[GS] Brave New World for Civ 6

[acluewithout]

snip

Thanks for the detailed comments. Lots of stuff to think about.

On Governors, no worries you’re not a fan of my suggestions. But the more I’ve thought about, the more I think Governors are not only a hugely under-utilised mechanic, but are also a big part of the late game malaise. Governors already have powerful “late game” promotions, but this just doesn’t do enough to keep them relevant.

I think the core issues with Governors are variety and being unable to “level” the Governor technology. The first point is obvious - you get the same seven governors, every game, for every Civ, from turn one. The only exceptions are Ottomans and now sort of Secret Societies. Just having more Governors would help this, eg more Civs with Unique Governors. I think Secret Societies will add some variety here, so this aspect may get a bit better.

The second point about “levelling up” is a bit trickier. A core game loop of Civ is unlocking upgrades to things, be it buildings, units, whatever. Governors sort of level up in that they have promotions and get more titles, and you get more Policy Cards that manipulate them. But I think they still lack a more definitive “levelling up” moment that you can only get by having additional Governors that are only available later in the game. I sort of see it the same a Governments - as the game progresses, your Government improves incrementally by you getting access to more powerful Policy Cards; but at various points, you get a big jump in power by unlocking more advanced Governments. I think Governors need the same dynamic, where in addition to your Governors getting better through promotions and policy cards, you also at certain point can unlock and access more powerful (or at least different) Governors.

On Governments and Ideological Pressure, I think that in addition to unlocking better stuff throughout the game (eg better buildings, better units), there are various points where you unlock truly game changing new mechanics or abilities. Examples are unlocking Tier 1 Governments, unlocking Feudalism, and unlocking Industrial Technology (Shipyards, Coal Plants and Power). I think the late game would be improved by making unlocking Ideologies being a bigger deal. Some ways to achieve that would be having T3 and T4 Governments give you access to new Governors (as described above), unique Wonders (Pentagon? Prora? Kremlin?), unique Units and unique Buildings ie in addition to the unique Policies the Governments already let you access.

Unlocking “Ideological Pressure” would be part of this. But I really just see this as an add on to loyalty. Something like you exert additional loyalty pressure v Civs with different Ideological Governments based on your relative loyalty. You could then maybe add to that some Governor Abilities and or Policy Cards that increase or decrease this additional loyalty pressure. And, of course, you’d still have access to all the existing Tourism Wonders and Policy Cards which would now not only impact tourism but would also via tourism have more impact on Loyalty.

On Barbs, I think I’d just be happy with Barbs having a few more unique units. On reflection, I don’t think they really need a whole separate city Mechanic. I’m also not too worried about Vassals etc. I think Colonial Cities need to be more worthwhile - at present, they’re just not worth the effort to found because they just give you more yields when you already have more than enough yields - is Colonial Cities need some sort of more niche or unique benefit. Having Vassals wouldn’t really address this. I think Vassals are more about just having another way to hold cities that don’t require as much micro management and doesn’t entirely integrate them into your empire, ie so the map isn’t just a sea of one colour. It’s not really a big deal because ultimately you can just queue projects for Cities you don’t want to micro, so it’s not like the burden is really that big anyway. Still, having something like Vassals might be a small fun addition to the game.

Anyway. I thought I’d just explain my thinking a bit more, in case you or anyone was interested. No problem if you’re still unconvinced about more Governors and or Ideological Pressure.

 

[fossar_]

Thanks for the detailed comments. Lots of stuff to think about.
your above post

Cheers for the reply, I like theory-crafting stuff like this so all for hearing more of your thoughts!

I think the idea of Governors getting better later in the game isn't a bad one, I'm just not sure new, more powerful ones is the way to solve it, or if it needs solving at all. One problem is since you can save promotions, how early would you start doing so to wait for the better governors? It's clearly intentional that there's never enough titles to promote all of them fully so it's not like every game is the same with them cos you'll pick different options. By 'not enough to keep them relevant' I'm guessing you mean they have significant enough promotions that you might want to rush them in some way? I would argue they're still very relevant even into the late game, getting Pingala kicked out or to Amani to lvl4 to guarantee suzerain can be a huge deal for example. I love the new societies and they seem to solve this issue for me for the most part, although with perhaps one or two more promotions from each society for the last eras. It doesn't seem like that style is what you're thinking of though so would love to hear if you knew more specifically what you're looking for in terms of the promotions themselves, if you know yet of course.

