LAND POWER. How will Civ 6 change it?

[Deggial]

TheMapDownloade,
I applause your analysis of Land Power! It is well-founded in my consideration and shows a good perception of the fundamental game mechanics. As you pointed out yourself, maybe a better one than the developers seem to have, in one point or the other.

Nevertheless, I will not follow your conclusions - at least not in all details.

But first of all let me state, that I think CiV did at least some more steps into balancing out wide and tall empires than you mentioned in your analysis:
Not only do SoPo-cost scale with empire size, but also National Wonders which are easier to be build in tall than wide empires (by necessary preconditions AND raising building costs). The happiness-system as it is *now* (though, *not* in CiV on it's release) works quite well at the wide/tall matter, too.

Whether or not this is enough, is another question!

--

About your proposed solutions:

WHY, for heaven's sake, do you want to give up the concept of unique civ abilities (traits, units, buildings) for your "Mastery Power"?
Not only I don't see the reason for it. In my regards it would take so much fun (and diversity) out of the game that *no* new concept could be worth this loss!

As for a new definition of great people - well, maybe. This is thinkable at least. But then, if you want to relate GP birthrates with empire size, no new concept would be needed at all. Just link their birthrate to numbers of cities (analog culture) and you have your desired effect.
As I like the current GP concept, I wouldn't mind an *extra* game mechanism of "masters", though.

On the other hand, your proposal of an constant birthrate of these "masters" will probably not work as intended.

If a new master is born every, say, 20 turns *regardless* of empire size, how will this favor tall empires at all? Wide empires will have the same amount of masters as tall ones. Settling them in their capital, they will just have both benefits: a super upgraded capital AND a large number of smaller towns with all benefits you mentioned in your analysis.

No, if you want to introduce masters to level wide and tall empires, their birth *has* to be related to the total amount of cities in your empire. (*Not* only to your self-controlled cities as with culture, but puppets, too).
Secondly, there *must* be some "tools" to influence master birthrate. That's what Civilization is about: the possibility to take control. It's not enough to abstain empire growth (= being passive) and waiting for new masters to appear.

With both preconditions met, I would say, you have created a powerful and interesting new game concept!

--

Regarding your "Heritage Power" I can not comment as much as I did for "Mastery Power" as this concept seems to be much more vague right now. Maybe, I didn't think through it enough. It sounds very interesting, by all means.
Again, I wouldn't necessarily give up culture (and related SoPos) for it, but introduce "Heritage Power" as a new game concept. But then, I see the point of streamlining (not a bad thing for me at all). Usually it doesn't make a game better if you just add new concepts. It just makes it more complicated.
So, maybe yes: "Heritage Power" *might* replace culture, if an interesting and working mechanism is found.

--

Last point regarding your post:

While your analysis of the "Land Power" is decent, I'm not sure whether or not there really is a possibility to overcome this problem (if there is on at all).

After all, creating a wide empire is exactly what is most fun in 4X-games. Why? Because you have so much to DO to achieve this goal!
You have to explore the surrounding country to find good city spots, you have to decide whether and when to build settlers, you have to compete with other nations to be faster in settling the found spots, you have to solve territorial conflicts by force of weapons. War is (especially in CiV) fun and entertaining. But war will lead to conquered cities, enlarging your empire again.
Having a large empire leads to the necessity to improve large areas with a limited number of workers, establish a wide trading network, ensure your limited number of troops being able to defend your whole realm,... et cetera.

In contrast, what is to be done to achieve a *tall* empire? You have to limit your expansion, your small empire will be 100% improved in the first quarter of the game. And then? Build new buildings every now and the and... and... and what?
Maybe if there will be an espionage system or religions or a similar new level of possible activities. But even these options might not equal the fun of building up a earth spanning empire.

The truth is simply (in *my* regards): Civilization does and did always favor wide empires, because this is what the game made fun to be played!

-----------------------------------------

Anyway, I do *not* deny the benefit of a broader variety of play styles and your analysis of the uniformity of victory conditions sadly is true enough!
I do not want to address the later, as I already did in other posts (at least regarding diplomatic victory).

All I want to add are some of my own thoughts regarding the possibility to boost tall empires.

1. A trading network that favors large cities more than it does now
At present, adding a new city into your trading network is quite beneficial by all means (as long as the new city is larger than a certain minimum size, depending on the street length needed to connect the respective city).
If you want to boost tall empires, let the city size influence the trade income way more than they actually do. (As always in this matter, 5 size 10 cities must be *way* more beneficial than 10 size 5 cities.)
What about using the average city size of all cities in your trading network as a basis for your trading income? Like this, integrating a new (and small) city into your trading network even might *reduce* your trading income.

