A Change to Developing as a Civilization

[White Spider 8]

Going to keep this somewhat lack on specifics and touch more on the concept of what I’m aiming for. A lot of people have touched on this in various forms so I’m not going to try to pick exactly how the Developers should accomplish it, but as I said, just want to talk about the concept.

Seems a lot of people, myself included, like the idea of what I’ll call generalized advancement based less on the player’s outside knowledge and more on in-game circumstances.

Instead of tiles having visible yields and a player being able to select exactly what they want, or choosing a known advancement in technology/culture, allowing the map to lead your civilization in a certain direction. Meanwhile the player instead chooses more general directions for advancement instead of making god-like choices.

If your civilization is coastal you naturally gain knowledge of the seas and fishing and move toward ways to get out on the sea to further exploit food resources, wanting to catch those massive whales out there. As the player you could choose to focus on seafaring, gaining knowledge a little faster (advancing toward oceanic types of tech.) Or perhaps you’ve been targeted for war and exploiting coastal resources is of less importance at the moment so you choose to focus on defending your territory advancing toward types of fortifications and better units.

Segway to this same concept applied to units; instead of the conventional promotion tree they earn “promotions” based on what they’ve done, not on a promotion tree that doesn’t always make sense, such as reactive armor on a knight. So sticking with the heavy cav units as our example, let’s say conducting 5 attacks on a fortified defender earns that unit the Charge promotion; you can now train future heavy cav units in said techniques at an Encampment with Stables capable of properly training them, but they still wouldn’t have the experience to maximize that knowledge. The original unit has the standard +10 vs. fortified defenders. Units trained in that knowledge, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll say get +5; they receive the full +10 after performing 2 or 3 attacks on fortified defenders representing their knowledge and training, and their ability to put experience and training together faster than a unit advancing solely on experience.

Could get further into that and a lot more complex saying kills provide a little more experience than just an attack; or saying the unit gets +2 each time maxing out at +10 and then being able to train other units, etc. Again just trying to get the concept across.

Trade and friendly relations with other Civilizations would also advance knowledge toward things they’ve discovered that you haven’t and it would work the same in return. Say you’ve never been attacked so your units are a little behind because you’ve had no reason to improve and you’ve never thought of fortifying your civilization, but you hear from your neighbor about Barbarian attacks and the city you’re trading with has walls; you can now take the initiative to prepare yourself and learn from them. Possibly choosing to actively trade knowledge to speed it up in addition to this passive form.

I could go on and get super detailed and give tons of examples, but I think the concept is clear. Overall the concept for your Civilization, be it cultural, technological, militaristic, is all based on what is actually happening in the game; less on a player who has former knowledge, and/or can look down a tech tree into the future, wants to plan for.

Your civilization would be learning many things at once, not just one thing at a time. Possibly unlocking multiple new ideas/techs in a turn. Each tech could be independent instead of lumped together as they are now. Some may require more specific direction; such as these walls aren’t strong enough, I want stronger walls obviously leading to stronger walls. Whereas some may be more vague working several technologies at once.

In addition to this I would suggest a wider variety of unique units and districts/district bonuses per Civilization. Now depending on how your Civilization develops in any given game you will receive different bonuses, but there are more possibilities, it all depends on the direction of growth in that game.

So in summary, allow each game to be even more unique by making in-game events and the geography more significant and connected to the growth of your Civilization. Let players emphasize the direction they’d like to go, but not be able to micro-manage and find gamisms to exploit. Immerse the player in ‘that game,’ I don’t want to sit outside of it as this god that can plan my win condition from turn 1. Let the game evolve and force players to make decisions with a bit of uncertainty as to exactly where it will lead them. Yes I’ve chosen to focus on seafaring, but what else might come with that? Greater understanding of the stars (science,) stories and epic tales of adventure (culture,) the need to more efficiently chop down forests (lumber-mills, non-seafaring tech.) Little things here and there will add to each advancement making each game completely unique; emphasizing seafaring when your inland tiles are mostly desert and plains without woods around won’t help lead to lumber-mills like suggested above, it might instead lead to improved fishing because you need more food from the ocean.

Anyway, hope I’ve been clear enough with this concept. It is vague on purpose, and is obviously more of a hope for Civ VII than a suggestion for Civ VI. I just think it’d be nice to see the next progression in 4X games. Whether it’s Warhammer, Age of Wonders, or even the upcoming Humankind... they all seem very similar, the only true difference being the story and characters. I’d love to see Civilization take a chance and step outside the old comfortable 4X layout and make it that much more engaging. I’ve seen a lot of people on the internet talking about this in one form or another and I hope to see a game try it soon.

What do you all think? Yay or nay? How would you like to see this concept applied? What are your thoughts on the next step in 4X and for Civilization?

 

[Sostratus]

A lot of people like the specifics of knowing what is where and being able to specifically choose certain things. Certainly, to ever hope for a competitive MP, you need some of this determinism.
That said, one thing I am really happy civ6 did that fits along one of the themes you highlight is splitting the tech tree into science and culture, and added eurekas and inspirations.