I'm well onboard with the ideology stuff you suggest, which would have to be paired with making it much more punishing to switch between governments of the same tier from T3 onwards so you don't get all the bonuses when you need them. I quite liked my idea of loyalty pressure switching to ideology pressure at some point but there are definitely some significant war related problems with it. What you're currently suggesting though doesn't quite capture 'ideological pressure' in a way that makes too much sense to me. Imo it should be an empire-wide battle not a militaristic border skirmish if you get what I mean. I think you could apply the negative happiness concept from Civ5 here for an alternative closer to what you've got in mind: no extra loyalty pressure but you can generate negative amenities like war weariness in nearby cities proportional to your tourism to that civ. This would decrease productivity nationwide in the enemy as amenities are redistributed already and would give science players a reason to generate tourism which they currently have little reason for while culture players have to generate science or be killed. I would also pair this with increasing the severity of being low on amenities: rebels spawning earlier, harsher loss of loyalty (ties back to your original thought) etc.

Tbh I'm not fussed if barbs have a few more UU's. I don't see much need for it but equally don't see how it would be a detriment to the game.

One thing I'm learning with the game is that there is no such thing as 'enough' yields. Both culture and science benefit from extra cities if they can make them relevant with enough time left of the game and I think this is to make war a more viable option. With Civ5 if you stopped simming for just an era to go to war you could easily find yourself irrelevant once peace was made, in Civ6 you need to do little more than build the relevant district, buy it's buildings and it contributes comparably to the rest of your empire. The Colonial Taxes card is incredibly powerful if you take over a neigbour or otherwise on a different continent, or commit the resources to spam settling with enough space. The only thing I can think of as a way to make them unique and relevant is with regard to the diplomatic victory: you would have the ability to grant far away cities independence for a significant permanent diplo favour boost (as long as they remain independent). They choose their production and give you a small percentage of their yields. I would imagine they'd have a militaristic bias and you'd have their units levied permanently so you don't have to rely on AI defending them. Literally came up with that as I was typing, I'm sure there's lots of ways to improve it but could be a cool idea, diplo seems to lack interesting mechanics even more than science atm.

So I also had a problems with the culture victory having trouble defending itself from military of big science or domination players and heavy expansion being relatively easy without penalty. Amentities being more punishing would make endless expansion more taxing and the version of ideology I've piggybacked would be a mechanism for culture players to 'attack' at others before the win screen like science players can build a military and kill if they're threatened and can't win quick enough.

Long, rambly post again lol. Hope it mostly made sense

 

[acluewithout]

Governors. I think Secret Societies does sort of show what more can be done with Governors. I’m not sure I generally like the empire wide effects + can’t move them, or that you can’t mix and match different “Governors”, although I get why FXS have taken that approach with Secret Societies. But, yeah, something a bit like that is kind of what I’m getting at.

I know Governor Titles were meant to be limited, but I actually find I have more than I need most games. Governor late game promotions are quite strong, but overall I feel Governors still become fairly irrelevant late game. You can usually get all the key promotions quite early, and their other benefits become largely irrelevant except for those very late game promotions.

I think the advantage of new late game Governors is really that you could have Governors more specifically directed at late game mechanics and issues, and those Governors and their abilities would be more effectively gated so you just couldn’t get to them so quickly. I also think it would just give players something more to work towards - like I said, one thing which really hurts the feel of Governors for me is just that they are all available every game basically from turn 1.

I’m not sure late game Governors would need to be more powerful than existing Governors. They’d just need to be more focused on late game mechanics and diversify more what you could do. I think some easy things late game Governors could maybe do are: be placed in foreign cities to effect Diplo vision, alliances, spies etc; assigned to the World Congress; focus on Colonial Cities or Cities with particular districts; Regional effects; manipulate amenities, happiness and loyalty in more interesting ways; unlock other buildings or units.

If the game had Ideological Pressure, you could then also tie late game governors into those mechanics too. Like maybe Late Game Governors can more effectively counter ideological pressure, but only if Cities have particular districts.

Late game Governors could also have some additional trade-offs, eg more power promotions, but they massively increase maintenance in any City or cause the city to require additional amenities or power.

Basically, I think having late game Governors would create lots of opportunities not just to shake up the Governor mechanics more but also shake up the late game generally.

Ideological Pressure. I think making Ideological Pressure sort of an evolution or expansion to the existing loyalty mechanics is a better fit for the game and likely to be easier to implement. But I don’t have strong feelings either way. I’d just like to see something in this ballpark, and think it would really help make the late game more interesting and meaningful, like it did in Civ 5.

 

[Sostratus]

Ideological Pressure. I think making Ideological Pressure sort of an evolution or expansion to the existing loyalty mechanics is a better fit for the game and likely to be easier to implement. But I don’t have strong feelings either way. I’d just like to see something in this ballpark, and think it would really help make the late game more interesting and meaningful, like it did in Civ 5.

