I'm concerned more with the actual uniqueness/distinctiveness of the civs than with the nominal count of unique features. Adding additional uniques certainly can make civs more distinctive, but the effect isn't automatic- Indonesia, for instance, gets more unique gameplay and decision making from its UB alone than the Ottomans get from their entire suite of uniques. So while I'd be happy to have a third unique for each civ if it made them genuinely more distinctive (if I wanted to be pendantic I'd say that you're talking about a fourth, since each civ in V has a UA and 2 UU/UI/UBs), adding them simply for the sake increasing the number would just make for a more cluttered game.
I also agree with Heinage that forcing each civ to have the same distribution of uniques would be a mistake, sacrificing distinctiveness for a false illusion of balance, and I think that one unique per era per civ would be a mistake for the same reason. It's important that all civs have as equal as possible a chance to succeed, but its a good thing if they go about it differently. Some civs should have bonuses to infrastructure, and others should focus more heavily on warfare (or focus on a powerful UA balanced against weaker or more situational UUs. Some should excel in a specific era. Others should have smaller but more persistent bonuses. If a civ ends up being generic or weak, its because its unique features aren't distinctive or effective enough, not because having a given distribution of unique feature types is inherently flawed.
I'd say 3 uniques (combination of UA's and UB's) for each civ are a given, plus a UA.
I actually hope for 4 uniques, but won't happen.
1 to 3 Great Leaders for each civ are probable as well, especially if they want to make more profit from the game.
I agree that with more uniques it might be harder to balance the civs, but with a game with so many factions they can't be 100% balanced, StarCraft makes it easier for having just three..
unpossible251: In Civ vanilla days I remember devs saying that they had idea for unique units for city-states, but it was scrapped. Might make a comeback, who knows.
Slightly OT but people said this about Civ5 as well when it was revealed there was DLC. We never got more than 1 leader for each Civ, and the DLC packs were largely scenario packs with new Civs, all done to a very high quality that you wound't know they were DLC.
That's not to say they won't do it in Civ6, but there's no evidence DLC/profit motive have encouraged to do them in the past before.
Since they're likely still having the leaders with as much detail and backgrounds as in 5 the cost of creating leaders is too much to create new ones without making a full civ.
I agree that with more uniques it might be harder to balance the civs, but with a game with so many factions they can't be 100% balanced, StarCraft makes it easier for having just three..
unpossible251: In Civ vanilla days I remember devs saying that they had idea for unique units for city-states, but it was scrapped. Might make a comeback, who knows.
Interesting, the city state UUs seem like they would have been a great idea to reconsider then the militaristic city states started giving out unique units (and if they found comparable ways to distinguish CSs of other types, it would do a lot to make city states feel individual instead of just being one of 5 types).
Giving CS UAs, UBs, and UIs would be very interesting but you'd have to make it harder to ally them. But say that instead of maritime you had CS that, while allied, allowed your workers to construct a certain UI in your territory, or instead of cultural, while allied your certain buildings would be replaced by this UB instead.
But again instead of just doing that you'd have to make it more competitive to ally, because extra uniques is a big bonus.
I don't get the point of a unique technology. A technology would provide a unit, building or some other bonus. All of which could be given to the civ without having it be tied to a technology. It's just a box to put it in.
Giving CS UAs, UBs, and UIs would be very interesting but you'd have to make it harder to ally them. But say that instead of maritime you had CS that, while allied, allowed your workers to construct a certain UI in your territory, or instead of cultural, while allied your certain buildings would be replaced by this UB instead.
But again instead of just doing that you'd have to make it more competitive to ally, because extra uniques is a big bonus.
I definitely agree that having CS alliances unlock an UB/UI for your entire empire would be over the top. I wasn't necessarily thinking of CS unlock civ style uniques at all, just of having them provide their yield in a distinctive manner or with an interesting twist. I don't really know what that would look like, though. Unlocking a limited number of UB/UIs would be one possibility, but I'm sure there are others. Before Mercantile CS were added for instance, it was speculated that each individual one might provide a different luxury, and if different luxury resources had minor mechanical distinctions that would be an excellent way of distinguishing CS of this type.
I think it would be nice to simply have three unique elements to every civ.
Every civ gets 1 UU and 1 UB.
The 3rd unique is the wild card and can be a 2nd UU/UB or a UI.
It would be nice for every civ to at least have one unique building, especially now with the district system. We wouldn't only have a unique portrait buried within a city screen, we'd have a flavorful new model present on maps in plain sight during gameplay (much like we've had with unique units all this time). Even if the unique building graphics only last until a certain era, it would be very fun and cool to see on maps and give even more of a reason to make sure every civ can construct something unique on the terrain. Also, in a way, districts kind of blends together UB's and UI's a bit more; they're a little more related to each other than in the past with stacked, hidden buildings on one city tile.
Perhaps different civilizations could have several UU/UA/UB but you can choose which ones you want? Some will have more than others - Rome would have a metric pantload to choose from, just by the nature of the civ, but choosing them means more variety to your play and keeps the game balanced by having all Civs with maybe a combo of 2 or 3 but out of many. Just got to make sure you don't make it OP...
Perhaps different civilizations could have several UU/UA/UB but you can choose which ones you want? Some will have more than others - Rome would have a metric pantload to choose from, just by the nature of the civ, but choosing them means more variety to your play and keeps the game balanced by having all Civs with maybe a combo of 2 or 3 but out of many. Just got to make sure you don't make it OP...
Perhaps different civilizations could have several UU/UA/UB but you can choose which ones you want? Some will have more than others - Rome would have a metric pantload to choose from, just by the nature of the civ, but choosing them means more variety to your play and keeps the game balanced by having all Civs with maybe a combo of 2 or 3 but out of many. Just got to make sure you don't make it OP...
Interesting idea, but it would be incredibly hard to balance. Take the Inca for example. Their UI (Terrace Farm) almost singlehandedly makes them a top tier civ, while their UU (Slinger) is considered by many players to be actively worse than the unit it replaces. Or Korea, whose amazing UA is (somewhat) balanced by situational UUs. Making each unique balanced both against the Civ's other choices and against other civs in combination with the UA would be colossally difficult, and even if accomplished successfully, it would close off a lot of development options.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
