Little things you'd like to see in Civilization VII

[vorlon_mi]

Leaders should change to match the era, civs should appear at about the "right" time in history and we should then be asked if we want to be their leader.

- Wasn`t this about what went on back in CivIV, some mod?

- And another thing; at wartime we should be able to lend soldiers in/out to allies/friends.

Civ3 had simple graphics for each leader head, but they did change with each era. Many were pretty humorous, wearing furry hats in the ancient age. Hammurabi and Xerxes wore business suits in the Modern Age.

I like the idea of lending/renting troops to allies; sort of a reverse levy.

 

[pokiehl]

I like the idea of lending/renting troops to allies; sort of a reverse levy.

I think more ways to do proxy war type stuff would be very fun and add a lot of strategic depth. At the absolute bare minimum, I really want the ability to pay people to declare war on someone else like in Civ 5.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

It's an option, so toggleable.

It was rather inspired by the 'Historical Rivals' relationship modifier from Europa Universalis IV, and a similar mechanic from Age of Empires III

I'd like to see a 'historical relationships' option, where leaders and/or civs that were notable historical adversaries would have a penalty to their relationship. E.g. Persia and Rome, Korea and Japan, France and England etc.

There should be a merging of scenarios and modes to achieve what you are describing. You could play the Historical Rivals scenario which is Persia (East) vs Rome (West) or just play the mode where you can develop your own rivals.

 

[Patine]

Leaders should change to match the era, civs should appear at about the "right" time in history and we should then be asked if we want to be their leader.

- Wasn`t this about what went on back in CivIV, some mod?

- And another thing; at wartime we should be able to lend soldiers in/out to allies/friends.

Yes, I do believe a Civ4 mod does cover that notion. However, like all mods that are not just tweaks and rules preferences of the designer, they all tend to deviate significantly from the core chasis of what is defining to civ, and thus left to unofficial mod status, as they should, probably, remain.

There should be a merging of scenarios and modes to achieve what you are describing. You could play the Historical Rivals scenario which is Persia (East) vs Rome (West) or just play the mode where you can develop your own rivals.

This would end up going heavily down luka's road of modelling history closely, and not what is the selling formula of civ.

 

[Naokaukodem]

This would end up going heavily down luka's road of modelling history closely, and not what is the selling formula of civ.

Well Luca's road is not that much to blame... History is an inspiration for Civ and it might be good to take some stuff from it here and there... I know the gameplay has been more important lately than realism, but if we consider like me and some others that realism would be an amazing way to design Civ, you should listen more about what Luca has to say instead of bullying him constantly at any single idea he emits. (even if he is not good at it)

Example : recreate colonization of America. I've chased this idea myself during a long time, but never found the good idea to simulate it. Because here it is : why meso-Americans were backwarded technologically and so easily conquered ? First, there's no such thing as "technologically advanced" in our tiny reality. It founded that Europeans had canon powder, meso-American not. Can we just beline tech so we arrive to gun powder, or is it in complete mess rather ? I would honestly tend to complete mess. Second, meso-American were decimated primarily not by weapons, but deceases. Why the conquerors had not succombed to meso-americans deceases is a mystery. Maybe europeans were more dirty so better immune ? So bad Health should be a strong point in this particular case, even if it prevents your cities to grow. But it's just a possibility. Maybe it was just randomness. If so, we could still give it a try. (but if we happen to be in the wrong side, how to not collapse the player's civ and continue to play without game over ?)

Those questions are tough. I tried to answer them partially in the idea in my signature. But with enough thinking, I think we could make good use of such. It's how I envision the evolution of the series, no matter what you consider its "selling formula". Because if it's to have yet another gamey Civ that will add one or two things (what to add already ? Civ6 has everything), it's not even worth to try. I know most of people are running after the perfect game, but there is no perfect game for EVERYONE. Myself, if I would consider Civ6 in Deity too easy, maybe I would consider winning with every civ in every victory condition in Deity, and consider the game done and not touch it anymore. That would be perfect ? If we consider that I mostly pest about unfairness of upper difficulty levels, yes. Yet, a game with high replayability is best. So what is replayability ? A game that proposes an infinite number of situations all unique to deal with, and that even the best [naughtiest ?] player in the world can't beat everytime. Unfortunately, there's Youtube and as no game is perfect, it will be exploited ridiculously for audience, and be depreciated that way. There's also the players bias that wants them to be bored because they win everytime but select a favourable set of conditions everytime. There's this "I wanna beat the highest difficulty level" and this "I want to be challenged". Those two facets of players are like Good and Evil, fighting eternally in an epic battle. But if players really wanted to be challenged, they would play multiplayer, GOTMs, Leagues. So it's "I want to be challenged, but not too much". Fair, I feel that way too, for now. The problem with Civ6 is that players feel they already win way before the victory activates. According to my playthroughs and my monitoring of AIs science for example, that's a false feeling. But I'm not so good at Civ6 IMO. (I miss some basics, like "build a settler and send it next to Rome early, because anyway I have 3 slingers that could upgrade into archers later, and I beline for Men-At-Arms anyway") But if it's true, then we need something else, like an optional AI referee or something. And one more turn.