I have thinking about this, and the way loyalty goes in late game is usually quite unsatisfying (once you have enough population in nearby cities it's solved.) . I would be quite happy if the culture tree basically narrowed to ideology, which became a watershed moment that converted loyalty pressure from population based to ideological pressure based. Perhaps loyalty takes on some of the unrest mechanics from amenities and amenities simply has an influence on loyalty, since loyalty is the ultimate expression of what "happiness" represents in civ6- do these people listen to you or not.
But it makes a lot more sense than a border city flipping due to population in the modern era.

Governors. I think Secret Societies does sort of show what more can be done with Governors. I’m not sure I generally like the empire wide effects + can’t move them, or that you can’t mix and match different “Governors”, although I get why FXS have taken that approach with Secret Societies. But, yeah, something a bit like that is kind of what I’m getting at.

The way they have secret societies set up is basically the cleanest way to insert "social policies" into civ6. That's ultimately what they are, and hopefully with some clever modding one could really leverage that for stuff like ideological tenets etc.

 

[acluewithout]

snip.

I agree with all that.

Governor mechanics are criminally under-used, and while I’m really excited about Secret Societies, I think they also illustrate just how little FXS have done with these mechanics compared to what they could do. I mean, even just having one or two more unique governors tied to new or existing Civs would be a good start!

I think there are a lots of ways Ideological Pressure could be implemented. Something that tied into making Amenities and Happiness relevant would be really great. But I’m not sure I really care much about the details, but just hope we get something eventually.

 

[The Civs 6]

I agree with all that.

Governor mechanics are criminally under-used, and while I’m really excited about Secret Societies, I think they also illustrate just how little FXS have done with these mechanics compared to what they could do. I mean, even just having one or two more unique governors tied to new or existing Civs would be a good start!

I think there are a lots of ways Ideological Pressure could be implemented. Something that tied into making Amenities and Happiness relevant would be really great. But I’m not sure I really care much about the details, but just hope we get something eventually.

My theory - we aren't. Civ is now a cash cow, and the kind of serious gameplay updates required to be the "new BnW" are inconsistent with the need to pump out superficial but attractive content.

 

[acluewithout]

My theory - we aren't. Civ is now a cash cow, and the kind of serious gameplay updates required to be the "new BnW" are inconsistent with the need to pump out superficial but attractive content.

Maybe. I hope not. But maybe.

Another possibility is that FXS have deliberately held off providing a sort of “end game” expansion like BNW because they wanted to first try a season pass model. They may have thought that if they sort of tied up the game in a third expansion bowl and then tried a season pass model, people wouldn’t have taken the risk because they would be inclined to just say “thanks. But the game is complete now, so no thanks”.

If that’s right, then FXS might be more willing to go back to the BNW well after NFP, because then they’d have more confident people will generally sign up for season passes, game modes, persona packs etc.

I mean, I have no idea, right? The current game design seems premised around various end game mechanics being added in. (I mean, seriously, the added a whole extra game era and then put almost nothing in it. That was surely so they could fill it out later?) And for a while it seemed like we were headed for a third xp. So, you’d think FXS would ultimately want to deliver on that. But now we’re in the middle of a season pass model that’s largely just introducing peripheral stuff.

It’s a bit have my cake and eat it too, but I really like the season pass model and game modes; but I also want a more definitive end game. I hope we get both, but agree it seems like FXS might not ever really flesh out the end game in favour of adding more shiny but ultimately pretty ancillary roleplaying game modes etc.

 

[fossar_]

I know Governor Titles were meant to be limited, but I actually find I have more than I need most games. Governor late game promotions are quite strong, but overall I feel Governors still become fairly irrelevant late game. You can usually get all the key promotions quite early, and their other benefits become largely irrelevant except for those very late game promotions.

Yeah I do get what you mean, although there are lots of options a lot of them rarely seem like they'll do much.

I mean, I have no idea, right? The current game design seems premised around various end game mechanics being added in. (I mean, seriously, the added a whole extra game era and then put almost nothing in it. That was surely so they could fill it out later?) And for a while it seemed like we were headed for a third xp. So, you’d think FXS would ultimately want to deliver on that. But now we’re in the middle of a season pass model that’s largely just introducing peripheral stuff.

