantly regain full strength as soon as you upgraded your readiness to war mode.
War readiness in Civ6 will function in the same way as it did in CTP but with a couple of tweaks:
• Maintaining full war readiness will incur a diplomatic penalty with neighbouring civs unless they are at war or allied with you (“we are concerned about your military posturing”); and
• It will affect unit strength by influencing troop morale (see below).


Troop morale
Spoiler :
Troop morale in Civ6 will work in a way broadly similar to how it worked in SMAC. If you have high troop morale, your units receive a combat bonus; if you have low troop morale, your units receive a combat penalty. Troop morale will be affected by war weariness, civics choices, certain wonders, certain unit promotions, and war readiness. The introduction of troop morale will complement war weariness nicely – rather than just causing unhappiness, war weariness in Civ6 will also have direct implications for player’s military capability to continue fighting a war.

War ideas from Civ5
Spoiler :
I was impressed with two of Civ5’s war-related innovations: incremental city razing, and the option to request war preparation time when you are asked by one player to declare war on another. My ideal Civ6 would also include both of these innovations, and it will also be possible to ask a war ally to attack a specific enemy city.

Weapons of mass destruction
Spoiler :
Civ6 will have a greater range of WMD’s than past versions of Civ. These WMD’s will include:
Tactical nuke – a relatively cheap, short range missile which can be loaded on to subs and missile cruisers like cruise missiles. Causes 85-100% damage to all units in the target tile only, and also causes 2-4 surrounding tiles to become affected by fallout. Destroys any tile improvements in the target tile, and if used against a city it will reduce the city’s population by 25%.
ICBM – an expensive missile which can hit any target on the map. Cannot be loaded onto any ships or air units. Causes 100% damage to units in the target tile, 85-100% damage to units in a 1-tile radius. Detonation also causes 5-8 tiles to become fallout-affected and destroys all tile improvements in target tile and a 1-tile radius. If used directly against a city, reduces its population by 50%.
Hydrogen bomb – the most expensive WMD. Is a missile which can hit any target on the map. Cannot be loaded onto any ships or air units. Causes 100% damage to units in the target tile, 85-100% damage to units in a 2-tile radius. Detonation also causes 9-12 tiles to become fallout-affected, and destroys all tile improvements in target tile and a 2-tile radius. If used directly against a city, the city is completely obliterated.
Biological missile –less expensive than an ICBM, more expensive than a tactical nuke. Short range missile, can be loaded onto subs and missile cruisers. Causes 0-100% damage to all units in target tile and a 1-tile radius. Does not cause fallout or destroy tile improvements. If used against a city, also causes an additional 20 un-healthiness in that city for 10 turns.

Missile Silos
Spoiler :
ICBM’s and fusion bombs can be rebased in a new tile improvement, the “Missile Silo”. Missile silos can only be built on tiles adjacent to a city. Missile silos are unique amongst tile improvements because they have a (75%) chance of surviving any adjacent nuclear strike; if they survive then all nukes based in them also survive. Missile silos, and any weapons based in them, can be destroyed by pillaging or a direct nuclear strike.

Mutually Assured Destruction
Spoiler :
ICBMs and Fusion bombs based in Missile Silos can be given the “MAD” command. This gives you the option to select a target in another player’s territory and ‘lock’ a particular ICBM or Fusion bomb onto it. If that player successfully nukes your city (i.e. the city next to the missile silo containing your ‘locked’ weapon) and your weapon survives the attack, then your weapon will immediately launch in a retaliation strike against its target. The attacking player’s turn is momentarily suspended while this occurs, so they can’t capture your city or your nukes before you can retaliate. A weapon can only be locked onto one target at any time, and the attacker’s own locked weapons cannot counter-retaliate during the attacker’s turn.

Nuclear winter
Spoiler :
The environmental effect of nuclear fallout in Civ4 (global warming) was very unrealistic. The Civ4 AI was quite keen on using nukes, and the only real negative consequence of using them was a mild to moderate diplomatic penalty. In Civ6 excessive use of nuclear weapons will have no effect on global warming/climate change, but it will trigger nuclear winters.
If the number of fallout-affected worldwide exceeds a certain threshold, the whole world will be plunged into a nuclear winter. A nuclear winter halves the food, production, and commerce yield of all tiles throughout the world. Nuclear winters last 10-20 turns on standard game speed and during this time the whole map will have an eerie blue-grey tinge. If the number of fallout tiles worldwide still exceeds the threshold on the turn a nuclear winter ends, another nuclear winter will begin on the next turn. The combination of high costs for cleaning up fallout, the risk of MAD, and nuclear winters will make nuclear warfare a more daunting prospect in Civ6.
 
Environment
Civilization is essentially a response to the natural environment – a human effort to control the natural environment in order to serve humanity’s purposes. It is rather ironic then that throughout history civilizations have prospered and collapsed based largely on how they treated (or mistreated) their natural environment, as well as how inherently kind their natural environment was to them. Civ6 will do more than any other Civ-style game before it to reflect this close relationship between civilization and the natural environment, with environmental factors having a major influence on the survivability and prosperity of empires.

Weather
Spoiler :
Like SMAC, the game maps of Civ6 will also have a dynamic global weather system. This means that terrain around the map will change slowly over time according to natural cycles, and that rainfall patterns (i.e. presence of wet base terrains such as grasslands) will tend to be affected by features such as mountain ranges, jungles, forests, and presence of polar landmasses etc. In the game set-up menus, players will be able to choose the long-term weather pattern for a game (e.g. “cooling”, “warming”, “stable”) in addition to being able to select the initial global climate at the start of the game (“warm”, “wet”, “cool” etc). Players will also be able to select the rate at which natural climate change occurs in the game.
Much like in SMAC, human activity will have the potential to alter local weather conditions. For example, if your civ starts in a heavily forested or jungle region and proceeds to chop down most or all of that forest /jungle, local rainfall patterns will be altered and the region around the chopped forest/jungle will become drier (e.g. grasslands become plains, plains become deserts). This has the dual benefit of being realistic (e.g. the desertification of Mesopotamia) and introducing a trade-off for the much-abused Civ4 strategy of chopping every forest and jungle in sight in order to maximise production and expansion in the early game.

Natural disasters
Spoiler :
Occasional random natural disasters will also feature in Civ6, but they will have some degree of impact on the course of the game (much like the natural disasters in SMAC and Civ3) rather than being an extraneous minor nuisance like they were in Civ4. The frequency and severity of weather-related natural disasters will be affected by another new feature, the Climate Change Counter.

Climate Change Counter
Spoiler :
In Civ6, the activities of civs will influence a global Climate Change Counter (CCC). This Counter represents climate change resulting from the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by human activities throughout the world. The CCC will be modelled on the Armageddon Counter from Fall From Heaven 2 (FFH2). Things like increasing population, increasing living standards, factories, coal plants, and land-clearing will increase the CCC; other actions like building recycling plants, replacing coal plants with renewable energy plants, planting forests and adopting environmentally friendly civics will help reduce it. As the CCC increases, natural disasters become more frequent and severe, plagues become more frequent, non-hill and non-mountain coastal land tiles may become submerged, ice melts, rivers and lakes will start to dry up, living natural resources and Natural Wonders will disappear, ocean food yields will eventually decrease, and large areas of land will suddenly and randomly become warmer, wetter or drier. These changes will negatively affect happiness and political stability for all civs on the map.

