Jeppetto
King
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2018
- Messages
- 714
WARNING: Essay incoming. It's my exact thoughts and opinions so TLDR would be highly inaccurate.
Topic: I am guy who likes when things have at least somewhat unique role of their own and thought yields could use some re-definition here and there to achieve that and be more symmetric. So this is mostly a suggestion of how I'd like the yields and systems attached to them work in Civ 7.
Local (City) Linear Accumulation: This one is based on EXP from RPGs. You accumulate EXP, at certain milestones you get LEVEL-UP which grants you ATTRIBUTE POINT you may spend on enhancing ATTRIBUTE (STRENGHT, AGILITY, INTELLIGENCE...).
Civ 6's version of this is traditionally FOOD. Although you usually cannot lose EXP, but you can lose FOOD accumulated, it still boils down to accumulating FOOD to hit milestones to "LEVEL-UP" (grow) your city, acquiring CITIZEN that you can use to enhance ATTRIBUTE (yield) of the city.
There's argument Food Consumption is no longer needed, which would bring this closer to the EXP model. This is because previously, Food determined both how fast your city grows, and how high it can grow. Now, the role of Top Cap is shifted to Housing, which achieves it in better way so that you can't just toss a city somewhere and wait, you must interact with it and care for it more to ensure steady growth. Food could thusly only need to fullfill the role of how fast you grow.
Further, the ability to change Citizen (Worker) placement at any time is also non-standard and mildly questionable. I feel like this feature is used rarely. I'd say most of the time, players let the game decide what to work as more precise micro-management would be tedious. In edge cases, you only point to what yield you want maximized. Most specific cases are usually experienced players customizing this according to their strategy in early game, to get to Settler availability faster or to pop out Scout faster. Removing this sounds like removing strategic layer from the game, but given its low use potential I feel like it's not that needed. Likewise though, If people do feel like it adds to the game, I don't mind it staying.
Local (City) Strategic Accumulation: Once again, you accumulate points towards milestone to achieve something, though now instead of tactically choosing its usage on milestone hit, you must declare it in advance, strategically planning your steps. This is, of course, PRODUCTION.
An argument could be made here that what you produce should lean more towards the city's benefit (or its contribution to the Empire) as it is local yield, so Units could be moved into another system. Although like with Food Consumption or Citizen Workers, I can understand If someone finds argument as to why it is fine the way it is.
Otherwise this serves to develop the city with chosen Perks that the city needs at any given moment. Order of perks mattering more than which perks are chosen is usually older concept when you could eventually have them all. Civ 6 tries to both make order and selection matter in that cities with all possible Districts and Buildings are rare and possibly inefficient. You choose not only what perk should be prioritized to be acquired now, but also what the city specializies in and to what degree.
Local (City) Tactical Accumulation: Sharing the tactical aspect of choosing benefit only after the fact, rather than having to declare it in advance, with LLA, but losing the concept of milestones for something more flexible. This by all means points to GOLD and FAITH, albeit Civ still seems to be lacking its local feeling.
Gold feels like it desires to join Food and Production in the Local Only Gang, but is afraid to stop working for the Global Agency. Should Terrains get reworked too to be less realistic in exchange of having actual differences and usage between them (such as Desert yielding Gold and Snow yielding Production), the trio of main biomes supports three local yields. Additionally, should Jungle grant Gold on harvest instead, once again Marsh/Forest/Jungle create feature trio. Further, Gold is in its tile-prevalency comparable to Food or Production, when you consider the rarity of Science, Culture or Faith on tiles, yet it still holds the global impact that Science, Culture or Faith have. Still unlike them, it barely has valid niché, especially in Civ 6 when removal of Gold-purchased Influence came and now Diplomatic Favour represents international control more.
I'd suggest making it so that each City has Trasury of its own from where it may expend Gold on local efforts, such as expanding borders, pleasing people for period of time by some festivity, hiring units and/or financing creation of tools for them which would buff their stats If they're equipped with them, etc. If people do not want to abolish Imperial Trasury, there could still be option to have city's Gold be re-directed there instead. It could also offer polarity between centralized power that takes money from subject cities off taxes and city-state league where each city develops itself.
This would serve to further create distance in style between Gold and Faith, which, both having global impact, feel too similar and this is acknowledged more and more as we can now even choose to patron Great Person either with Gold or Faith.