I don't know, they could have just added the future era for a novel way of finishing the game where you need to click on the techs rather than just queue the rest from the industrial era. One of the biggest concepts in Civ is stuff earlier is more useful than stuff later. From that perspective it not surpising that the last two eras are all units and unit upgrades, stuff which is relevant immediately rather than having to build it then get yields. Still, I think they could put some intel satellite military wonder in or something like that. I agree the atomic era time does feel like it's missing something worthy of an expansion to take fill it out. This frontier pass seems just a way to make sure all the minor stuff that's not a proper DLC actually sells because people have pre-ordered it/you can't get the fun stuff without the rest of it which is a bit of a underhanded move. Hopefully they do make one more full size DLC before they call the game done or make enough small changes along the way to fix the weak parts!

 

[The Civs 6]

Maybe. I hope not. But maybe.

Another possibility is that FXS have deliberately held off providing a sort of “end game” expansion like BNW because they wanted to first try a season pass model. They may have thought that if they sort of tied up the game in a third expansion bowl and then tried a season pass model, people wouldn’t have taken the risk because they would be inclined to just say “thanks. But the game is complete now, so no thanks”.

If that’s right, then FXS might be more willing to go back to the BNW well after NFP, because then they’d have more confident people will generally sign up for season passes, game modes, persona packs etc.

I mean, I have no idea, right? The current game design seems premised around various end game mechanics being added in. (I mean, seriously, the added a whole extra game era and then put almost nothing in it. That was surely so they could fill it out later?) And for a while it seemed like we were headed for a third xp. So, you’d think FXS would ultimately want to deliver on that. But now we’re in the middle of a season pass model that’s largely just introducing peripheral stuff.

It’s a bit have my cake and eat it too, but I really like the season pass model and game modes; but I also want a more definitive end game. I hope we get both, but agree it seems like FXS might not ever really flesh out the end game in favour of adding more shiny but ultimately pretty ancillary roleplaying game modes etc.

You know that's a good point about the end game. I think it's so odd that they would innovate on one unit per hex and the whole district thing ("innovate", I think they got that from Endless), but they still are satisfied with the victory conditions being as tedious, if not more tedious, than they ever have been, and the AI basically rolling over in the modern era.

 

[Sostratus]

I think it's so odd that they would innovate on one unit per hex and the whole district thing ("innovate", I think they got that from Endless), but they still are satisfied with the victory conditions being as tedious, if not more tedious, than they ever have been

They went a little too far with the board game concept. It's very intellectually appealing, and it works with many of the decisions and systems in the game, but it doesn't scale well past a few cities. They tried something new and will learn from it, but having some automation/being able to control more actions with less decisions as the game goes on is a hard thing to pull off. (I would say look at a game like stellaris which is far, far more extreme in this regard!)

Also people are dumping on NFP way too much.
Literally everyone told them on their surveys that they want more civs in the game. If you think this is a cynical cash grab, look at what the individual civs like nubia and australia sold for on release. If they thought an expansion would sell better, they would have done an expansion (Lord knows they had the time.) Also, do we know what Ed Beach is up to? Has he been moved to another project?

 

[AsH2]

You're welcome. I was actually looking for (a text of) the source where Ed or Anton explained why they decided to flesh out new content as NFP instead of full expansion, but this was all I got.. I recall they found developing standalone game modes more appealing than a bunch of mechanics in a final pack.
..

Found it..
https://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-vi/civ-6-new-season-pass-details

 

[salty mud]

Basically agree with everything. Civ V was such a solid foundation to build on regarding the late game and VI just totally disregards it all. Until at least half of this content is implemented the game isn't worth playing in my opinion.

 

[acluewithout]

Thought I’d update this and my Punch List Thread as I’d been thinking about Religion and a few other mechanics.

Anyway. I posted some thoughts about Religion in my Punch List. Reposting here for completeness.

Added some additional thoughts, mostly around Religion post June 2020 Update.

• [NEW] Religion and Loyalty. Could Religious Beliefs have a bit more interaction with Loyalty? The current +3/-3 Loyalty is fine, but there’s room for more. eg Religious Colonization - additionally grants Cities on Foreign Continents following this Religion +2 Loyalty. Scripture - additionally grants Cities following this Religion +2 Loyalty if they have a Tier 3 Religious Building.
  
  
• [NEW] Monks and Nihang. Monks and Nihang should work like Vampires, and have a base Melee strength based on your strongest Melee Unit. Monks need that so they stop being irrelevant late game; Nihang need that so they stop being OP.
  
  
• [NEW] Gurus and Conquistadors. Can these instead be unique units tied to specific Beliefs? That would mean three Religious Unique Units. Conquistadors would be tricky, because you wouldn’t want them turning up eg Classical Era. But if they still required Niter, and or also required a specific Civic or Building to build, it would be fine. You’d have to give Spain some other UU, eg Tercio.