Resource Depletion
Spoiler :
The importance of resource depletion has generally been downplayed in previous versions of Civs, and has generally been confined to non-renewable (aka “mineral”) strategic resources such as iron and oil. My ideal Civ6 will expand on the resource depletion concept and bring it to centre stage. The resource depletion system in Civ6 will work in a way broadly similar to how it works in ROM-AND: the more a civ build units, tile improvements, and buildings which require a particular resource, the more likely that its supplies of that resource will become depleted/ exhausted at some point. Players will therefore have to either limit their use of certain vital resources, or expand to acquire new sources of them. Three types of resource depletion will feature in Civ6 - mineral depletion, farmland depletion, and waterway depletion.
As in Civ4, there will be a small chance of discovering new supplies of minerals within a player’s borders. This chance can be increased by building a new temporary tile improvement called a “Survey”, which investigates the surrounding 5*5 area of tiles for new supplies of resources. Knowledge of Physics will be required to build Surveys. The chance of finding new supplies of any mineral resource will decline in direct proportion to how many other new supplies of that resource have already been discovered worldwide. The idea of this is to ensure that depletion of existing mineral resource supplies eventually outpaces discovery of new supplies of those resources, ultimately leading to the exhaustion of the world’s finite resources. In addition to general conservation measures (i.e. building and using less), the likelihood of mineral resource depletion can also be reduced by adopting environmentally friendly civics and building recycling plants. If a corporation uses a particular mineral resource, then supplies of that mineral resource will be more vulnerable to depletion (more on this later).
Farmland depletion is partly inspired by the “Dustbowl” random event in Civ4:BTS. Any worked farm will have a small chance of becoming depleted each turn. The likelihood of a farmland tile becoming depleted will be affected by 1) the rate of population growth in the city working it, and 2) how many turns that particular farm has been continuously worked. A farmland tile which is depleted will produce 1 less food per turn; continued use of the depleted farm will eventually turn the base terrain to desert and destroy the farm. A depleted farmland tile can recover if it is allowed to go fallow (i.e. not worked) for a number of turns, or if a player decides to “rejuvenate” it at a one-time cost. The ability to rejuvenate farmland requires knowledge of Ecology. The discovery of Biology will permanently reduce - to some degree - your overall chances of experiencing farmland depletion. Environmentally friendly civics can also help reduce your overall chance of experiencing farmland depletion.
Rivers and freshwater lakes will no longer serve as inexhaustible irrigation sources in Civ6. The likelihood of a river or freshwater lake becoming depleted will be affected by the ratio of 1) the number of tiles covered by the water source to 2) the total number of dependent worked farm tiles (both directly adjacent and indirectly irrigated via other farm tiles). When a water source becomes depleted, all dependent farm tiles not directly adjacent to the water source will produce one less food per turn. Continued use of the depleted waterway will eventually cause the whole water source to dry up and disappear entirely. Depleted waterways can recover if the total number of dependent worked farm tiles is reduced. The discovery of Ecology permanently reduces – to some degree – your overall chances of experiencing waterway depletion for waterways which are all or mostly within your territory; environmentally friendly civics can also help reduce your overall chance of experiencing waterway depletion. Waterways in arid regions will be more susceptible to depletion than those in wet regions. Waterway depletion will give human and AI players an incentive to invade a neighbour’s territory in order to take control of nearby freshwater sources.


Economics
The economic system of Civ6 will feature a return to the slider model of budgeting. This model is preferable because it requires budget-planning and provides a trade-off between different spending priorities. As you might have noticed by now, I believe that challenging trade-offs and opportunity-cost decisions are an essential part of good strategy games in general, and empire-building games in particular. Unlike previous versions of Civ, it will be possible to set the Tax Slider by single percentage points rather than only being able to set the slider in 10% increments. A single percentage point slider was used in Galactic Civilizations (GalCiv).

Optimum levels of spending, inflation
Spoiler :
In GalCiv, more spending on a budget item was not always better. Beyond a certain rate of funding for research, tax etc you would start to experience diminishing returns to funding e.g. increasing tax from 50% to 60% would not increase tax revenue as much as increasing the tax rate from 40% to 50% would. If you really over-funded something, you would experience negative returns to funding (e.g. increasing the tax rate to 80% would only give you as much tax revenue as a tax rate of 65%) while at the same time foregoing spending on other budget items which could have provided a better return on investment. These diminishing returns to expenditure represented the waste and inefficiency which results from not taking economies of scale into consideration (i.e. giving a budget item more money than it can make good use of in the short term). Civ6 will incorporate this concept of optimal expenditure on budget items, using a mechanic similar to GalCiv’s.
Allocating a high level of funding to any one budget item for an extended period of time will also encourage inflation, which will gradually reduce the return on investment for expenditure on that particular budget item. So you will still be able to run science at a constant 70% for most of the game, but the effectiveness of your science funding will gradually decrease as a result of excessive funding. Long –term inflation and diseconomies of scale for expenditure on budget items can be countered by expanding your empire at a sufficiently fast rate, building city improvements which allow you to make more efficient use of budget funding (e.g. banks and harbours for tax, libraries and universities for science), reducing your funding rates for over-funded budget items for a while, and adopting certain market-friendly civics.

Self-founding corporations
Spoiler :
Corporations would feature in my ideal Civ6, but they would work in a way more closely resembling Advanced Corporations in ROM-AND rather than how they worked in Civ4:BTS. This means that corporations in Civ6 will be self-founding i.e. you cannot use a Great Person to found them, but you can maximise the likelihood that they will found their headquarters at some point in one of your cities. In order for a corporation to be founded, at least 3 Civs must possess all prerequisite techs for that corporation, and at least one of those Civs must not be running State Property. Corporations will only build their headquarters in cities which have access to their required resources; the more of these resources a city has access to, and the larger that city is, the higher the likelihood that a corporation will found its headquarters in that city.
Once a corporation has been founded, either in your territory or in another empire with whom you have open borders, you can affect the likelihood of that corporation spreading to your other cities through various means: acquiring more of that corporation’s necessary resources, running market-friendly civics, increasing the population of your cities, improving your transport network, and offering that corporation higher subsidy payments compared to rival corporations. Corporations may also automatically leave cities they have previously spread to if these conditions deteriorate. You cannot build corporate executives; you can only encourage corporations to spread to cities on their own.
Acquiring the Corporation advance enables the Subsidy slider, which allows you to set aside funds to help encourage the spread of corporations. Within the total pool of Subsidy revenue, you may select how much subsidy-funding you give to each corporation which has already been founded. Corporations which use non-renewable resources will tend to increase the depletion rate of those resources as they expand to new cities.

Monopolies
Spoiler :
Possessing multiple sources of the same resource will give you an advantage in terms of corporations and military power, but it will also allow you to form trading monopolies. If your empire manages to acquire at least 75% of the available supplies of any resource, the AI will be willing to offer you a monopoly rate (i.e. a very high price) for that resource. Conversely, if an AI player has most of the available supply of any resource, it will demand a monopoly rate for that resource from human and other AI players. This monopoly rate will persist as long as the monopolist manages to maintain control over at least 75% of the available supply of that resource.
The size of the monopoly rate will depend partly on the type of resource under monopoly control e.g. oil will generally attract a higher monopoly rate than bananas. For every source of a monopolised resource exported, the monopolist will also get a small commerce bonus in each of their cities. This means that players will sometimes find themselves facing a trade-off between 1) selling a monopolised resource for commerce and revenue bonuses, and 2) stockpiling that resource for military and/or corporation uses.

Depressions
Spoiler :
This feature comes from the Civ4 mod Rhys and Fall of Civilization (RFC). Basically, if there is too much of a disparity between your empire’s productivity and commerce output, it may trigger an inflationary depression (too much commerce relative to production) or a deflationary depression (too much production relative to commerce). In Civ6, a depression decreases the production and commerce output of all your cities by 40% for 10 turns on standard game speed, and temporarily decreases your political stability (more on this later). Depressions are more likely to occur if you have market-friendly civics, and they have no effect during Golden Ages.
 
Expansion
One of the biggest ongoing issues for Civ games is Infinite City Sprawl (ICS). In Civ2 more cities was always better, and ICS was an epidemic among human and AI players alike. Civ3 tried to address ICS by imposing punitive levels of corruption on cities founded far away from the capital. This went some way towards addressing ICS, but generally speaking a bigger empire was still better. Civ4 used a city maintenance cost system, and imo this is the best anti-ICS mechanism used in a Civ-style game to date. Civ5 and the Call to Power games used a happiness penalty to counter ICS, but to me this seems artificial and unrealistic, and Civ5’s system is designed in such a way the optimal strategy (apparently) is to build a whole lot of low-population cities anyway.
Clearly, previous Civ-style games don’t have a very good overall track record of addressing ICS. It is therefore all the more important that a worthy Civ sequel to address this issue. After all, just as we don’t generally see 6,000 year old empires in real life, neither do we see empires continually expand their territory over long periods of time. Fortunately, Civ6 does have some excellent solutions to ICS to drawn on. These solutions complement the city maintenance costs mechanic (which will also return in Civ6), come from the Civ4 mods RFC and Revolutions, and are based around the concept of political stability.