Global (Empire) Linear Accumulation: Much like LLA, you accumulate points towards milestones, each a "LEVEL-UP" for your empire. In Civ 5, this role being filled by Culture, you got "TALENT POINT" at these milestones you could use to acquire "TALENT" (Social Policy).
Talent Trees are definitely flawed, yet there were attempts at their correction across RPG games (AC: Syndicate, for example) and they still have tremendous flavour that I subjectively miss in Civ 6. As to what can fill this role, it's tied to future of Culture and Religion below.
Global (Empire) Strategic Accumulation: Mirroring LSA, you accumulate points to develop before-hand declared effort. Naturally, this is SCIENCE. Not much needs to be said. I'd once again prefer less realistic but more sensical Tech Tree that would promote not only decision of order at which you collect Techs but also what Techs you want to specialize in in the first place, similar to the treatment infrastructure production got in Civ 6.
Global (Empire) Tactical Accumulation: Already explained, you accumulate currency and expend it at desired moment for desired thing, sharing the tactical nature LLA and GLA have, but not being bound to milestones, promoting flexibility. This one's currently represented by both Gold and Faith. Should Gold get changed the way I proposed above, Culture and Faith are candidates for this, related to their future below.
New System - Affinity, Events, Tenets: Given that Food | Production | Gold | Science would have defined role should we follow my example (LLA | LSA | LTA | GSA), we're left with Culture & Faith each finding their home at GLA & GTA. To differentiate between them, new system would be required If Civics were to be found too similar to Techs and Religious Beliefs lacking.
This system would fit GLA. You accumulate points towards milestones, each allowing you to encounter Event. To find balance between the game-to-game variety of RNG and fairness of choice, you would choose Aspect which represents pool of Events, but the Event itself that would pop up would be random. In the Event you are faced with choice that determines benefit you get from that, forming a Tenet you established. Based on the direction of your leaning, you would also express your Affinity in several aspects.
With Faith, the Events would be popular opinions among the believers, establishing Doctrines or Customs for your Religion, defining how Orthodox/Dynamic, Authoritative/Communal, Spiritual/Material etc. the Religion would be.
With Culture, the Events would be requests of protesting citizens awaiting your official decision, establishing Acts, Policies, Tenets or Customs, defining your politics, how Globalistic/Nationalistic, Elitistic/Eqalitarian, Theistic/Sceptical you would be.
Example, taking Culture. You reached Milestone. You choose Aspect of Internationality. Event pops up: Your people noticed that the positions of offices such as collectors of taxes, mayors etc. are more and more represented by people from foreign countries rather than your own. People are afraid they will be enslaved in their own country by foreigners who will hold positions of power while they labour hardly. You can either appeal to their fears and restrict background-checks when hiring into these positions (+5 Loyalty and +1 Amenity to all Cities, +1 Nationalism) or you can tell your people that If these people show competence in these offices, they should be welcomed to expand your culture (+5% Science & Culture in all Cities, +1 Globalism).
Old System Renewed - Talent Trees: Representing either Customs of your people (Lifestyles like Vegetarianism, Popcults like Fandoms, or straight-up Religions) or Cultural Customs and Ideas of your nation, you acquire empire-wide benefits in specific focuses.
This was originally in Civ 5 GLA, but it could easily serve GTA too. Each Custom/Idea, instead of having equal cost in 1 Custom Point/1 Idea Point (which would grow in cost due to the milestone system while power level of Customs/Ideas remains the same), would cost specific amount of Culture/Faith. Once acquired, the spent Culture/Faith would be accumulated on Progress Bar (instead of Culture/Faith generally and also excluding Culture/Faith NOT spent on Customs/Ideas) and milestones there would enhance your Government Tier, unlocking further Customs/Ideas and Trees of these.
This could still support spending Culture/Faith on things other than Customs/Ideas, such as Units (Writers, Artists, Musicians, Naturalists, Rock Bands for Culture, Missionaries or Apostles for Faith), Actions (Patronage) etc.
For example, taking Faith, there would be Tradition tree representing conservative thoughts of established customs that should be sacred, each providing some benefit to Culture like Aesthetics tree did for Civ 5. You have 0 / 200 Faith towards Tier II. You select Tier I Custom "Lent/Fasting" (Unlocks Project that stops Growth, converting Food to Culture) that costs 100. You're now at 100 / 200 towards Tier II. You further pick Tier I Custom "Sacrifice" (Killing enemy unit in combat grants Culture based on their Combat Strength). Reaching 200 / 200, it turns into 0 / 500 towards Tier III and you achieve Tier II Religion, unlocking additional Customs, Actions, Doctrines etc.