 

[Patine]

you should listen more about what Luca has to say instead of bullying him constantly

So, consistently disagreeiing with vocally with someone is, "bullying," them, now.

The thing is, specifica historical events being scripted into a standard Civ game do not, and cannot, work, because play is meant to be much more free-form than that. Such instances of scripting are what mods and scenarios have always been for.

 

[Naokaukodem]

So, consistently disagreeiing with vocally with someone is, "bullying," them, now.

Maybe the word is a bit too strong, sorry.

The thing is, specifica historical events being scripted into a standard Civ game do not, and cannot, work, because play is meant to be much more free-form than that. Such instances of scripting are what mods and scenarios have always been for.

Can't you imagine a game inspired by historical events that wouldn't automatically happen every time ? Because if they would appear everytime, it might be a little bit boring. Just met some... conditions... and make them happen ! It would be a vast field of experimentations for players, connecting them with History above the deal !

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Maybe the word is a bit too strong, sorry.

Can't you imagine a game inspired by historical events that wouldn't automatically happen every time ? Because if they would appear everytime, it might be a little bit boring. Just met some... conditions... and make them happen ! It would be a vast field of experimentations for players, connecting them with History above the deal !

The problem is, identifying the 'conditions', the causes of any historical event to play out the way it did in reality.

I can almost guarantee you, if you ask six professional historians to list the causes of almost any historical event, you will get at least six different answers. And if you ask them the same question a year from now, you will likely get at least three more different answers, and so on. "Vast field of experimentation" doesn't begin to cover it!

Not saying it absolutely could not be done, but the result would be a mass of judgement calls, and in most cases so many different threads have to come together to get any given historical result that replicating them in any given game would be another nightmare.

Just for a familiar example, how do you replicate the American Civil War, in a game in which 'America' might not even have slavery, might or might not have any form of representative government, might or might not have any military tradition, and might or might not have the same distribution of industrial power? With all those variables, how many times can you expect anything resembling the historical American Civil War to happen in a game?

At some point, replicating any historical event may force you to put every Civilization into some form of long-term strait jacket to reach the conditions that allow the event to happen in any recognizably historical form. This is almost the complete opposite of the Free Form Civilization-building that has been the bedrock of the Civ franchise from the beginning.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Example : recreate colonization of America. I've chased this idea myself during a long time, but never found the good idea to simulate it. Because here it is : why meso-Americans were backwarded technologically and so easily conquered ? First, there's no such thing as "technologically advanced" in our tiny reality. It founded that Europeans had canon powder, meso-American not. Can we just beline tech so we arrive to gun powder, or is it in complete mess rather ? I would honestly tend to complete mess. Second, meso-American were decimated primarily not by weapons, but deceases. Why the conquerors had not succombed to meso-americans deceases is a mystery. Maybe europeans were more dirty so better immune ? So bad Health should be a strong point in this particular case, even if it prevents your cities to grow. But it's just a possibility. Maybe it was just randomness. If so, we could still give it a try. (but if we happen to be in the wrong side, how to not collapse the player's civ and continue to play without game over ?)

The thing is that the difference between America/Oceania to Afroeurasia is related to continents size, orientation and communication, therefore more sources for animal stocks, diseases, human populations and ideas.
Some people are fast to jump and call out "geographical determinism" as a taboo like if explain the effect of the Darien jungle to prevent the diffusion of the andean Llama to Mesoamerica were the same as explain the Revolution of 1848 as a pure geographical product.

The Age of Colonization in CIV can easily be represented by keeping regular maps with some smaller isolated continents with less options for domesticable animals and only no playable civs. By the way before any people mistake it, NO the civ on those continents would NOT be only the historical ones, they could be any for example what if Gaels or Koreans were in a small continent without horses and cattle like Australia. On the same way there are absolute no reason for a playable Inca civ to not domesticate horses like any of their neighbors in the "main" bigger continent with all the playable civs.
This is prety much the way CIV already is, or dont you remember how a bad starting area lacking "strategic resources" would force players to reroll a game?