Stability and Revolutions
Spoiler :
In Civ6 players will be compelled to keep track of the political stability of their empire. If your empire becomes too politically unstable, some of your cities may revolt and secede from your empire, or your whole empire might collapse in one go.
Political stability will serve a dual purpose in Civ6: it will discourage overexpansion, while also making it more difficult for empires to stand the Test of Time. Civ6’s political stability mechanic will be a two-tier system composed of 1) empire-wide stability, and 2) individual city stability.
Empire-wide stability will be based on RFC’s stability mechanic. As such, I will divide it (for now) into the same five categories as RFC’s stability: Economy, Expansion, Civics, Foreign, and Cities. Factors affecting empire-wide stability will include:
Economy
- Overall performance of your economy
- Level of international trade, particularly resource trade
- Golden ages
- Depressions
Expansion
- Number of cities in your empire. Increasing the number of cities in your empire initially improves your stability. But if you keep adding new cities to your empire beyond a certain point, this stability bonus disappears, and you will eventually start incurring a stability penalty for each newly-added city
- Rate of population growth. Keeping this in the “Goldilocks” zone (not too slow, not too fast, but just right) will improve stability. Population growth which is too fast or too slow will have a negative impact on stability.
- How high the Climate Change Counter is
Civics
- Combination of civics
- Running certain civics when other more modern alternatives become available (e.g. running slavery when you can adopt emancipation)
- Specific effects of your civics e.g. running representation may improve stability for small empires but reduce it for large empires
- Switching from certain civics to others e.g. a temporary stability penalty for switching from hereditary rule to universal suffrage
Foreign
- Number of civs with whom you have open borders agreements
- Number of civs you have a defensive pact with
- War weariness
- Presence of barbarians within and near your borders
- Number of enemy cities under occupation and not yet pacified
- Proportion of cities you founded under occupation by enemy forces
Cities
- Number of cities lost vs. number of cities gained through conquest and revolt
If your empire-wide stability gets too low, you run the risk of having your whole empire collapse at once. This means that all your cities (including your Capitol) revolt simultaneously and your civilization is destroyed. On the other hand, you may receive a free Golden Age if your empire-wide stability remains very high for a long period of time.
Individual city stability will be based on the Revolutions mechanic, and will depend on the following factors:
- Empire-wide stability
- City happiness
- City health
- Presence of foreign culture
- Presence of non-state religions (especially if that city is the holy city for a non-state religion)
- Number of units garrisoned in the city
- Presence of certain stability-related buildings e.g. courthouses, police stations
- Distance from your Capitol City or Forbidden Palace
- Whether or not the city is on the same landmass as your Capitol City or Forbidden Palace
- How you acquired the city (i.e. whether you conquered, assimilated or founded it)
- Availability of adequate food supplies
- Natural disasters experienced by the city
A city may revolt if its individual city stability gets too low: this means that the city will either come under barbarian control, join a neighbouring empire, or auto-disband (if it has a small population).

Self-founding cities
Spoiler :
Settlers will no longer be the only means of creating new cities in Civ6. Under the right conditions, new cities might spontaneously emerge (seemingly) out of nowhere and join your civilization. These “self-founding” cities are an acknowledgement that IRL, cities and settlements do not always originate from a deliberate government-led colonisation effort. The self-founding cities mechanic was actually introduced in Civ4, but it only applied to barbarian cities. Civ6 will use an enhanced version of this mechanic, which will allow for cities to self-found near (or sometimes within) an empire’s borders and automatically join that empire. You will be given the option to accept a self-found city into your empire as soon as it emerges; if you say no, the city will disband. Much like barbarian cities in Civ4, self-founding cities will tend to emerge in locations with nearby resources and/or freshwater sources. Self-founding cities will also be more likely to emerge on road or river routes between two distant cities, resources which have been “hooked up” but are not in or near any cities, and forts which are occupied by units. Self-founded cities will come with basic pre-built city improvements such as granaries and harbours.

Barbarian Civilizations
Spoiler :
Civ6 will also have self-emerging barbarian cities. Much like in Civ4, barbarian cities will emerge in locations near resources and fresh water sources, so long no empire has territory nearby. Over time barbarian cities may form into full-fledged civilizations, like they could in ROM-AND. These civilizations would automatically be given certain techs, free units, and free city improvements in order to allow them to compete with already-established civs.

Land Claims
Spoiler :
A brand-new feature of Civ6 will be the ability to claim land. Players may effectively ‘reserve’ territory for future settlement with a Land Claim, so long as that territory does not already belong to another player. Claimed tiles will be visible to all other players; on the map screen, claimed tiles will appear to be shaded-over with a striped pattern which has the same colour as the player which has laid claim to them. Each claimed tile has a modest per-turn upkeep cost, and tiles can only be claimed if you have knowledge of Paper. Barbarian territory can also be claimed, and barbarian cities can also emerge in claimed territory (as can self-founding cities which will join the claiming empire). Barbarians will not be able to claim land.
If a player builds a city or occupies a barbarian city in another player’s claimed land, the claimer may declare war on the intruding player; if the claimer does not declare war, they will take a reputation hit with all other players and become more vulnerable to declarations of war (since the international community will regard the claimer as weak).
Tile improvements can be built in claimed land, but only by the claiming player. A Land Claim over any tile will end if the claiming player relinquishes the claim to that tile, incorporates that tile into its own cultural borders (i.e. by building a city there), or if another player’s cultural borders expand to incorporate that tile. Cultural intrusion by other players onto a land claim will not create any risk of war, but it will result in a ‘close borders sparking tensions’ diplomatic penalty. A tile may only be claimed by one player at any time.

Public Works
Spoiler :
Another brilliant innovation from the CTP series, Public Works will make a long-overdue return in Civ6. Public Works acts like a ‘tax’ on production; the proceeds from this tax can be accrued and spent on tile improvements such as farms, roads, and mines etc. Public works renders the Worker unit obsolete, so there will be no worker unit in Civ6.

Plagues
Spoiler :
Civ6 will include a plague mechanic similar to the one in RFC. Occasionally, plagues will sweep across the world. They will spread along trade routes and roads, cause a big temporary boost to unhealthiness in affected cities, and injure or kill units within the territory of plague-affected players. Having high degrees of healthiness and hospitals in cities will reduce the effects and duration of plagues.

Food Banks
Spoiler :
This idea is inspired by the food caravans of Civ2. In Civ6, you will be able to take a portion of a city’s per-turn surplus food production and put it into a national “Food Bank”. Each unit of food sent to the Food Bank can then be distributed to any of your other cities so long as they are connected to your trade network. Banked food can also be traded on a per-turn basis with other civs, much like resources can in Civ4. Food traded to another civ will be sent to their Food Bank. The Food Bank is non-accrual – it can only bank food for one turn, so food needs to be diverted to it on a per-turn basis.

Bonuses for smaller nations
Spoiler :
Civ6 will offer a more interesting choice between having a large empire or a small one. As already mentioned, civs with few cities will not attract stability bonuses for over-expanding. Civ6 will also include a few national wonders and civics which confer significant advantages (trade, commerce, Great People points, military, culture, science etc) to empires with a small number of cities. These national wonders and civics will only have effect so long as an empire remains below a certain number of cities, and it will only be possible to build the national wonders if your empire has a small number of cities.



Science
Technological advancement will still be important in Civ6; however my hope is that it will not be as all-consuming a priority as it has been in previous versions of Civ. Like I mentioned earlier, the main objective of Civ6 will be to get your empire to survive and prosper for the long term, not (necessarily) to leap up the tech tree and achieve some arbitrary victory condition as early as possible. Technological advance will be one way to solve the various challenges that confront your empire, but it will not necessarily be the only way or even the best way.

Blind Research
Spoiler :
History is full of examples of scientific and technological breakthroughs which were completely unanticipated by the societies that produced them. Such breakthroughs have not always conformed to the timetables and expectations of governments or scientific establishments. My ideal Civ6 will reflect this historical reality by re-introducing SMAC’s “blind research” mechanic. Blind research makes it impossible for players to specifically select which technology to research. Instead, the game randomly chooses the next technology to be researched from the list of currently researchable technologies. The player doesn’t find out what this technology is until they actually acquire it. Players can, however, influence what types of technologies the game selects. Like SMAC, Civ6 will also allow players to “set research priorities” according to the types of techs they wish to acquire (e.g. military, industrial, cultural etc).
Players will be given a timeframe for the discovery of the next advance, instead of an exact arrival time for the next tech. For example, suppose you can currently research three advances: horseback riding will take 6 turns, priesthood will take 12 turns, and mathematics will take 16 turns. The game selects one of these three advances for your empire to research next (i.e. without telling you which one), and your science advisor will inform you that “your next advance is due in 6-16 turns”.

Environmentally-conditioned research
Spoiler :
History also shows that scientific progress tends to be a function of historical and geographical circumstances. There are reasons why the Aztecs didn’t invent the stirrup (e.g. they didn’t have horses). Similarly, there are reasons why the industrial revolution began in England (e.g. they had an abundance of easily accessible coal). Unfortunately, no previous version of Civ has attempted to acknowledge this crucial aspect of scientific and technological development. I cannot see why, for example, it was still possible (according to the rules of past Civ sequels) for the Aztecs to research horseback riding when they wouldn’t have even have been aware of the existence of horses.
Civ6 will have geographical and resource requirements for certain techs. This means that it will either be impossible to research certain techs without access to their required resources (e.g. horseback riding without horses, seafaring without coastal access) or more expensive to do so (e.g. steam engine without coal, combustion without oil). Similarly, advances which have these resource-dependent techs as prerequisites will either be un-researchable or more expensive if the aforementioned resource is unavailable. However civs will still be able to acquire un-researchable resource-requiring advances from other civs through diplomatic negotiation or technology diffusion.

Technology diffusion
Spoiler :
Throughout history, scientific knowledge and technology have tended to spread throughout the world along trade routes, rather than via official exchanges of knowledge between governments. In Civ6, technologies already researched by one civ have a chance of ‘spreading’ to other civs along trade routes and roads. The greater the proportion of civs in the world which already have a certain tech, the more likely that tech is to spread to the remaining civs which do not yet possess that tech. This tech diffusion mechanic will be very similar to the one used in ROM-AND.

