Gripes with Great People

[aieeegrunt]

Hey it worked for the US and USSR after WW2, definitely should be a mechanic

I instantly thought of Operation Paperclip

There is a mod called All Men Are Mortal that lets you kill enemy Great People

 

[BackseatTyrant]

I'm probably in the minority to say this, but I'd honestly like to see Great People get replaced with generic civilian units you can train like any other unit. No unique abilities, not even unique names, just regular academics (which is what artists, scientists and engineers are, basically) existing mainly to make the peacetime gameplay more proactive and interesting. On top of the artists making their paintings, sculptures, art installations etc, I'd like to see scientists go out in the wild to conduct essential research, and engineers going to urban areas to fix amenities-related issues. If there were to be any uniqueness to each unit within the same unit type, it'd be in the game giving each unit type more unique options

 

[pokiehl]

I'm probably in the minority to say this, but I'd honestly like to see Great People get replaced with generic civilian units you can train like any other unit. No unique abilities, not even unique names, just regular academics (which is what artists, scientists and engineers are, basically) existing mainly to make the peacetime gameplay more proactive and interesting. On top of the artists making their paintings, sculptures, art installations etc, I'd like to see scientists go out in the wild to conduct essential research, and engineers going to urban areas to fix amenities-related issues. If there were to be any uniqueness to each unit within the same unit type, it'd be in the game giving each unit type more unique options

I definitely disagree with this. For one thing, I think the last thing the game needs is even more civilian units.

 

[Quintillus]

I somewhat agree with GeneralZIft's gripes.

For Artists/Writers/Musicians, it works well. You get unique works, there's theming bonuses, it adds an interesting element.

For Engineers/Scientists, I've definitely just had them sitting around forever because their bonuses are useless. Or I get Werner von Braun when I'm going for Space Race and he's insanely useful. There's a lot more variability than in Civ IV. Having a fallback "join them to the city like in Civ IV" option could help establish a floor to the usefulness. Or a fallback "bulb a tech up to a certain cost/hurry a building up to a certain cost".

Merchants are similar, I'll always take the ones that give more luxuries, but others are pretty "meh". Having a Civ IV style great trade mission option would be a great alternative, and something that would always be at least somewhat useful.

For Generals/Admirals, I don't love them. Civ III Great Military Leaders really were great, and it was neat that they emerged organically, and semi-randomly, from combat. Having barracks and thus better military training increased the odds, but you still had to have some luck to have a Napoleon or Clausewitz emerge on the battlefield, and you couldn't get one if you never fought anyone. Civ IV Warlords could either give you a long-term experience boost to new units in a city (which could become quite powerful if stacked), or make one unit quite a bit more powerful, including special promotions. In VI... the range bonus for artillery can be nice, and if I'm exploring, the +1 naval movement can be nice. I recently retired an Admiral for the first time, giving +4 strength to naval melee units, which is nice I suppose. But whereas I was excited to get an MGL (Military Great Leader) in Civ III, and they were always handy in Civ IV, in VI, I find Generals/Admirals to be pretty "meh".

It's odd to me that there are only as many Prophets as religions in VI. Yeah, there was often a surplus of Prophets in IV, and I'd be using them for golden ages or joining them to cities for a small boost. But why can't I get a second Prophet to Evangelize my religion? The Great Prophet points get converted into additional Faith so it's not lost, but it does feel like a regression compared to IV on the whole.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Merchants are similar, I'll always take the ones that give more luxuries, but others are pretty "meh". Having a Civ IV style great trade mission option would be a great alternative, and something that would always be at least somewhat useful.

Since I always play with Monopolies and Corporations mode on, I keep some just to turn the industries into corporations. Hopefully that feature retains in Civ 7.

It's odd to me that there are only as many Prophets as religions in VI. Yeah, there was often a surplus of Prophets in IV, and I'd be using them for golden ages or joining them to cities for a small boost. But why can't I get a second Prophet to Evangelize my religion? The Great Prophet points get converted into additional Faith so it's not lost, but it does feel like a regression compared to IV on the whole.

My main gripe is I do wish that Great Prophets did more than just found a religion.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

It's odd to me that there are only as many Prophets as religions in VI. Yeah, there was often a surplus of Prophets in IV, and I'd be using them for golden ages or joining them to cities for a small boost. But why can't I get a second Prophet to Evangelize my religion? The Great Prophet points get converted into additional Faith so it's not lost, but it does feel like a regression compared to IV on the whole.