Topic: I am guy who likes when things have at least somewhat unique role of their own and thought yields could use some re-definition here and there to achieve that and be more symmetric. So this is mostly a suggestion of how I'd like the yields and systems attached to them work in Civ 7.
Local (City) Linear Accumulation: This one is based on EXP from RPGs. You accumulate EXP, at certain milestones you get LEVEL-UP which grants you ATTRIBUTE POINT you may spend on enhancing ATTRIBUTE (STRENGHT, AGILITY, INTELLIGENCE...).
Civ 6's version of this is traditionally FOOD. Although you usually cannot lose EXP, but you can lose FOOD accumulated, it still boils down to accumulating FOOD to hit milestones to "LEVEL-UP" (grow) your city, acquiring CITIZEN that you can use to enhance ATTRIBUTE (yield) of the city.
There's argument Food Consumption is no longer needed, which would bring this closer to the EXP model. This is because previously, Food determined both how fast your city grows, and how high it can grow. Now, the role of Top Cap is shifted to Housing, which achieves it in better way so that you can't just toss a city somewhere and wait, you must interact with it and care for it more to ensure steady growth. Food could thusly only need to fullfill the role of how fast you grow.
Further, the ability to change Citizen (Worker) placement at any time is also non-standard and mildly questionable. I feel like this feature is used rarely. I'd say most of the time, players let the game decide what to work as more precise micro-management would be tedious. In edge cases, you only point to what yield you want maximized. Most specific cases are usually experienced players customizing this according to their strategy in early game, to get to Settler availability faster or to pop out Scout faster. Removing this sounds like removing strategic layer from the game, but given its low use potential I feel like it's not that needed. Likewise though, If people do feel like it adds to the game, I don't mind it staying.
Local (City) Strategic Accumulation: Once again, you accumulate points towards milestone to achieve something, though now instead of tactically choosing its usage on milestone hit, you must declare it in advance, strategically planning your steps. This is, of course, PRODUCTION.
An argument could be made here that what you produce should lean more towards the city's benefit (or its contribution to the Empire) as it is local yield, so Units could be moved into another system. Although like with Food Consumption or Citizen Workers, I can understand If someone finds argument as to why it is fine the way it is.
Otherwise this serves to develop the city with chosen Perks that the city needs at any given moment. Order of perks mattering more than which perks are chosen is usually older concept when you could eventually have them all. Civ 6 tries to both make order and selection matter in that cities with all possible Districts and Buildings are rare and possibly inefficient. You choose not only what perk should be prioritized to be acquired now, but also what the city specializies in and to what degree.
Local (City) Tactical Accumulation: Sharing the tactical aspect of choosing benefit only after the fact, rather than having to declare it in advance, with LLA, but losing the concept of milestones for something more flexible. This by all means points to GOLD and FAITH, albeit Civ still seems to be lacking its local feeling.
Gold feels like it desires to join Food and Production in the Local Only Gang, but is afraid to stop working for the Global Agency. Should Terrains get reworked too to be less realistic in exchange of having actual differences and usage between them (such as Desert yielding Gold and Snow yielding Production), the trio of main biomes supports three local yields. Additionally, should Jungle grant Gold on harvest instead, once again Marsh/Forest/Jungle create feature trio. Further, Gold is in its tile-prevalency comparable to Food or Production, when you consider the rarity of Science, Culture or Faith on tiles, yet it still holds the global impact that Science, Culture or Faith have. Still unlike them, it barely has valid niché, especially in Civ 6 when removal of Gold-purchased Influence came and now Diplomatic Favour represents international control more.
I'd suggest making it so that each City has Trasury of its own from where it may expend Gold on local efforts, such as expanding borders, pleasing people for period of time by some festivity, hiring units and/or financing creation of tools for them which would buff their stats If they're equipped with them, etc. If people do not want to abolish Imperial Trasury, there could still be option to have city's Gold be re-directed there instead. It could also offer polarity between centralized power that takes money from subject cities off taxes and city-state league where each city develops itself.
This would serve to further create distance in style between Gold and Faith, which, both having global impact, feel too similar and this is acknowledged more and more as we can now even choose to patron Great Person either with Gold or Faith.
Global (Empire) Linear Accumulation: Much like LLA, you accumulate points towards milestones, each a "LEVEL-UP" for your empire. In Civ 5, this role being filled by Culture, you got "TALENT POINT" at these milestones you could use to acquire "TALENT" (Social Policy).