Patenting
Spoiler :
Civ6 will also allow you to “patent” techs. If you have already discovered Education, and you are the first to research a new advance, you will be given the option to “Patent” that advance. Patenting an advance gives you the exclusive ability to trade it with other players; no other players can trade that advance with any other players, even if some of those players have researched it themselves. Patenting will help to counteract the effect of tech brokering, but it will have no effect on Tech Diffusion.
 
Traits and Abilities
Leader and civ-specific abilities (a.k.a. “traits”) add a great deal to the replayability of Civ-style games, so they will of course feature in my ideal Civ6. However Civ5’s system of unique abilities for different civilizations has been controversial, as some have claimed that they portray and perpetuate politically incorrect stereotypes of certain societies. There have also been complaints that the unique abilities for some civs are either too weak or overpowered. The traits system in my ideal Civ6 will therefore be designed around the principles of play-balance, replayability, and political correctness. As such, Civ6’s trait system will be a two-tiered system composed of 1) unique abilities for leaders, and 2) adaptive traits for civilizations. Like Civ4:BTS, Civ6 will also feature one unique unit and one unique building for each civ.

Unique leader abilities
Spoiler :
In Civ6, each leader will have a fairly modest unique ability which relates to some particular aspect of gameplay. For example, Genghis Khan might have an ability to produce better/faster mounted units, while Franklin D. Roosevelt might have an ability to build tile improvements at a decreased cost. These unique abilities will be designed to reflect the historical achievements and characteristics of each leader. Unique leader abilities are fixed and will have effect for the entire duration of a game.


Adaptive traits
Spoiler :
Would the English have become accomplished seafarers if their homeland was located in a landlocked region such as Russia or Mongolia? Would the Germans have become a major industrial power if they had little or no access to iron and coal? History shows that societies tend to evolve and adapt to their surrounding environment much like organisms do, and develop traits which help them survive and prosper in the environmental and geopolitical circumstances they face.
Although Civ3 deserves credit for introducing civ-specific abilities, its system was nevertheless unrealistic. For example, the Germans were always industrious, and the English were always seafaring, regardless of where they started and expanded on a game map. Civ5 makes a similar mistake, giving civs permanent unique abilities which are in no way connected to their in-game geographical situation or development.
Adaptive traits for civilizations will be Civ6’s way of remedying this problem. Instead of starting with a given set of civilization traits, civs will ‘develop’ certain traits depending on how they play the game. How they play the game will, in turn, be partly determined by their terrain and resources (particularly in the early game). These adaptive civ traits will be fairly generic e.g. “maritime” which gives bonuses to ship movement and sea trade, “militaristic” which gives bonuses to unit strength and barracks production. Each civ trait can be acquired by fulfilling certain criteria e.g. building lots of ships and coastal cities will make you more likely to acquire the maritime trait, while fighting lots of wars may result in you acquiring the militaristic trait.
Adaptive civ traits will change about every 70 turns on standard game speed, and civs can have no more than two traits at any one time. When it is time for your civ traits to change, the game determines which new traits you acquire by keeping a indexed score of how much you have done to meet the criteria for each trait. If your indexed score is highest for the civ traits you already possess, you will retain those traits; if you have higher index scores for other traits, then your civ traits will change accordingly.


Religion
This is another game feature which has the potential to generate a great deal of controversy if it is not implemented carefully. Religion has played (and continues to play) a huge part in human history, and Civ4 was right to include it: the implementation certainly wasn’t perfect, but that’s not surprising considering that Civ4 was the first Civ game to make a serious attempt at including it. Civ5’s approach was to simply omit religion altogether – an approach which I strongly disagree with and regard as a big step backwards for the Civ series. My ideal Civ6 will have a religion system based on the template offered in Civ4, but with a few key changes to enhance its realism and its relevance to gameplay.

Self-founding religions
Spoiler :
In Civ4, religions each had a tech prerequisite, and the first player to discover that tech would found that religion. Though straightforward, this system was also rather unrealistic. In Civ6, religions will still have tech prerequisites, but they will not be founded as soon as a player researches their prerequisite tech. Instead religions will be self-founding, much like they are in ROM-AND. A minimum number of players (3 on most map sizes, 2 on dual maps) must already possess the prerequisite tech for a religion before that religion can be founded. Once the minimum number of players possesses the prerequisite tech, the religion is “enabled” and stands a 25% chance each turn of founding in any city which belongs to a civ which possesses its prerequisite tech.
For example, suppose there are 7 civs on a game map, and the prerequisite tech for Buddhism is meditation. At 1000BC only two civs – the Incas and the Indians – have knowledge of meditation, but the next turn (980BC) the Russians also acquire it. This means that Buddhism now has a 25% chance of founding in any city each turn - so long as that city is Russian, Indian, or Incan. Now suppose that the Chinese then acquire meditation one turn after the Russians (960BC), and Buddhism did not self-found on the previous turn: Buddhism now has a 25% change of founding in any city each turn which belongs to Russia, India, Inca, or China.
Self-founding religions are a more realistic portrayal of how religions emerge than the Civ4 system, and they also help to militate against the risk of one or two early religions becoming too widespread too quickly.

Different spreading rates
Spoiler :
One of the most annoying – and unrealistic – aspects of religion in Civ4 was that the earliest religions on the tech tree (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism) tended to become the most widespread and crowded out later religions (e.g. Christianity, Islam). In Civ6 different religions will spread to new cities at different rates, depending on how early their prerequisite tech is placed in the tech tree, with later religions having a significantly higher rate of spreading than earlier ones. A similar spreading mechanic for religions has already been shown to work in RFC. Additionally, the position of prerequisite techs for religions on the Civ6 tech tree will reflect historical reality.
The later a religion’s prerequisite tech, the more free missionaries will be gifted to the civ in which it self-founds. So early religions like Hinduism and Judaism will not give any free missionaries when they found; Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism will give two missionaries each; and Christianity and Islam will each give five free missionaries upon their founding. Missionaries will still require the meditation tech, but this tech will be placed later in the Civ6 tech tree than it was in Civ4’s. Civs will be able to build up to 5 missionaries of the same religion at any one time (as opposed to 3 in Civ4).


Religious Schisms and Denominations
Spoiler :
The prospect of the whole world adopting the same state religion may seem far-fetched, but it was not unusual in Civ4 for most or all civs to adopt the same state religion and form one big happy religious “power-bloc”. Self-founding and different spreading rates will go some way towards minimising the chance of such an outcome in Civ6, but what if it somehow ends up happening anyway?
My ideal Civ6 will also include a way of breaking up religious power blocs: religious schisms. This mechanic is based on the protestant/catholic schism event in the Dawn of Civilization mod for Civ4. In Civ6, each religion will be divided into two denominations – the “early” denomination and the “late denomination”. For example, the early denomination of Christianity will be Catholicism, and the late denomination will be Protestantism. Any religion which becomes too widespread (and is adopted as a state religion by many civs) will run the risk of undergoing a schism at some point.
When a religious schism occurs, half the cities in the world with that religion will randomly adopt the late denomination of the religion (without displacing the early denomination); any religious buildings in those adopting cities will also automatically change from the early to the late denomination. Civs will also receive a modest one-time lump sum of gold for adopting the late denomination as their state religion. Once established, denominations will effectively be separate distinct religions in their own right: AI Civs which have different denominations for their state religions will regard each other the same way as they would regard civs with different state religions altogether.

Inquisitions
Spoiler :
Presence of foreign non-state religions/denominations in a city will make that city more likely to revolt. In Civ6, military units will be able to perform inquisitions on non-state religions/denominations in their own cities. Inquisitions can be performed on one particular religion/denomination at a time or on all non-state religions/denominations in the city at once. The affected city experiences a substantial but temporary happiness penalty for each religion/denomination which is purged by inquisition. Civs with secular civics or no state religion will not be able to perform inquisitions.

Religion Abilities
Spoiler :
Civ4 did not make religions any different in terms of abilities and advantages, probably for reasons of political correctness. Nevertheless, some have complained that the religions in Civ4 were not differentiated enough in terms of gameplay to make them strategically interesting.
In my ideal Civ6, different religions would impart different bonuses. These bonuses would apply to any city in which a religion was located, provided that religion was the state religion of that city’s civ. Note that religions will not confer any unique disadvantages, they will just confer advantages in different areas e.g. commerce, productivity , culture, science etc. All religions will still give a small happiness bonus (as will their temples), but the monasteries and cathedrals of different religions will have somewhat different bonuses. Players will now face a genuine trade-off in deciding which religion to convert to, and it will no longer necessarily be the best idea to adopt the first/most popular religion that spreads to your empire.
 
Wonders and Super Wonders
As mentioned earlier, the Victory Conditions of past Civ games will be replaced by “Super Wonders” in Civ6. Additionally, Civ6 will also revive a couple of other Wonder-related ideas from SMAC and Civ3.