2. Minimum city size for some special and highly efficient buildings
As you mentioned it already, a minimal city size for some highly beneficial buildings (universities, hospitals, cathedrals,...) would be a great introduction - but not a new one, by the way. We have seen something like this in other games (e.g. Colonization and probably some others) and in earlier incarnations of Civ (but only related to city growth, if I remember right), too. It worked quite well there and definitely would fit the current CiV game design, too.

3. Gradual tile improvements
As mentioned earlier, playing a tall empire might lead to boredom due to lack of tasks.
What about the possibility of upgradeable tile improvements?
Again, the option of upgrading an improvement might be linked to the size of the city, owning the respective tile. Upgrading already improved tiles might take longer, too, so you don't have the *time* to upgrade all of a large empire's basic tile improvements.
With this, you will have the choice of having a large empire with many, but only basically improved tiles or a small but highly efficient realm.

---

*My* conclusion:
- It might be possible to make tall empires more competitive against wide empires and probably it would be a good idea to do so.
- It shouldn't be necessary to change the whole game concept of Civilization to achieve this goal. After all, Civilization has it's fans *because* of its style to play, not despite it.
- Even if you succeed in making tall empires competitive, it's not said that they are more fun to play than wide ones. To achieve this, new (or re-introduced) game concepts are needed, to give players something to do, while *not* conquering the world.

Cheers,
Deggial

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think one key thing that can be done is allowing you to invest in getting benefits from cities that are Not yours.

Something like tech diffusion/tech sharing would be good for this.
Foreign Trade routes would also be good... particularly if you can "invest" in them.

 

[JtW]

I think one key thing that can be done is allowing you to invest in getting benefits from cities that are Not yours.

Something like tech diffusion/tech sharing would be good for this.
Foreign Trade routes would also be good... particularly if you can "invest" in them.

This!

There are a lot of great ideas in this thread. I've always disliked ICS - I like small and focused empires, and I hope that whoever is the lead designer for Civ6 will have read this thread (or have similar thoughts).

I have also thought of some ideas to help small focused empires:

1) instead of flat per-specialist bonuses make them dependent on the percentage of the populace that a given specialist consitutes. (E.g., 3 scientists in a civ of a single 12-size city would create more science than 3 scientists in an empire with five 4-size cities). As supporting specialists is easier in big fat cities, this would create an inherent bonus for tall empires.

2) Every citizen should have a "nationality" - but not tied to the player, but to the region where the city is founded (or maybe to where the settler that founded the city came from). And each nation should have it's own "cultural strength" based on their numerosity, heritage (what wonders were built in their cities etc.). Having multiple strong nationalities in your empire would cause frictions that could result in lowered happiness/combat readiness/whatever. This would add a layer of "kulturkampf" for the conquerors - they would have to manage the diversity within their empires, deal with possible revolts, etc.

I also love someone's idea to assign governors to cities.

 

[GenjiKhan]

I think one key thing that can be done is allowing you to invest in getting benefits from cities that are Not yours.

Something like tech diffusion/tech sharing would be good for this.
Foreign Trade routes would also be good... particularly if you can "invest" in them.

I suggested some idea that resemble the idea of tech diffusion/tech sharing long time ago .

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=425972

It's just a sketch,but I think it's something that would change Civilization so radically that it'll make the difference between Civ 5 and Civ 6 become as deeply as the change from Civ 4 to Civ 5 .

 

[ShadowWarrior]

TheMapDownLoade, I think this is the core of your argument. Please correct me if I am wrong:

The game mechanic is such that the only way to win is through land grabbing and acquiring all its derivative benefits (growing large population, accessing strategic/luxury resources, producing lots of hammers/food, etc), which you call land power. The flaw of this is in that civs with unfavorable start up locations will not be able to grab enough land for future expansion as quickly as other civs that are more favorably geographically situated. Thus, wide civs can win through conquest, while tall civs do not really have a chance to compete militarily. Recognizing this problem, designers created alternative victory conditions with restriction built into game mechanisms that makes it difficult for wide civs to win culturally, giving tall civs a chance to win through those means other than military. You however feel that it is not fun to exclude the participation of wide civs in victory conditions other than military.

Thus you propose your mastery and heritage feature. I won’t summarize your description of those two features. But I like to know how those two features really eliminate the problem you have stated. These features (which I’ll call “mastery” from now on) is available to wide civs as well as to tall civs, so how will that eliminate the asymmetry in land power arising from unequally favorable start up locations among civs?

Perhaps your intention was not for mastery to eliminate the land power issue. You just wanted to allow tall civs to win through alternative victory conditions WITHOUT constraining wide civs participation in those other alternative victory conditions. In that case, the game needs to install the mastery feature you proposed and at the same time remove those restrictions imposed on wide civs that hinder their pursuit of alternative victory conditions (non military victory conditions). However, if that were to happen, I still don’t see how a difference can be made. After all, if you remove those restrictions, you are essentially giving wide civs the ability to compete militarily, economically, culturally, and scientifically), whereas when you had the restrictions, wide civs could compete militarily, but would have to live with the trade off of not being able to compete culturally.