 

[Patine]

The thing is that the difference between America/Oceania to Afroeurasia is related to continents size, orientation and communication, therefore more sources for animal stocks, diseases, human populations and ideas.
Some people are fast to jump and call out "geographical determinism" as a taboo like if explain the effect of the Darien jungle to prevent the diffusion of the andean Llama to Mesoamerica were the same as explain the Revolution of 1848 as a pure geographical product.

The Age of Colonization in CIV can easily be represented by keeping regular maps with some smaller isolated continents with less options for domesticable animals and only no playable civs. By the way before any people mistake it, NO the civ on those continents would NOT be only the historical ones, they could be any for example what if Gaels or Koreans were in a small continent without horses and cattle like Australia. On the same way there are absolute no reason for a playable Inca civ to not domesticate horses like any of their neighbors in the "main" bigger continent with all the playable civs.
This is prety much the way CIV already is, or dont you remember how a bad starting area lacking "strategic resources" would force players to reroll a game?

And, this doesn't even take into account playing on a random or custom-made, and not an Earth, map.

 

[aieeegrunt]

The “Terrra” map acript is designed for exactly this

A map with several continents where all the civs spawn on tbe largest one snd the rest are empty

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Terra map is a start, but not a complete answer. I've never generated a Terra map that also had the continent-specific resources that the Real Terra had/has: lack of horses and other domesticable animals on some continents or parts of continents for a start.

But I don't think that is a map problem as much as it is a Resource problem in the game system: a better set of mechanics for distribution and use and substitution of 'natural' resources would go a long way towards a better set of game situations on any type of map.

 

[Naokaukodem]

The problem is, identifying the 'conditions', the causes of any historical event to play out the way it did in reality.

I can almost guarantee you, if you ask six professional historians to list the causes of almost any historical event, you will get at least six different answers. And if you ask them the same question a year from now, you will likely get at least three more different answers, and so on. "Vast field of experimentation" doesn't begin to cover it!

Not saying it absolutely could not be done, but the result would be a mass of judgement calls, and in most cases so many different threads have to come together to get any given historical result that replicating them in any given game would be another nightmare.

Just for a familiar example, how do you replicate the American Civil War, in a game in which 'America' might not even have slavery, might or might not have any form of representative government, might or might not have any military tradition, and might or might not have the same distribution of industrial power? With all those variables, how many times can you expect anything resembling the historical American Civil War to happen in a game?

At some point, replicating any historical event may force you to put every Civilization into some form of long-term strait jacket to reach the conditions that allow the event to happen in any recognizably historical form. This is almost the complete opposite of the Free Form Civilization-building that has been the bedrock of the Civ franchise from the beginning.

I'm not familiar with the American civil war, nor a great "fan" of it as a historical period and space, but that's not something you would expect to happen. In other words, you shouldn't tend to playthrough your civ in order to achieve some historical events, you would just fall on them by accident.

The devs could pick up different theories and use them to cook those conditions. These would be hidden and unexplained. Granted, this could cause some weird events, and some totally uncognizable from their historical Earth counterparts, but it would still be something you have to adapt to.

Some people are fast to jump and call out "geographical determinism" as a taboo like if explain the effect of the Darien jungle to prevent the diffusion of the andean Llama to Mesoamerica were the same as explain the Revolution of 1848 as a pure geographical product.

Well that's what you just did in your previous sentence.

The Age of Colonization in CIV can easily be represented by keeping regular maps with some smaller isolated continents with less options for domesticable animals and only no playable civs. By the way before any people mistake it, NO the civ on those continents would NOT be only the historical ones, they could be any for example what if Gaels or Koreans were in a small continent without horses and cattle like Australia. On the same way there are absolute no reason for a playable Inca civ to not domesticate horses like any of their neighbors in the "main" bigger continent with all the playable civs.
This is prety much the way CIV already is, or dont you remember how a bad starting area lacking "strategic resources" would force players to reroll a game?

Obviously that cannot be represented in a pangaea map, or can it ? Before the "age of sails", the African continent couldn't be bypassed to reach Asia because of strong water streams. Ironically, we could do it the same time we could reach America.