Super Wonders
Spoiler :
Super Wonders (as I will call them for now) are essentially the Victory Conditions of past versions of Civ, except for the fact that they won’t result in Victory. Instead, the achievement of these Super Wonders will confer major in-game benefits as well as substantial score bonuses. Like World Wonders, Super Wonders can only be achieved by one player in a game, and only that player who first achieves them will receive their in-game and score benefits. Super-Wonders will also come with videos which play when you achieve them.
Civ6 will feature seven Super Wonders: Diplomatic, Cultural, Domination, Conquest, Space Race, Religion, and Economic. The four of these will be the same as their corresponding Victory Conditions in Civ4. Regarding the last three:
• The Space Race Super Wonder will involve setting up a colony on Mars rather than sending a space ship to Alpha Centauri. I think this change is warranted because establishing a colony in another star system is probably centuries beyond our present level of technological capability, whereas establishing a colony on Mars isn’t quite as technically far-fetched. Rather than assembling and launching one big spaceship, the Martian colony will be set up by sending several ships to Mars in stages; each ship will carry various infrastructure components for constructing the colony, except the final ship which will carry the colonists themselves. Each ship will take 1-5 turns on standard game speed to complete the journey to Mars.
• Based on FFH2’s Religious Victory Condition, the Religion Super Wonder will involve converting most of the world’s cities to your faith. The Religion Super Wonder requires that you 1) have a state religion 2) have the founding city of that religion, 3) have your state religion in all of your cities, 4) build the Shrine for that religion, and 5) spread that religion to at least 80% of cities in the world.
• The Economic Super Wonder is loosely based on the Economic Victory condition from SMAC. In Civ6, the Economic Super Wonder requires that you 1) have at least 75,000 gold, and 2) your total per turn commerce production is at least twice as high as the rest of the world combined and remains so for at least 20 consecutive turns on standard game speed.


Natural Wonders
Spoiler :
Natural Wonders have featured in SMAC, FFH2 and Civ5. In Civ6 Natural Wonders (e.g. Mount Everest, Great Barrier Reef, Grand Canyon) will work in a manner similar to how they worked in SMAC: most will impart commerce and/or production bonuses to the terrain on which they are located, and some will provide empire-wide bonuses (e.g. to happiness) to whichever player controls them. Some Natural Wonders may also provide an initial lump-sum gold reward to the first player to send a scout or explorer unit to explore them. Living Natural Wonders may be destroyed by Nuclear Winter or if the Climate Change Counter gets too high.

Tourism Revenue and Re-buildable World Wonders
Spoiler :
Civ6 will bring back the C3C concept of Tourism Revenue for World Wonders. Basically, if a World Wonder has been around for a long time, it will start to generate a small amount of per-turn gold revenue. This amount gradually increases over time, even if the Wonder becomes obsolete.
In Civ6, taking a city with a World Wonder may result in that Wonder being destroyed due to fighting and looting. However, you will be able to re-build World Wonders that have been destroyed. Wonders can only be re-built in the cities which originally built them, and can be re-built even if they have become obsolete. Once a wonder is re-built, it will give the same per-turn tourism revenue as it would if it had never been destroyed. Wonders will cost 25% less than their original construction cost to re-build.


Extras and Scoring

Optional Future Era
Spoiler :
My ideal Civ6 would come pre-packaged with a mod which is just like the regular game but also includes a future era. This Future Era would include plausible futuristic units, city buildings, tile improvements, National and World Wonders, civics, music, sound effects, visual effects, and an additional Super Wonder. This Future Era mod would probably extend the game to about 2200AD. This Future Era mod is a good compromise for Civ fans who want Civ games to be faithful to history and those who like the idea of having a cool futuristic end-game.

Unlockable Features
Spoiler :
These would be like Steam Achievements, except that they would be more challenging and unlock new parts of the game e.g. secret units, mods, difficulty levels etc. Unlockable features are intended to enhance the replayability value of Civ6.

Features which won’t return
Spoiler :
There are a few features from Civ4 and Civ5 that would not feature in my ideal Civ6. These include:
-Spiffy CGI leaderhead animations (incl. voice acting) and long intro videos which add nothing to gameplay and only eat up a computers resources
-“Denouncing” and random insults from the AI leaders
-“Global” happiness
-Redding-out of trading options. Everything has a price, even if that price is higher than I can afford. Nevertheless I still want it to actually be possible to make such a trade
-Lying and/or convoluted user-interface
-“Play to win” AI. Leaders controlled by the AI should play in a way that simulates their historical personality, not like immature competitive children trying to win a board game
-Being unable to disband cities. I want to be able to disband my own small cities (i.e. size 4 or less) if the need arises, even if it means receiving an empire-wide stability penalty
-Tundra farming. Civ4 had the right idea with making deserts un-farmable, but this rule should be extended to all tundra tiles as well
-AI’s incapable of forming an effective army, launching an effective naval invasion, or mounting an effective attack and defence
-“Embarking” i.e. units can cross water without the need for transport ships
-Inability of naval units to bombard on-shore improvements and other units
-Cultural defence bonuses for cities which can be reduced by siege units
-Impassable, un-useable and un-improvable mountains
-Espionage. This aspect of the game was a poorly-implemented nuisance in Civ4:BTS. I can’t really think how I’d re-do it, except maybe to just make it possible to build embassies which allow you to see where a rival’s troops are, what they’re researching, and what they’re building (i.e. passive intelligence gathering).Maybe this approach can expanded upon in an expansion pack


Scoring
Spoiler :
Civ6 will reward players primarily for standing the Test of Time and building a thriving prosperous empire. Players’ final scores for a game will be affected by:
- Number of turns your civilization survived
- Population
- Resources depleted
- Overall stability levels
- Happiness levels
- Health levels
- Depressions
- Golden Ages
- Number of rivals conquered
- Number of Vassals
- World Wonders built and controlled
- Cities lost by revolts and conquest
- Number of turns at peace
- Technologies acquired, including Future Technologies
- Super-Wonders achieved
- Climate Change Counter
- Diplomatic relationship with other civs




So that is my blue-sky vision for Civ6. It may only ever exist in my imagination, but I enjoyed telling you about it all the same. I hope you have enjoyed reading about it :)
 
-Spiffy CGI leaderhead animations (incl. voice acting) and long intro videos which add nothing to gameplay and only eat up a computers resources
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Just to take one of your many, many...many points, I think it would be a shame to lose such eye candy. The game should certainly not be centred around aesthetics, but that doesn't mean they aren't a valuable part of the game and the gameplay experience. I, for one, would be far less likely to buy a civilization game that didn't have some neat leaderhead graphics.
 
Camikaze said:
Just to take one of your many, many...many points, I think it would be a shame to lose such eye candy. The game should certainly not be centred around aesthetics, but that doesn't mean they aren't a valuable part of the game and the gameplay experience. I, for one, would be far less likely to buy a civilization game that didn't have some neat leaderhead graphics.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying don't have nice leaderhead graphics. I'm saying that they don't need to be super-duper high-end, because if they are they'll make the game too resource intensive while adding relatively little to the overall quality of the game.
 
Honestly, much of your dreams for Civilization 6 are based on your own personal philosophies. This means that much of what you wrote is not suitable for people of differing worldviews.

I am opposed to Environmentalism, for example, as I believe it is a false religion. Having said that, I take great issue with your beliefs on environmental impact, such as your statement, "throughout history civilizations have prospered and collapsed based largely on how they treated (or mistreated) their natural environment."

There is simply no overwhelming proof that this is at all true. You would be hard-pressed to list ANY civilizations whose livelihood was based on the global or local environment, unless you are talking about the Great Flood, raining brimstone, or other natural disasters caused by Someone who is not human.

If we downgraded the religion of it to a simple observance of a battle strategy, then we could take as an example when Napoleon marched into Russia during the wintertime. I could at least put my head around a statement like "the environment lead to a collapse of Napoleon's regime," but that would be such a loose and stretching statement that it could not be the basis for any argument. It would be peripheral at best, but even better to be left out.

The things that we can be sure of are what we know to be true:

1) Human beings are a part of the environment, therefore we cannot ruin it. If you believe that humanity is super-environmental (supernatural), then perhaps you can see the religious aspect of your views. In that regard, I'd suggest that we leave that out of our video games unless we are trying to proselytize, which I don't think the Civilization series was intended to do.

2) The "global warming" and "greenhouse effect" hoaxes have already reached into the Civilization series. These are based on religious and unscientific views. Scientifically, Earth would be far better off if we were, say, 5 degrees Centigrade warmer. We'd have more plant life, which then would bare more oxygen (converted from carbon dioxide), and the waters might even be slightly warmer to a far smaller degree, providing for more life. But these hoaxes center around two fallacies: (a) that humans are supernatural and thus are able to destroy 4 billion year-old Earth (simply by breathing, making industry, and by intentionally trying to destroy Earth for financial gain); and (b) that the ice caps will melt and flood us all. Science is not hard to perform, and I'd love it if everyone considered how much water overflows from a cup of water as the ice inside it melts. Or if everyone considered the solubility of the trillions of gallons of water on the majority of the Earth's surface (which have literally liquidated mountain ranges, making it "salty"). In other words, I would like people to THINK instead of have a Chicken Little religious faith. No, dear friends, the sky is not falling. If it were, it would not be "someone else's" fault, either. (Like capitalism always seems to be, according to leftists.)