I honestly feel religion is something the civ series has never gotten truly right, even back when it was just in the form of generic temples & cathedrals giving a plain happiness boost. The games have always treated religions as something you call dibs on, and it has never really sat right with me, as I feel that in real life, you don't call dibs on religions, religions call dibs on you. Like, the Vatican didn't found Christianity, Christianity founded the Vatican; no caliphate founded Islam, Islam founded the caliphates (or at least, the first one); while Siddharta Gautama was a literal prince before founding Buddhism, he didn't exactly do it on the behalf of his kingdom. No, what I'd much rather see in the future, is religious institutions depicted as powerful adversaries you can gain bonuses from by bending the knee to (though only if you denounce all the other religious institutions); look to any Paradox grand strategy game for a rough example

 

[GeneralZIft]

I honestly feel religion is something the civ series has never gotten truly right, even back when it was just in the form of generic temples & cathedrals giving a plain happiness boost. The games have always treated religions as something you call dibs on, and it has never really sat right with me, as I feel that in real life, you don't call dibs on religions, religions call dibs on you. Like, the Vatican didn't found Christianity, Christianity founded the Vatican; no caliphate founded Islam, Islam founded the caliphates (or at least, the first one); while Siddharta Gautama was a literal prince before founding Buddhism, he didn't exactly do it on the behalf of his kingdom. No, what I'd much rather see in the future, is religious institutions depicted as powerful adversaries you can gain bonuses from by bending the knee to (though only if you denounce all the other religious institutions); look to any Paradox grand strategy game for a rough example

Not to get off track, but what you're suggesting goes against the freedom that players expect to have from Civ games.
I think a lot of people enjoy "creating" their own religion with their own bonuses and their own personal name for it and story to it.

Making it like a neutral object that you have to bargain with reminds me a little bit of the secret societies thing from Civ6.

It would quickly go into the background, and what's worse, is that you will have to have the devs implement religions directly into the game, have them "gameify" them directly, which can be controversial.

To give an example, what bonuses do I give to Islam? What bonuses do I give to Christianity? At least in Civ games, the player is the one who decides and it is detached from the religion itself.

But in this system, the Devs will need to decide, it will need to be set in stone, and the players just pick the one they want - which I think is more boring even if it is realistic

 

[Quintillus]

I honestly feel religion is something the civ series has never gotten truly right, even back when it was just in the form of generic temples & cathedrals giving a plain happiness boost. The games have always treated religions as something you call dibs on, and it has never really sat right with me, as I feel that in real life, you don't call dibs on religions, religions call dibs on you. Like, the Vatican didn't found Christianity, Christianity founded the Vatican; no caliphate founded Islam, Islam founded the caliphates (or at least, the first one); while Siddharta Gautama was a literal prince before founding Buddhism, he didn't exactly do it on the behalf of his kingdom. No, what I'd much rather see in the future, is religious institutions depicted as powerful adversaries you can gain bonuses from by bending the knee to (though only if you denounce all the other religious institutions); look to any Paradox grand strategy game for a rough example

I generally agree, especially on Civ having yet to get religion "right". In the background for III, a bit too "my religion or the highway" in IV, wearying theological combat and, as you mention, non-organic in VI.

Though the design in VI does spare Firaxis from the political implications of assigning traits to religions. Do they make Christianity a militaristic religion due to the Crusades? Do they make Islam a militaristic religion because of its rapid expansion in the 600s, or its association with Jihadists today? Or do they make Islam a scholarly religion to reflect the prospering of sciences in the 800 - 1100 AD period? No matter what they choose, someone will be upset about it.

In a time period/geography-focused scenario, I can see it working better.

Since I always play with Monopolies and Corporations mode on, I keep some just to turn the industries into corporations. Hopefully that feature retains in Civ 7.

Ah, I don't have those as I didn't buy the New Frontier Pass, thinking it was just a bunch of additional civilizations that I could buy in a year or two if I were still playing VI rather than VII/III/IV. Hopefully the implementation of corporations is better than in IV BTS, it was never one of my favorite features there. Sid's Sushi could be powerful but the amount of work required to set up corporations never really seemed worth the effort, or in other words, fun enough to be worth the effort.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

I generally agree, especially on Civ having yet to get religion "right". In the background for III, a bit too "my religion or the highway" in IV, wearying theological combat and, as you mention, non-organic in VI.

Though the design in VI does spare Firaxis from the political implications of assigning traits to religions. Do they make Christianity a militaristic religion due to the Crusades? Do they make Islam a militaristic religion because of its rapid expansion in the 600s, or its association with Jihadists today? Or do they make Islam a scholarly religion to reflect the prospering of sciences in the 800 - 1100 AD period? No matter what they choose, someone will be upset about it.

In a time period/geography-focused scenario, I can see it working better.

Yeah, I would still refrain from giving specific historical religions unique mechanics, due to the massive controversies that would elicit. Though as General Zift somewhat eluded to, I do think the Secret Societies mode is the closest Firaxis has gotten to getting religion "right" (though I still disagree with the idea that introducing more neutral NPC factions would somehow take away player freedom). Probably the best course of action is to do away with any explicit references to any real life world religions, and instead have each religion in the game be fictional if not outright generic, carrying a randomized array of beliefs

 

[GeneralZIft]

Or... We could just not do that... And enjoy religions as is... And maybe also so stay on topic

 

[reddishrecue]

That would be really nice if great prophets could make miracles or something more than just a man made religion since they were made by the hand of God.