Anyway, the age of colonization in reality was a pure product of luck and randomness, so we might expect it to be the same in the game.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I'm not familiar with the American civil war, nor a great "fan" of it as a historical period and space, but that's not something you would expect to happen. In other words, you shouldn't tend to playthrough your civ in order to achieve some historical events, you would just fall on them by accident.

The devs could pick up different theories and use them to cook those conditions. These would be hidden and unexplained. Granted, this could cause some weird events, and some totally uncognizable from their historical Earth counterparts, but it would still be something you have to adapt to.


Well that's what you just did in your previous sentence.

Obviously that cannot be represented in a pangaea map, or can it ? Before the "age of sails", the African continent couldn't be bypassed to reach Asia because of strong water streams. Ironically, we could do it the same time we could reach America.

Anyway, the age of colonization in reality was a pure product of luck and randomness, so we might expect it to be the same in the game.

Sorry, I assumed that the American Civil War would at least be vaguely familiar to most people on this forum, but (and this has been done in Civ scenarios) the Fall of Rome would be an equally good example: it assumes in the first place that there was a multi-national Roman Empire, that there was a set of 'barbarian invasions/migrations', and that a combination of inefficient tax collection systems, de-populating plagues, and a political system that lended itself to instabilty (having never really codified any institutional system of succession for Emperors, among other things) all existed to bring about any Fall. And, of course, the exact consequences of the 'fall' are an entirely other set of events that presuppose a whole set of preliminary events also - some dating from before the establishment of the Roman Empire!

And just a note: the African continent was circumnavigated at least once long before the great age of European colonization, back in the classical era. Unfortunately there was no good economic reason to repeat it, so it was largely relegated to a few lines of disbelief in Herodotus. The Norse temporary settlement in North America relative to the later Age of Exploration and Colonization would be a similar occurance: physically possible earlier, but without good reasons to go to all the trouble, not really important until later.

One more note: "expecting to happen" is one of the basic Game Problems in any kind of even vaguely historically-based game: it's not hard to find out what 'really' happened in history - at least the Big Events like the Fall of Rome - so the gamer cannot help but 'expect' certain things to happen, or have a chance to happen, if he does X or Y in the game. Short of lobotomizing the entire gaming community, I don't know any way to avoid this completely except by 'disguising' the situation. That is, playing as Korea in 1300 CE you don't realize that your in-game situation is replicating that of the Roman Empire in the 5th century CE and that you are Ripe For A Fall. This requires some very tricky game design, and also a massive amount of work to isolate and recreate the conditions that 'made' things happen IRL - and of course, many of the conditions are Conditional - they might make X happen, they might make B happen, they might have no effect at all because of Z, D, and F happening Somewhere Else.

 

[pokiehl]

I've never generated a Terra map that also had the continent-specific resources that the Real Terra had/has: lack of horses and other domesticable animals on some continents or parts of continents for a start.

This is absolutely a purposeful choice. Luxury resources are continent-specific, but limiting strategic resources like horses to one part of the map or the other is simply unfair and gives a huge advantage to one side of the map or the other.

Maybe that way is not "realistic" but the alternative would certainly be unfun for whomever has the short end of the stick.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

This is absolutely a purposeful choice. Luxury resources are continent-specific, but limiting strategic resources like horses to one part of the map or the other is simply unfair and gives a huge advantage to one side of the map or the other.

Maybe that way is not "realistic" but the alternative would certainly be unfun for whomever has the short end of the stick.

Thoroughly agree, as long as 'strategic' resources are treated the way they have been in the game. But that treatment is purely artificial and a game mechanic that results in a lot of quick quits of games when some resource is not available to a gamer on the map.

I won't repeat it all here, but I've argued (as have others) for a long time that the Resource System needs a complete overhaul, and since it would affect so much of the rest of the game, perhaps it should be prioritized as an area to look at for Civ VII. For one thing, there is no evidence for the lack of a single Resource having the absolutely prohibiting effect that resources have in the game now. Even the lack of horses in the Americas was made absolute because there was also a lack of any other kind of equid: they had no donkeys, hemippes, or any other kind of ridable or draftable animal, not just horses. That was also true in the Eurasian landmass until well after 4000 BCE, when the horse was moved by Humans out of Central Asia and into China, India, the Middle East/North Africa, and southern Europe. The same thing happened with (domestic) Cattle and the wool fleece-bearing Sheep (which was developed by humans, not natural, but that's another part of the story entirely).