3) Consider the great environmental fluxes simply from day to night. In terms of percentages, as those like to be tossed around at times, consider that Earth's temperature fluxuates about 50% from its highs to lows in just a 24-hour period. The point is that Earth can handle the stuff in/on it, and has been doing so for quite some time. Hence, whatever happens to its crust in only certain, minute places cannot be seen (a) as an indication of its fragility (as Earth is nowhere near fragile) and (b) as an indication of any civilization's rise and fall. But on that last point, if a volcano explodes and wipes out a civilization, it would be nothing short of religious AND arrogant to declare that such a thing happened by the cause of Man. So let's focus on what really happens: creatures are subject to Creation; not the other way around.

4) And lastly, scarcity is a farse. Malthusian economic principles were adopted by the various radical left-wing regimes and thinkers to bring about strict regulation of societies and individuals, thus reducing their freedoms. Environmentalism is a religious byproduct of Malthusian economic thought as it declares that "there is only so much." This actually means that a select few are to oversee the "only so much" and thus regulate it, regulate the consumers, and go on to regulate how others think about things. But the fallacy of this line of thought is evident in its blind faith that humanity is supernatural, that Earth is fragile, and that the sky must be protected from falling by "better intentioned" humans. (In comes the socialist regime.) But we can avoid this theocratic tyranny by considering an obvious truth, which ends up nullifying the religion of Environmentalism altogether. That truth can be summarized in one word: innovation. Human innovation has rendered things obsolete long before they ever became extinct. Not only that, it is far too narrow-minded to think that what we have now is all that we can achieve. Also, considering something that is taboo to the religion of Environmentalism, there is also the idea of supply and demand (free-market economic theory is the taboo, unfortunately), whereby if something cost too much, then people won't use it. Innovation would then lead to cheaper, equivalent or better things. This is true for everything that has ever been developed and will be developed. Surely we'd rather not deal with all the pollution of horse and buggy travel again, eh? But there were folks back in that era who swore we'd run out of horses, as well as being overrun by all the pollution that they were causing. (Perhaps they had political agendas, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt for now and just assume that they were in fact scared mindless.) Yet those little-minded Chicken Littles were proven wrong as well. And this is just one example among every example that proves Malthusian economics, the religion of Environmentalism, and other command-styled worldviews patently false. We should stray from our fears and walk into truthful ways. Such a path is far more liberating, and we should not be afraid of freedom. (See Psalm 23 for inspiration.)


I mostly just wanted to point to the errant science/religion of your dreams, Gatsby, as well as to point out that because I am opposed to your views, I would not support your version of Civilization 6, were it to ever exist. I think that we are bombarded by radical left-wing theocracies, wordlviews, and countercultures enough that we don't need to waste our money on those kinds of video games.

As for your other points on religion, economics, buildings, and government within "Civ6," I don't mind most of them. But I think your wandering into the pragmatic mindset is dangerous and unsettling enough to make me cringe. For example, political correctness has no place in a well-meaning, righteous society based on human integrity and law. So to bring about that sub-religious view, again, turns me off to all of your ideas in totality, as it seems that I'd have to play a game based on your worldviews as opposed to something less dogmatic and contrived.

I just want to play Civ. I don't want to have to sift through someone else's religious views just to conquer the Russians. Get my drift?


Snootch

Moderator Action: Don't spam the forums. This post doesn't have anything to do with Civilization and only derails the thread.
 
Snootch said:
Honestly, much of your dreams for Civilization 6 are based on your own personal philosophies. This means that much of what you wrote is not suitable for people of differing worldviews.
Click to expand...

Yes they are based on my own personal philosophies. What the hell else would they be based on??? :rolleyes:

Before I go any further, let me just make it clear at the outset that this is my vision of an ideal Civ6. It is not the vision of whoever actually ends up producing a Civ6; and it is certainly not a game that the Gubbermint is going to force you to play at gunpoint after they make you denounce the ten commandments in front of your pastor whilst simultaneously forcing you to eat your own firearms in some cell in Guantanamo. Capsice? ;)

Snootch said:
I am opposed to Environmentalism, for example, as I believe it is a false religion. Having said that, I take great issue with your beliefs on environmental impact, such as your statement, "throughout history civilizations have prospered and collapsed based largely on how they treated (or mistreated) their natural environment."
There is simply no overwhelming proof that this is at all true. You would be hard-pressed to list ANY civilizations whose livelihood was based on the global or local environment, unless you are talking about the Great Flood, raining brimstone, or other natural disasters caused by Someone who is not human.
Click to expand...

Easter Island, medieval Japan, the Anasazi, the Roman Empire, Domenican Republic/Haiti, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Maya, just to name a few.


Snootch said:
If we downgraded the religion of it to a simple observance of a battle strategy, then we could take as an example when Napoleon marched into Russia during the wintertime. I could at least put my head around a statement like "the environment lead to a collapse of Napoleon's regime," but that would be such a loose and stretching statement that it could not be the basis for any argument. It would be peripheral at best, but even better to be left out.
Click to expand...

:confused: I didn't say anything about Napoleon invading Russia, why are you putting words into my mouth. False equivalence alert :nuke:


Snootch said:
The things that we can be sure of are what we know to be true:

1) Human beings are a part of the environment, therefore we cannot ruin it. If you believe that humanity is super-environmental (supernatural), then perhaps you can see the religious aspect of your views. In that regard, I'd suggest that we leave that out of our video games unless we are trying to proselytize, which I don't think the Civilization series was intended to do.
Click to expand...

I don't even know where to begin here. The logic here is similar to saying "I am a living being, therefore I cannot kill myself". I'm starting to hope that you're just posting this stuff for s**ts and giggles.


Snootch said:
2) The "global warming" and "greenhouse effect" hoaxes have already reached into the Civilization series. These are based on religious and unscientific views. Scientifically, Earth would be far better off if we were, say, 5 degrees Centigrade warmer. We'd have more plant life, which then would bare more oxygen (converted from carbon dioxide), and the waters might even be slightly warmer to a far smaller degree, providing for more life. But these hoaxes center around two fallacies: (a) that humans are supernatural and thus are able to destroy 4 billion year-old Earth (simply by breathing, making industry, and by intentionally trying to destroy Earth for financial gain); and (b) that the ice caps will melt and flood us all. Science is not hard to perform, and I'd love it if everyone considered how much water overflows from a cup of water as the ice inside it melts. Or if everyone considered the solubility of the trillions of gallons of water on the majority of the Earth's surface (which have literally liquidated mountain ranges, making it "salty"). In other words, I would like people to THINK instead of have a Chicken Little religious faith. No, dear friends, the sky is not falling. If it were, it would not be "someone else's" fault, either. (Like capitalism always seems to be, according to leftists.)
Click to expand...

Global warming has been implemented simplistically and inaccurately in almost all Civ games to date. I would like to see a Civ6 which rectifies this long-standing error. A 5 degree rise in global average temperatures might be "good" for some forms of life, but it would be disasterous for human civilization as we know it - especially if that temperature rise occured in a short timeframe of a couple of hundred of years. Think of how suitable the Earth would have been for any kind of advanced human civilization during the last ice-age: the opposite extreme would also be bad because human civilization has arisen and thrived in the narrow and mild confines of a holeocene climate.

Snootch said:
3) Consider the great environmental fluxes simply from day to night. In terms of percentages, as those like to be tossed around at times, consider that Earth's temperature fluxuates about 50% from its highs to lows in just a 24-hour period. The point is that Earth can handle the stuff in/on it, and has been doing so for quite some time. Hence, whatever happens to its crust in only certain, minute places cannot be seen (a) as an indication of its fragility (as Earth is nowhere near fragile) and (b) as an indication of any civilization's rise and fall. But on that last point, if a volcano explodes and wipes out a civilization, it would be nothing short of religious AND arrogant to declare that such a thing happened by the cause of Man. So let's focus on what really happens: creatures are subject to Creation; not the other way around.
Click to expand...