Perhaps (and I suspect that this is your primary reason) your intention was for mastery to allow tall civs to build a civilization that is truly so great and successful in all various aspects other than military (military being not really an option since it it’s a tall civ) that it actually reflects on the game graphic as something more tangible and relatable to our human experience than abstract cultural/economic/diplomatic points?

 

[Nyx_]

I made similar observations a few years ago:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=120758
Since then, I changed a bit my view on the civ series. I play for two reasons:

• To optimize my way to a fast victory, usually by rushing my opponents’ capital;
• To build a civilization that fits a model: I want to feel I am leading a wealthy maritime empire trading sugar and cotton, a totalitarian regime ruling the continent thanks to its powerful arms industry, or a wide realm populated by nomadic warriors. It’s all about living a story.

CIV mixes everything. You might be able to approximate a model, but it is likely to be a bad option to win the game.

The victory conditions could be changed this way:

1. No victory before 2050 AD
2. You strictly accumulate the points, i.e. every point you've earned is earned forever
3. You earn point when you’re the best in one field, given that field points don't add up:
   • You are X times wealthier than the others
   • You are X times stronger
   • You culturally shine X times more
   • You have X more technologies
   • You population is X times happier
   • And so on...

Then the winner may be the player that managed to outperform the others for a period long enough, even if at the end he is getting weak.

 

[insaneweasel]

I want to see genuinely distinct ways to win the game not merely because "history has rewarded small empires too" but because this would deepen the gameplay.

I first want to say that your argument is very well thought-out and you make a fine case.

However, I have found that in Civ 5, expansion has become unfun and almost unnecessary. At any level other than Diety, I can play and win with just 4 core, well built cities, and nothing else. National wonders such as Oxford, Ironworks, Nat. Treasury and others are a huge boost, as they allow small empires to get huge boosts.

The think about 5 is that most expansion after the first wave is extremely boring. There are almost no islands with enough land and resources to make sea exploration worthwhile. Resources lack the power they did in previous games to provide for your empire.

 

[CivCube]

Good thread, TheMapDownloade. I think this is an area of the game that many of us can't quite put our finger on but we know is there. I've started a couple threads before that deal with this, with varying levels of discussion:

From Cities to Civilians - Taking qwerty25's idea to its extreme: what if each civ started with just a set of civilian units?

Tying It All Together In One Big Mess - And then taking the idea of land power to an even further extreme: what if all game concepts and information were taken out of the menus and interacted with directly on the map?

Still though, I think qwerty25's hit on a very important idea here:

I've read your post "TheMapDownloade" or at least half of it and I think that instead Civ 6 should try to emphasize citizens entirely and get away from the idea of land and change the function of cities.

In the past Civ games, the player and the other AI's act almost as mini gods who place cities and the citizens mostly just "live" in that one city. ...

I think that instead of the civilizations "founding" the cities, I think that there should already be people there. Every tile will have various amounts of "people" or citizens living. The "cities" we know right now will act more like major cities for the region and give control over the people working for an area. ...

The people would also be critical in warfare. Tiles which are treated good would slightly damage enemy units as they passed over them and can slightly heal your units. Conversely if the citizens under your rule don't like you they could do the opposite, even appearing as revolutionary units acting against you. This would provide an incentive to use culture during warfare or cause aggressive players to spend a lot of money bribing the citizens. (Imagine rome having to continuously spend extravagant amounts on its citizens)


Its getting late and I realize that my idea is still a mess, but I'll post it for now and try to fix it later.

Abso-freakin-lutely. The Civ series has progressed enough so that I think players would appreciate the additional challenge of rounding up average-Joe support. Think of it like the SimCity approach: you have to please your citizens or else they will move away. Without people to power your cities, you can't do anything! And in this age where respecting human rights is the fundamental principle of society, it makes sense to move emphasis away from being the same kind of ruler for every civ.

This opens up gameplay choices. Just think! With a population that could easily move away and join your opponents' cities, you have to come up with solutions for keeping them there. This can easily lead to new game mechanics that make the world map just one layer of the puzzle. Social policies could be more varied and limited to the ideas your people already know. You would need to unlock more options by establishing contact with other cultures, knowingly creating the risk of excessive cultural diffusion.

It also brings up more questions: how do ethnicity and civilization interact? Can there be times where national identity and ethnic identity clash? It takes Civ from a simple Go-like game where you have to take over tiles and turns its into a meaningful history simulator where difficult questions about why we live the way we do would come up organically.

We would be heading into Paradox-land if we were drift away into a sim with no real ending. What would keep this a Civ game would be the concrete victories and classic Sid-style choices. And yet, allowing the people to make their own decisions would inject more fun and flavor into a game that has already squeezed plenty of blood from one stone (land power).