Since I always play with Monopolies and Corporations mode on, I keep some just to turn the industries into corporations. Hopefully that feature retains in Civ 7.

My main gripe is I do wish that Great Prophets did more than just found a religion.

 

[reddishrecue]

That would be really nice if great prophets could make miracles or something more than just a man made religion since they were made by the hand of God.

Since I always play with Monopolies and Corporations mode on, I keep some just to turn the industries into corporations. Hopefully that feature retains in Civ 7.

My main gripe is I do wish that Great Prophets did more than just found a religion.

 

[reddishrecue]

That would be really nice if great prophets could make miracles or something more than just a man made religion since they were made by the hand of God.

Since I always play with Monopolies and Corporations mode on, I keep some just to turn the industries into corporations. Hopefully that feature retains in Civ 7.

My main gripe is I do wish that Great Prophets did more than just found a religion.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

I definitely disagree with this. For one thing, I think the last thing the game needs is even more civilian units.

Anyway, getting back on topic, I'm genuinely baffled as to why anyone would think this, other than they think civ should be a wargame first-and-foremost (something I myself have never been comfortable with)

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

That would be really nice if great prophets could make miracles or something more than just a man made religion since they were made by the hand of God.

I made a list of possibly abilities that the current Great Prophets could get based off of what they did in history. Just something to make them like the other Great People.

 

[pokiehl]

Anyway, getting back on topic, I'm genuinely baffled as to why anyone would think this, other than they think civ should be a wargame first-and-foremost (something I myself have never been comfortable with)

It doesn’t have anything to do with war or combat (my least favorite parts of Civ actually),

Civilian units are mostly a pointless and tedious interface between the player and the resulting action.

There’s no reason the player can’t just place improvements or railroads on the map, for instance, like districts. Why does there need to be a builder or military engineer to do these things?

The fact that trade is represented by an actual unit leads to the confusing decoupling between diplomatic trade and trade routes between cities. These concepts should be linked.

Religious units are probably the worst offender: all religious decision-making should be at a much bigger scale than individual units walking to a city to convert it or fight other missionaries in some cheesy pseudo combat.

Most aspects of the game could be streamlined and made more elegant by taking the civilian unit vectors out of the game.

 

[civac]

Roads and railroads are relevant in warfare. It's quite the difference if workers need to be present and thus endangered or not. Otherwise, sure.

 

[vorlon_mi]

It doesn’t have anything to do with war or combat (my least favorite parts of Civ actually),

Civilian units are mostly a pointless and tedious interface between the player and the resulting action.

There’s no reason the player can’t just place improvements or railroads on the map, for instance, like districts. Why does there need to be a builder or military engineer to do these things?

The fact that trade is represented by an actual unit leads to the confusing decoupling between diplomatic trade and trade routes between cities. These concepts should be linked.

Religious units are probably the worst offender: all religious decision-making should be at a much bigger scale than individual units walking to a city to convert it or fight other missionaries in some cheesy pseudo combat.

Most aspects of the game could be streamlined and made more elegant by taking the civilian unit vectors out of the game.

Using civilian units to implement infrastructure has been present in every game in the franchise. Streamlined? Elegant? No, but part of the franchise DNA. Send out your settler with or without an escort is the first tradeoffs every player has made for a quarter century. Choosing how many settlers to build... and how quickly... has also been a hallmark interesting decision. In these games, the same production queue is used for civilian and military units.
If placement of cities, improvements, and roads/railroads are made to be independent from the production queue, then we need a different mechanic/constraint on how quickly improvements or roads/railroads may be placed. Military units get used as fogbusters, to expose the map so the roads/improvements can be placed without being threatened, attacked, or captured.

I preferred the implicit logic of trade routes being created and following roads from Civ3 and Civ4, rather than the road-building-from-a-trader in Civ6. Using on-map trade units in Civ2 opened up a whole strategy sub-topic, leading to some wonderfully creative and counterinituitve moves. I don't remember the details of Civ5 -- when were you allowed to send a trade route to a city? -- but BERT just needed a clear visible path from one of your cities to the target.

 

[pokiehl]

Using civilian units to implement infrastructure has been present in every game in the franchise. Streamlined? Elegant? No, but part of the franchise DNA. Send out your settler with or without an escort is the first tradeoffs every player has made for a quarter century. Choosing how many settlers to build... and how quickly... has also been a hallmark interesting decision. In these games, the same production queue is used for civilian and military units.

I agree about settlers being central to the game, so I’m not proposing we get rid of them. Settlers and Great People, sure, keep them. Most others should get the axe, IMO.

 

[reddishrecue]

I made a list of possibly abilities that the current Great Prophets could get based off of what they did in history. Just something to make them like the other Great People.

That could be useful because great prophets usually just built the shrines like they used to back in civ 4 and founded religions. They could also research and join city in civ 4 but in civ 5 and up they couldn't do those abilities anymore since the game became a bit different.