So...many...false....equivalencies!! I'm starting to get vertigo :crazyeye:


Snootch said:
4) And lastly, scarcity is a farse. Malthusian economic principles were adopted by the various radical left-wing regimes and thinkers to bring about strict regulation of societies and individuals, thus reducing their freedoms. Environmentalism is a religious byproduct of Malthusian economic thought as it declares that "there is only so much." This actually means that a select few are to oversee the "only so much" and thus regulate it, regulate the consumers, and go on to regulate how others think about things. But the fallacy of this line of thought is evident in its blind faith that humanity is supernatural, that Earth is fragile, and that the sky must be protected from falling by "better intentioned" humans. (In comes the socialist regime.) But we can avoid this theocratic tyranny by considering an obvious truth, which ends up nullifying the religion of Environmentalism altogether. That truth can be summarized in one word: innovation. Human innovation has rendered things obsolete long before they ever became extinct. Not only that, it is far too narrow-minded to think that what we have now is all that we can achieve. Also, considering something that is taboo to the religion of Environmentalism, there is also the idea of supply and demand (free-market economic theory is the taboo, unfortunately), whereby if something cost too much, then people won't use it. Innovation would then lead to cheaper, equivalent or better things. This is true for everything that has ever been developed and will be developed. Surely we'd rather not deal with all the pollution of horse and buggy travel again, eh? But there were folks back in that era who swore we'd run out of horses, as well as being overrun by all the pollution that they were causing. (Perhaps they had political agendas, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt for now and just assume that they were in fact scared mindless.) Yet those little-minded Chicken Littles were proven wrong as well. And this is just one example among every example that proves Malthusian economics, the religion of Environmentalism, and other command-styled worldviews patently false. We should stray from our fears and walk into truthful ways. Such a path is far more liberating, and we should not be afraid of freedom. (See Psalm 23 for inspiration.)
Click to expand...

Scarcity is the underlying principle of the field of economics. Without scarcity, there is no need for economics, because there is no need to efficiently allocate scarce resources. To believe that everything is limitless and that you can get something for nothing (including no unintended consequences) is a delusional and self-endangering fantasy.

Nevertheless I will indulge you by responding to your horse and buggy example: even if there were people who were afraid the world would end up covered in horse poop or whatever, to say they were proven wrong is a dishonest and superficial assessment of the outcome. Your horse and buggy example is a classic example of societies solving problems by resorting to greater complexity. The horses and buggies dissappeared - along with all their pollution - when cars came along. But although cars solved the horse-and-buggy pollution problem, they created or contributed to a whole new set of problems such as increases in athsma rates, traffic jams, car accidents, increased noise levels, dependence on oil imports from hostile countries, stagflation, even 9-11 and increased food prices (due to farmland being used for ethanol production).


Snootch said:
I mostly just wanted to point to the errant science/religion of your dreams, Gatsby, as well as to point out that because I am opposed to your views, I would not support your version of Civilization 6, were it to ever exist. I think that we are bombarded by radical left-wing theocracies, wordlviews, and countercultures enough that we don't need to waste our money on those kinds of video games.
Click to expand...

I didn't ask you to support it, and like I said no one is going to force you to play such a game even if it did exist.

Yeah, sure we're so totally utterly bombarded by radical left-wing worldviews, especially from the likes of AM radio, Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, CNN, MSNBC, Christian media outlets, the Tea Party, and of course the vast majority of those tree-hugging, watermelon-humping US senators and congressmen :lol::lol::lol:


Snootch said:
As for your other points on religion, economics, buildings, and government within "Civ6," I don't mind most of them. But I think your wandering into the pragmatic mindset is dangerous and unsettling enough to make me cringe. For example, political correctness has no place in a well-meaning, righteous society based on human integrity and law. So to bring about that sub-religious view, again, turns me off to all of your ideas in totality, as it seems that I'd have to play a game based on your worldviews as opposed to something less dogmatic and contrived.
Click to expand...

Now I'm sure you're putting it on! Definitions of "pragmatic":

•matter-of-fact: concerned with practical matters; "a matter-of-fact (or pragmatic) approach to the problem"; "a matter-of-fact account of the trip"
•hardheaded: guided by practical experience and observation rather than theory; "a hardheaded appraisal of our position"; "a hard-nosed labor leader"; "completely practical in his approach to business"; "not ideology but pragmatic politics"

As such, I'm quite happy to 'wander into the pragmatic mindset'. And if certain elements of society find such a mindset "dangerous" and "unsettling", then I would suggest that those elements are themselves an unsettling danger to the rest of society.

"Political correctness" may or may not have it's place in society, but I do know of one thing which definitely has it's place in ANY sane, self-respecting society: appreciation of the rules of cause and effect.


Snootch said:
I just want to play Civ. I don't want to have to sift through someone else's religious views just to conquer the Russians. Get my drift?
Click to expand...

I want to play Civ too: I want to play a Civ which is fun, challenging, and realistic, and which is designed around the indisputable realities that 1) human societies affect their surrounding environments, 2) human societies cannot always control the world around them even when they try really hard to, and 3) human societies are subject to the law of cause and effect. Or as the Good Book says, "As you sow so shall you reap" ;)

In the meantime, you might want to watch something other than Fox News every now and then. Get my drift? :)
 
i total agree with you and your plans for civi 6 but i think anther bounes in the game would be if you build leanados workshop all units should upgrade untip some one build anther miltary speacil build.
yes i think there has to be plenty of natrual desesater to create a relestic gameplay as well as terra tranforming through out the game
 
I like most of your ideas. Especially about global climate change. If I were able I'd build a detailed mod which would use some sort of formula taking into account the amount of forest versus polution. The outcome could start global warming (deserts grow, ice melts) or global cooling (tundra/snow grows, deserts decreases). With some settings at the start which you could use to set a normal, extra hot or extra cold starting world and wheter the world is likely to cool, warm up, or stay stable.

Ah well, dreams indeed.

Also sorry one of the first posts was an American nutbag with a twisted vision on the world. Moderator Action: We don't allow any insults here. I, for one, appreciate your views and the effort you put in by typing it all out.
 
Yeah, you didn't really respond to any of my points, Gatsby. You poked fun at them but provided nothing intelligent in response. You also made baseless claims and hypocritical statements. This leads to the point for why I responded to your "dream Civ 6" in the first place: it would not be fun for people who disagree with your dogmatic beliefs.

CYZ is just another follower of your dogmatic beliefs, so of course he would utilize the same tactics.

My dream Civ 6 would not have any Environmentalist and socialist rhetoric or ideas altogether. Obviously you and I would disagree, especially after reading your views on the environment and economics.

And for the Moderator who doesn't know what spam is or what "on topic" means, he should pay better attention or let someone else do the job.

Moderator Action: First, if you have an issue with a moderator's action, the proper way to vent your frustration is to PM that moderator. Discussing mod actions in public is against the forum rules. Second, please don't insult other members of this forum. Thanks.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
 
Snootch said:
Yeah, you didn't really respond to any of my points, Gatsby. You poked fun at them but provided nothing intelligent in response. You also made baseless claims and hypocritical statements. This leads to the point for why I responded to your "dream Civ 6" in the first place: it would not be fun for people who disagree with your dogmatic beliefs.

CYZ is just another follower of your dogmatic beliefs, so of course he would utilize the same tactics.

My dream Civ 6 would not have any Environmentalist and socialist rhetoric or ideas altogether. Obviously you and I would disagree, especially after reading your views on the environment and economics.

And for the Moderator who doesn't know what spam is or what "on topic" means, he should pay better attention or let someone else do the job.
Click to expand...

:lol:

I think I did a pretty good job of providing an intelligent response to your polemic. If you did not understand any parts of my response and would like me to explain them further, please let me know.

Funny though that you should say we disagree on economics: I seriously considered including a "human welfare" component in my Civ6 wishlist. This human welfare component would have been all about improving the living standards and well-being of your citizens. It would have even had its own associated Super-Wonder, terrain pollution feature (slums), and Great Person type (Great Activists e.g. Martin Luther King). However I decided not to include human welfare in the end because I concluded that it would not really add much in terms of actual gameplay ( i.e. beyond what is already covered by the happiness and health mechanics) and would therefore lead to feature-bloat. Believe it or not, I also decided against its inclusion because I thought it would be too 'political'.

I would be *very* interested in reading a detailed description of your dream Civ6, Snootch. Seriously, I strongly suspect it would be as intriguing and fascinating as a Creationist Natural History Museum.

Cheers to the Mod for endeavouring to keep this thread on topic :)
 
hanibalthe hun said:
i total agree with you and your plans for civi 6 but i think anther bounes in the game would be if you build leanados workshop all units should upgrade untip some one build anther miltary speacil build.
yes i think there has to be plenty of natrual desesater to create a relestic gameplay as well as terra tranforming through out the game
Click to expand...

Thank you :) Yes, I forgot about Leonardo's Workshop, that was an awesome Wonder in Civ2 and Civ3. I would be happy to see it return in Civ6, although it should lower upgrade costs like it did in Civ3 rather than automatically upgrading all your units like it did in Civ2. I think the Civ2 version of it was overpowered.
 
CYZ said:
I like most of your ideas. Especially about global climate change. If I were able I'd build a detailed mod which would use some sort of formula taking into account the amount of forest versus polution. The outcome could start global warming (deserts grow, ice melts) or global cooling (tundra/snow grows, deserts decreases). With some settings at the start which you could use to set a normal, extra hot or extra cold starting world and wheter the world is likely to cool, warm up, or stay stable.