In my "ideal" game each segment of it - say, economy, military, religion, trade, tech, culture- would be set up so that doing things in that area helps advance you specifically in that area. This is basically taking the eureka system to the next level.
Building a lot of temples? Gain new abilities in the religious sphere. Have trade routes? Caravansaries show up. Bustling industrial zones? You learn to extract more from mines and quarries. Etc. Then generic science/culture augment that and help you pick up the areas you don't focus on, but gameplay drives things a lot. The key is avoiding having every field have its own "research bucket" and figuring out how to keep everything unified and elegant. But the goal is to have science spam/tech rush not be the go to OP strat in every game, a common problem is every 4X. An empire that actually does focus on trade routes would be much stronger in that area than Korea just dumping beakers on everything, etc. So you have a little RPG to your civ, I guess.

The tech tree might end up being more like the tech web of Beyond earth, having some levels of "depth" under regular "techs," and not all of it being something you can research outright. Imagine inverting eurekas -So the deeper leaf techs you can only research up to halfway, and need to satisfy gameplay conditions to get the rest; although pure gameplay can get you 100% of the way there too.

I would also probably massively change the combat unit system to have a series of base unit like we do now, but instead of this boardgame style of "every other era upgrades," a lot of upgrades would be similar to our Giant Death Robot. Learning about ironworking brings your spearmen up to the classical era level of combat, or other stuff like that. They still upgrade to pikemen, but "tech" upgrades can keep old units relevant. There's a lot of flexibility here.

This gives you leeway in Uniques, too. A civ's UU could actually be a unique upgrade applying to several units. Does the Hansa have inherently stronger effects, or does it gain improved perks as you improve your industry? Or just help you unlock things in the Industry area faster? Etc.

 

[White Spider 8]

Being able to choose specifics is nice, and lends itself to a more “prior planning” gameplay style, but it is very unrealistic (in my opinion.) Most discoveries and inventions were not planned. Some were, especially in later eras, and I feel that should be represented, but it would be cool to see the game and your Civ develop in a little different style each game based on that game. As it is right now each Civ has a fairly pre-determined path, and I think that is unjust to the fact all these civilizations are well-known because they were able to do more than one thing well. I think done right you’d still have a very competitive MP, players would just have to adapt to individual games and take advantage of their area, adjusting to current events instead of spamming one direction or another.

It is different and would have to be done right for it to be fun and competitive. Perhaps they could test it by making it an option in the game and not the one and only way to play. Or still having tiles with predetermined resource outputs and control while just making each Civ more adaptable. Some sort of balance between the two.

I just feel it would be more authentic. No ruler gets to choose exactly what their people do, instead they adapt to their people and enact policies to try to get them to move in a certain direction. The control in this concept would come more from the use of governors, policies, and perhaps other new game mechanics.

You have 5 of your 7 cities settled on the coast you won’t be able to stop your people from seafaring advancement, but as it is now if you’re going for a religious victory you wouldn’t need hardly any tech in that direction. Just enough to work resources and late game move across ocean tiles.

I do like the idea of a more web based tree intertwining multiple layers. I haven’t played Beyond Earth myself so not familiar with that.

Thank you for your input and discussion. The more ideas and opinions the better.

A lot of people like the specifics of knowing what is where and being able to specifically choose certain things. Certainly, to ever hope for a competitive MP, you need some of this determinism.
That said, one thing I am really happy civ6 did that fits along one of the themes you highlight is splitting the tech tree into science and culture, and added eurekas and inspirations.

In my "ideal" game each segment of it - say, economy, military, religion, trade, tech, culture- would be set up so that doing things in that area helps advance you specifically in that area. This is basically taking the eureka system to the next level.
Building a lot of temples? Gain new abilities in the religious sphere. Have trade routes? Caravansaries show up. Bustling industrial zones? You learn to extract more from mines and quarries. Etc. Then generic science/culture augment that and help you pick up the areas you don't focus on, but gameplay drives things a lot. The key is avoiding having every field have its own "research bucket" and figuring out how to keep everything unified and elegant. But the goal is to have science spam/tech rush not be the go to OP strat in every game, a common problem is every 4X. An empire that actually does focus on trade routes would be much stronger in that area than Korea just dumping beakers on everything, etc. So you have a little RPG to your civ, I guess.

The tech tree might end up being more like the tech web of Beyond earth, having some levels of "depth" under regular "techs," and not all of it being something you can research outright. Imagine inverting eurekas -So the deeper leaf techs you can only research up to halfway, and need to satisfy gameplay conditions to get the rest; although pure gameplay can get you 100% of the way there too.

I would also probably massively change the combat unit system to have a series of base unit like we do now, but instead of this boardgame style of "every other era upgrades," a lot of upgrades would be similar to our Giant Death Robot. Learning about ironworking brings your spearmen up to the classical era level of combat, or other stuff like that. They still upgrade to pikemen, but "tech" upgrades can keep old units relevant. There's a lot of flexibility here.

This gives you leeway in Uniques, too. A civ's UU could actually be a unique upgrade applying to several units. Does the Hansa have inherently stronger effects, or does it gain improved perks as you improve your industry? Or just help you unlock things in the Industry area faster? Etc.