• [NEW] Reformation Beliefs. Can we get back Reformation Beliefs from Civ 5? So, if you founded a Religion, there would be a fifth set of beliefs, but you could only get them after you’d unlocked a certain Civic. They could then do cool things like letting you use Spies to spread Religion, or give you other ways to manipulate Loyalty.

• [NEW] Rebalance and expand buildings. Get rid of flat yields generally, and make buildings more situational. eg Market gives Luxes +1 Gold, Library gives +1 Science to Plantations and Reefs, University and Archaeology Museum / Art Gallery gives +2 Science / Culture respectively but additional +2 in a Golden Age.

• [NEW] Buff Industrial Zone T1 and T2 Buildings. eg Workshop - additionally provides +1 Production to Camps and Pastures in this City; Factory - increase bonuses to +4 (+8 when powered).

• [NEW] Rework Natural Philosophy (and Aesthetics). eg +50% Campus Adjacencies in Cities with a Governor and +50% for Cities with a Library. (Equivalent changes for Theatre Square.)

• [NEW] Rework Rationalism (and Grand Opera). eg +1% Science per Campus Adjacency and +1% per Population if City has University and a Governor (Max 15%). (Equivalent changes for Theatres Square Buildings.)

• I also made a few other tweaks to my suggestions on Mines and Railways.

While I’m here...

They went a little too far with the board game concept. It's very intellectually appealing, and it works with many of the decisions and systems in the game, but it doesn't scale well past a few cities. They tried something new and will learn from it, but having some automation/being able to control more actions with less decisions as the game goes on is a hard thing to pull off. (I would say look at a game like stellaris which is far, far more extreme in this regard!)

Also people are dumping on NFP way too much.
Literally everyone told them on their surveys that they want more civs in the game. If you think this is a cynical cash grab, look at what the individual civs like nubia and australia sold for on release. If they thought an expansion would sell better, they would have done an expansion (Lord knows they had the time.) Also, do we know what Ed Beach is up to? Has he been moved to another project?

I agree people have been a bit harsh on NFP. It’s quite good. Just maybe not as ambitious as it could have been. But, honestly, excellent on its own terms. I really hope we get another season pass after this one.

I do think a few NFP Game Mode mechanics were implemented in a way that lacked some needed depth, specifically Soothsayers not having any research or similar mechanics (eg maybe you should only get them in a Dark Age or with particular Religious Beliefs), Secret Societies not having any real trade offs (...and also not really being either Secret or much of a Society...), and all those free free free Governor titles. But they’re small things and I’m hoping FXS will tweak these Game Modes a bit.

I’m still a big supporter of the game board approach to Civ. It has trade-offs, but I think it can be mostly made to work. Micro is a problem. I do think having more automation around Workers would help, eg auto repair, maybe auto farms (with farms requiring no charge at some point). I think also having two tiers of City types would massively help reduce micro, ie core Cities that work as they do currently, and some sort of outpost or vassal or colonial type City type that doesn’t really require any micro. Interesting, there is a popular mod on Steak that tries to achieve that (link).

Basically agree with everything. Civ V was such a solid foundation to build on regarding the late game and VI just totally disregards it all. Until at least half of this content is implemented the game isn't worth playing in my opinion.

Thanks for the comments.

I understand where you’re coming from re game not being worth playing. IMO the game is certainly worth playing as it is, but yeah the late game is lacklustre and that does make the game much less engaging overall. Personally, I really like the early game and find it really tight, but he early game is much less exciting knowing that once it’s over there’s really not much more to look forward to. So sad.

It’s really hard to fathom FXS approach to the late game. There are all these “threads” which they haven’t done more with, even when they had a clear template for doing so from Civ V, which is what my OP was really about. FXS then also created all this extra space at the end of the tech tree, which you’d think they’d use to expand the end game.

But then, nothing. They seem to have just abandoned the end game. Worse, they seem to be providing tools to just avoid the end game entirely, be it crazy yields and extra Governor titles to power through the game, or GDRs and Rockbands to just brute force the game to end at turn 200. It’s odd, disappointing and seems like a wasted opportunity.

It is was it is though. Either FXS will expand the end game is some future expansion or DLC, or they won’t because they have a different vision of the game or don’t think it would sell well. I’m honestly tired of waiting to find out and or prod them in that direction (except for occasional updates to this OP). So, yeah, there you go.

 

[acluewithout]

Updated April 2021.

Here’s hoping for another Season Pass with Ideology, more Governors and other things (better Spies, Ambassadors, Reformation Beliefs, Future Tech, etc).