Ah well, dreams indeed.

Also sorry one of the first posts was an American nutbag with a twisted vision on the world. Moderator Action: We don't allow any insults here. I, for one, appreciate your views and the effort you put in by typing it all out.
Click to expand...

Thank you, it's nice to get positive responses to my ideas :) I like your ideas about forests vs pollution. I'm interested in trying the Global Warming mod for Civ4 - that might also provide a good basis for a climate change mechanic in Civ6. I also agree that it's about time for a proper Civ game which allows you to create maps with naturally changing long-term climates in addition to choosing whether your map will be "hot" or "cold" etc. After all, the real world does not have a naturally static climate.
 
Civ6 is sooo far remote in the future even previous iterations of all Civ titles can't be made to expand into multiple features whatever they are.
Let me explain;

-- The exact definition of such gameplay is highly complex by nature if only because context drives a rational grasp over ruleset and conditions.
-- There are principles beyond the "general" Start_to_End or Lose_Win factors.
-- Indirectly, the mechanics follow a straight path called a Design_Concept.
-- Empire building or competition of equals... in a sense that the entire scope can fill the gamers' mind with not only interactive observations but also control over activity.
-- Then... chaos sets in. The very fact that a strategic plan must be mastered to achieve good (not winning in particular, btw) results doesn't negate immersion either.
-- You'd be hard pressed finding anyone who isn't intelligent enough to enjoy losing & winning too often.

Thus, adding features (be they different or similar) runs the risk of tilting the franchise into unknown territory. Sure, it *CAN* work. Should it, though.
Innovation always begins with great ideas, nevertheless.
 
I agree with a lot of what has been suggested, here are my 2 cents:

Military: My idea is that perhaps we could have ONLY armies (a la Civ3), but they have abilities based on the units composing them. Artillery (eg. trebuchet) give bonuses vs cities, cavalry/pike/archer as in a RTS, aircraft and field artillery give general combat bonuses, so it is far more about how you build your army than things like bombarding. The military itself will be like SMAC (I LOVE that system), and combined arms will not necessarily be the optimum strategy, as there will be unit/tile limit, and a force of 6 knights will do better vs crossbows than 3 knights and 3 pikes. The mobilization system should also affect things like WW, base happy/stability, pop growth, espionage (somehow), culture and production.
Most of your ideas are great, but the MAD idea is fantastic :goodjob:

Economy: I like it in general, but there are a few quibbles. First, I don't like depressions, as it will inevitably result in people arguing over whether government intervention/lassez faire causes economic turmoil. Second, a economics is not a dichotomy, but a plane. There are pro-corporate (more gold and corporation spread), pro-labor (happy and 'health'/pop growth), pro-state (happy and mil. production), or free market, resulting in a balance between all of these. There would then be a spectrum between the 4, rather than 2, ideas. Third, inflation is (in the long run) caused by the printing press.

Environment: While most is fine, and I do have an idea about incorporating a slightly less 'Al Gore' view of the world, the scarcity thing is iffy. Basically, nothing ever runs out, just gets more costly to extract, so is rationed, and it would be very complex to map that. However, we can use global warming, which, like Civ3/4 causes things like desertification, however, with modern technology, deserts/tundra can be 'improved' to plains/grassland, but would be very expensive (in PW points)

Science: All sounds great, except of patents, which just seem ahistorical and unreal. However, I'd prefer that you simultaneously researched ALL available techs, with a weighting system (as in BTS espionage) between different 'fields' of science.

Expansion, Traits, Religion, Scoring, Wonders all sound great, except for the slight caveat that (after a certain tech, say, refrigeration), stuff like food should be empire-wide.


Overall, a great list of ideas :)
 
Death Lord said:
I agree with a lot of what has been suggested, here are my 2 cents:

Military: My idea is that perhaps we could have ONLY armies (a la Civ3), but they have abilities based on the units composing them. Artillery (eg. trebuchet) give bonuses vs cities, cavalry/pike/archer as in a RTS, aircraft and field artillery give general combat bonuses, so it is far more about how you build your army than things like bombarding. The military itself will be like SMAC (I LOVE that system), and combined arms will not necessarily be the optimum strategy, as there will be unit/tile limit, and a force of 6 knights will do better vs crossbows than 3 knights and 3 pikes. The mobilization system should also affect things like WW, base happy/stability, pop growth, espionage (somehow), culture and production.
Most of your ideas are great, but the MAD idea is fantastic :goodjob:

Economy: I like it in general, but there are a few quibbles. First, I don't like depressions, as it will inevitably result in people arguing over whether government intervention/lassez faire causes economic turmoil. Second, a economics is not a dichotomy, but a plane. There are pro-corporate (more gold and corporation spread), pro-labor (happy and 'health'/pop growth), pro-state (happy and mil. production), or free market, resulting in a balance between all of these. There would then be a spectrum between the 4, rather than 2, ideas. Third, inflation is (in the long run) caused by the printing press.

Environment: While most is fine, and I do have an idea about incorporating a slightly less 'Al Gore' view of the world, the scarcity thing is iffy. Basically, nothing ever runs out, just gets more costly to extract, so is rationed, and it would be very complex to map that. However, we can use global warming, which, like Civ3/4 causes things like desertification, however, with modern technology, deserts/tundra can be 'improved' to plains/grassland, but would be very expensive (in PW points)

Science: All sounds great, except of patents, which just seem ahistorical and unreal. However, I'd prefer that you simultaneously researched ALL available techs, with a weighting system (as in BTS espionage) between different 'fields' of science.

Expansion, Traits, Religion, Scoring, Wonders all sound great, except for the slight caveat that (after a certain tech, say, refrigeration), stuff like food should be empire-wide.


Overall, a great list of ideas :)
Click to expand...

Glad you liked them :) Regarding your suggestions:

Military - yes, this could also be a good approach, and would be less likely to cause copyright issues with Activision. However you would still need to be able to field individual units, especially in the early game. Would such an army system use hit points like the army system in Civ3? Getting the promotions to work with an army combat system would be great, but I suspect that actually implementating it could prove tricky whether it was a CTP- or Civ3- style army system. Maybe the promotions could be additive and average, for example:

If 3 pikemen form an army and each pikeman unit has +50% vs mounted units, the army has a total advantage of 150% vs mounted units. If that pikeman army fights an army composed of 2 knights and 1 crossbowman and both knight units have +25% vs melee units and the crossbowman gets +50% vs melee units, then that army will have a total of +100% vs melee units (such as pikemen). So it would be an army "unit" with +150% vs mounted units bonus fighting another army "unit" with +100% vs melee units. Since the pikeman army is 100% composed of melee units, the effective bonus for the other army fighting it would be 100%. The knight/crossbowman army is 2/3 mounted units and 1/3 ranged unit, so the effective bonus for the pikeman army would be (2/3) x (3 x 50%) = 100% when fighting the knight/crossbowman army. I think :confused:

I agree with your suggestion that mobilization should affect things like war weariness, base happiness/stability, pop growth, espionage, culture and production.

Economy - I'm not too worried about whether or not depressions are included. They do run the risk being "un-fun", but I also think they could be an interesting way to spice up the end-game, particularly because they would have a significant effect on empire stability. To balance out the depressions risk involved in running a free-market economy, other forms of economy would have their own disadvantages e.g. state property would be inefficient and switching out of it could lead to a "post-communist crisis" like it did in Rhyes and Fall of Civilization.

I probably wasn't using the right term before when I talked about "inflation". What I was actually trying to say was that excessive funding of something over the long-term can lead to a culture of waste and inefficiency. Perhaps I should have referred to it as Economies of Scale. This is the idea that I would like to see incorporated in the tax/funding allocation system of Civ6. IIRC inflation does pre-date the printing press - it was an issue in the Roman empire for example.

Environment - Some resources might not ever truly run out, but they can get depleted beyond all usefulness. Excessive consumption of a resource can lead to the point where it becomes more trouble to extract the remaining resources than it's worth e.g. needing more than one barrel's worth of oil energy to get one barrel's worth of oil out of the ground and to the market. Imo the resource depletion mechanic I suggested would be a reasonably good model of this. Having some expensive terraforming options available in the late game would be fine, particularly in the proposed future-era mod.

Science - it's not as ahistorical as you might think. The Chinese managed to withhold the knowledge of silk and porcelain production from the rest of the world for many centuries. Nevertheless I will admit that the Patenting mechanic would be a bit of a stretch in terms of realism. The idea of it is to discourage tech-brokering, but I suppose you could just have the option to disable tech-brokering when you start a new game. You could have simultaneous research, but I imagine the overall gamplay effect would be fairly similar to blind research.

Everything else - I like your idea of empire-wide food. It should only apply to cities which are connected to your empire's trade network though; unconnected cities should rely on their own food production until they are connected. Not sure how it could be implemented in terms of allocating food to each city.
 
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