But at the moment, absolutely right, the game Requires that Resources be available to starting players at least potentially everywhere on the map where they might start, or the game essentially gives them an extra layer of difficulty - and one that is not reflected in the settings they chose at Start of Game . . .

 

[aieeegrunt]

The Terra map is a start, but not a complete answer. I've never generated a Terra map that also had the continent-specific resources that the Real Terra had/has: lack of horses and other domesticable animals on some continents or parts of continents for a start.

But I don't think that is a map problem as much as it is a Resource problem in the game system: a better set of mechanics for distribution and use and substitution of 'natural' resources would go a long way towards a better set of game situations on any type of map.

This is absolutely a purposeful choice. Luxury resources are continent-specific, but limiting strategic resources like horses to one part of the map or the other is simply unfair and gives a huge advantage to one side of the map or the other.

Maybe that way is not "realistic" but the alternative would certainly be unfun for whomever has the short end of the stick.

I have always hated the way strategics work in Civ all the way back to 3. It’s horrible gameplay wise for the reasons you said (the “no iron restart” meme) and it’s also pretty bad history.

Usually the limits were know how related, which is what the tech tree, Eurekas and tech trading is for

 

[pokiehl]

But that treatment is purely artificial and a game mechanic that results in a lot of quick quits of games when some resource is not available to a gamer on the map.

No doubt, and I agree Terra is in general not a good approximation of what people are asking for in that regard (even if I do think the desire is misguided)

However I unfortunately don’t have the creativity to think of good replacements for what we already have (and the military aspect of the game is personally my least favorite part anyway, so I never give too much to thought to strategic resources in general).

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

However I unfortunately don’t have the creativity to think of good replacements for what we already have

I suggested keeping Strategic Resources, but instead of being a requirement for certain units they could instead provide a bonus to them.

and the military aspect of the game is personally my least favorite part anyway

Strange how vastly tastes differ. The military aspect of the Civ games is my favourite part, I tend to completely lost interest in and quit games if there's not enough war.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Strange how vastly tastes differ. The military aspect of the Civ games is my favourite part, I tend to completely lost interest in and quit games if there's not enough war.

One of the great strengths of the game is that people with very differing desires in the game can still play it and enjoy it.

"Quick Fixes" for a lot of the Resource-related problems that bedevil the game now are:

1. Do away with the fixed definition of each resource as 'strategic' or 'luxury' or 'basic'. The definition should depend on how your Civ is using it At That Moment. Copper could be the primary component of Bronze (strategic and Production - tools), but it could also be used for jewelry (luxury) and later for Electrification (Industrial Luxury and Production?). Elephants are early strategic, also luxury, today just largely Zoo Animals. Resources should be dynamic in their definition, depending on technology available and social, civic and other factors.
2. Make Resources desirable for building units, but not mandatory - as @Bonyduck Campersang said, they provide a bonus to building but aren't a requirement. I would add that at a point in the Industrial Age that changes, because the requirements go up by an order of magnitude and strategically the game starts to become a race for resources: oil, grain, iron, coal, etc.
3. Make organic (animal and plant) resources Moveable, with some effort. If you don't have, say, Horses or Elephants or Cattle, you can get them if you have the right biome for them.
4. Provide as many Alternatives as possible. This is part of 'dynamic resources' mentioned above. If you don't have Horses, chariots can be pulled by donkeys or hybrid donkey-hemippe animals. Horseback-Riding (if kept in the gam) on the other hand, requires Horses, but early mounted units are not necessarily Game Changing: the relatively horse-poor Britons got along quite well with chariots and infantry hordes right up until the Romans overran them - with more infantry. Likewise, for minerals, Silver and Gold can be considered interchangeable as Luxury items, Dye materials range from coastal shellfish to jungle plants to minerals, and Ivory can be obtained from elephants or walruses - from completely different climates and terrain.
5. Almost all of the 'natural' animal and plant non-food resources can be replaced by manufactured alternatives between the Renaissance (Early Modern) and Modern Eras. Niter is an early example, originally obtained from farm animals and natural deposits, then 'manufactured' in Nitraries. Natural Dyes have a niche in craft work, but modern Dyes are almost all chemically artificial. This is part of the Alternative Resource concept above: as your requirements change and quantities required increase for your Civ, your alternatives to digging them out of a given hunk of ground should also change.

These concepts would make the 'resource game' more complex, because you would have to actually pay attention to it throughout the game. But it would have to be better than the current system where every copy of a resource appears at the same time and Never Again, and all resources are static and unchanging throughout the game regardless of your technology and requirements and needs.