Talent Trees are definitely flawed, yet there were attempts at their correction across RPG games (AC: Syndicate, for example) and they still have tremendous flavour that I subjectively miss in Civ 6. As to what can fill this role, it's tied to future of Culture and Religion below.
Global (Empire) Strategic Accumulation: Mirroring LSA, you accumulate points to develop before-hand declared effort. Naturally, this is SCIENCE. Not much needs to be said. I'd once again prefer less realistic but more sensical Tech Tree that would promote not only decision of order at which you collect Techs but also what Techs you want to specialize in in the first place, similar to the treatment infrastructure production got in Civ 6.
Global (Empire) Tactical Accumulation: Already explained, you accumulate currency and expend it at desired moment for desired thing, sharing the tactical nature LLA and GLA have, but not being bound to milestones, promoting flexibility. This one's currently represented by both Gold and Faith. Should Gold get changed the way I proposed above, Culture and Faith are candidates for this, related to their future below.
New System - Affinity, Events, Tenets: Given that Food | Production | Gold | Science would have defined role should we follow my example (LLA | LSA | LTA | GSA), we're left with Culture & Faith each finding their home at GLA & GTA. To differentiate between them, new system would be required If Civics were to be found too similar to Techs and Religious Beliefs lacking.
This system would fit GLA. You accumulate points towards milestones, each allowing you to encounter Event. To find balance between the game-to-game variety of RNG and fairness of choice, you would choose Aspect which represents pool of Events, but the Event itself that would pop up would be random. In the Event you are faced with choice that determines benefit you get from that, forming a Tenet you established. Based on the direction of your leaning, you would also express your Affinity in several aspects.
With Faith, the Events would be popular opinions among the believers, establishing Doctrines or Customs for your Religion, defining how Orthodox/Dynamic, Authoritative/Communal, Spiritual/Material etc. the Religion would be.
With Culture, the Events would be requests of protesting citizens awaiting your official decision, establishing Acts, Policies, Tenets or Customs, defining your politics, how Globalistic/Nationalistic, Elitistic/Eqalitarian, Theistic/Sceptical you would be.
Example, taking Culture. You reached Milestone. You choose Aspect of Internationality. Event pops up: Your people noticed that the positions of offices such as collectors of taxes, mayors etc. are more and more represented by people from foreign countries rather than your own. People are afraid they will be enslaved in their own country by foreigners who will hold positions of power while they labour hardly. You can either appeal to their fears and restrict background-checks when hiring into these positions (+5 Loyalty and +1 Amenity to all Cities, +1 Nationalism) or you can tell your people that If these people show competence in these offices, they should be welcomed to expand your culture (+5% Science & Culture in all Cities, +1 Globalism).
Old System Renewed - Talent Trees: Representing either Customs of your people (Lifestyles like Vegetarianism, Popcults like Fandoms, or straight-up Religions) or Cultural Customs and Ideas of your nation, you acquire empire-wide benefits in specific focuses.
This was originally in Civ 5 GLA, but it could easily serve GTA too. Each Custom/Idea, instead of having equal cost in 1 Custom Point/1 Idea Point (which would grow in cost due to the milestone system while power level of Customs/Ideas remains the same), would cost specific amount of Culture/Faith. Once acquired, the spent Culture/Faith would be accumulated on Progress Bar (instead of Culture/Faith generally and also excluding Culture/Faith NOT spent on Customs/Ideas) and milestones there would enhance your Government Tier, unlocking further Customs/Ideas and Trees of these.
This could still support spending Culture/Faith on things other than Customs/Ideas, such as Units (Writers, Artists, Musicians, Naturalists, Rock Bands for Culture, Missionaries or Apostles for Faith), Actions (Patronage) etc.
For example, taking Faith, there would be Tradition tree representing conservative thoughts of established customs that should be sacred, each providing some benefit to Culture like Aesthetics tree did for Civ 5. You have 0 / 200 Faith towards Tier II. You select Tier I Custom "Lent/Fasting" (Unlocks Project that stops Growth, converting Food to Culture) that costs 100. You're now at 100 / 200 towards Tier II. You further pick Tier I Custom "Sacrifice" (Killing enemy unit in combat grants Culture based on their Combat Strength). Reaching 200 / 200, it turns into 0 / 500 towards Tier III and you achieve Tier II Religion, unlocking additional Customs, Actions, Doctrines etc.
