I think we need more real choices for diplo cards. The diplo cards in the game are pretty darn good, but for most of the game its a choice betwean extra envoy points and 2 for 1 on your first envoy. Hopefully they open up the choices there with expansions.
I will choose the interchangeable policy cards of Civ 6 over the rigid policy system of Civ 5 any day. Long live the regained flexibility!
My biggest gripe is only that you can use any available card under every government system, for example, if you go class struggle, you can still use laissez-faire from capitalism, or if you go democracy, you can still use collectivization, that's just not entirely plausible. At least one ideologically incompatible card should be unavailable under a certain type of government, a bit like it was in SMAC: e. g., in social engineering, Gaians (ecological faction) couldn't pick Wealth (high profit but pollution generating policy), and University guys (science oriented) couldn't just turn on their heels and go Fundamentalist. Also, the diplomacy modifiers for 'different government' could be rebalanced to kick in only after the ideology is researched (and, perhaps, factor in the actual cards selected), because before ideologies, frankly, who cared so much, what was your government system, religion was more important.
I really do like the concept. I don't like one-time, permanent choices nearly as much as ones I can swap around and adapt to a changing situation, so policies and civics suit me just fine. To me, this is the kind of active economic management that keeps the game from just becoming a wargame with the economy serving as kind of an afterthought (over time I felt like Civ V was this).
The policies themselves are not very well balanced though. There are just so many I never really use.
I love the policy card system. I use mods to get a better variety. That is my only complaint: lack of variety. I'd like to see different cards for different rulers/countries and also some random cards popping up. It is a system that could be fleshed out a great deal more, especially with more government choices. It is not an exaggeration to say that my entire game is shaped around government levels and cards. I love playing civs that get extra cards and also making the wonders that give you extra cards. It would also be great if we could swap cards with other rulers in diplomacy. I think the card system could be adapted to other parts of the game, i.e. included in some way in the unit promotion/specialization scheme. Units could have their own cards and some could be swapped out to an extent. Just a wild idea but there you go.
I like the card system, it can be an important part of your game, but you can also pretty much ignore it if you want, just put the n some some cards that have general, beneficial effects across your empire (+1 prod, +gold) and you don't have to worry about it too much. Or you can micromanage your army, or your diplomacy to you heart's content. I think it's up to you how you choose to use it. Personally I like it because it doesn't have to be intrusive, but it can add to your game if you want it to.
Most green ones at some stage, I love CS and the advantages good play brings, the main useless one for me is Raj.
Red, I will use quite a few cheap unit builds, the maintenance ones, war weariness ones, logistics is a big one , the wall build and defence ones, quite a few reds, so playing Germany is nice.
Some economic cards are just so strong I now only use builder increases in bursts. I like the way adjacency increases to building bonuses. When I have enough money I will even drop trader bonus at times for a good science boost.
Wild cards are situational at the start and so underpowered later they are pointless. The only ones I still use are early prophet and writer. Divine spark is so much stronger. They should scale or be per building. A flat +2/4 is naff
I like the policy system very much and agree with the assessment that it just needs to be fleshed out. One minor complaint I have is that many policies seem very rational. I'd like some irrational policies as it were for example a nativist policy where you give your people more amenities while also souring your diplomatic relations. Or a witch hunt policy that increases production percentiles while lowering science output.
I love it. I think when the game gets it's first expansion a heap of the least popular ones will be removed and others added based on information he devs have gathered on the communities playstyles.
I miss golden ages and think these could be created by matching certain cards into groups.
eg. If you have this red card, these yellow cards and this purple card in your government receive 'x' boost for the next so many turns. But afterwards these cards would be burned. So that you would have to be certain of wanting that golden age now, as opposed to using those cards at a later date.
I love it. I think when the game gets it's first expansion a heap of the least popular ones will be removed and others added based on information he devs have gathered on the communities playstyles.
I miss golden ages and think these could be created by matching certain cards into groups.
eg. If you have this red card, these yellow cards and this purple card in your government receive 'x' boost for the next so many turns. But afterwards these cards would be burned. So that you would have to be certain of wanting that golden age now, as opposed to using those cards at a later date.
Or make golden ages happen because of other things. Basically, you gain golden age points when you complete a wonder, earn a great person, conquer a city, etc, and gradually lose them over time. As long as you are above a certain threshold, you're in a golden age. Meanwhile, this threshold increases the longer you are in the golden age (this to avoid perma golden ages because, once you reach them, you probably have more production, gpp etc making it easier to earn points).
(I just thought this up on the spot but I really like the idea... Much better than pressing a button from a Great Person and having enough happiness for a long time)
Personally, I think Card systems in general are a great way to add variation to game strategies. Unfortunately, and I think this happens in a lot of games (board games use the card mechanic a lot now), is that most cards seem to be in there to provide variety - they have some low grade modifier that might be nice, but is never good enough to use. There are a set of cards per era (and often the same, era-adjusted ability) that are just better than the other cards.
If you have a lot of cards, I think allowing people to change cards often makes sense. If there are much fewer to choose from, then I would advocate for fewer times to change cards. Unfortunately, most of the cards we have are filler, which means we get to change from the small subset of very useful cards too often.
I suspect I have used about 80% of the cards and more than once. Some are rubbish like Raj but a lot have use in the right situation. I mean who uses the double harbour and CD adjacency bonus?..... it's probably my favourite card now.
It's a good system, yeah, although many of the cards are quite worthless. In particular are the Theater Square adjacency one, it's just never as good as Meritocracy and some of the military ones. It's also incredibly annoying in cultural games when you get a new civic that boosts military units from the next era and your science is behind and you can't even build a single unit from that era yet and now you lost the boost to your current era units as well.
I've actually used Raj before, on King or something where I built Potala Palace and conquered my continent early and had like 5 or 7 CSes suzerain'd, it was a pretty nice bonus.
I hate not using the + envoy points policy for any length of time though, there is no other way to get them and you are just setting yourself back permanently in the CS influence game by not having it active.
The idea behind the policy cards and governments is great, but the execution is lacking.
My main issue with the policy card system is actually how frequently you can switch them out. Choices for policy cards are almost meaningless if you get a free switch every 5-15 turns or so. You don't get to live with the consequences long enough to appreciate the weight of any given policy card choice.
Many of them passively build up points behind the screens....a nice trickle, but a dull one.
And many of them are entirely situational.
(And the UI remains terrible. Every time I go back to that screen, I have to read the tiny text on those ugly-color blob cards. They should use highlighting or animation or *something* to make those cards distinguishable. Maybe with a Hearthstone elemental crackle even.)
I somewhat agree that having so much freedom to change policies makes it boring. Perhaps policies should have a cost if you move away from it and then move back. So after you use the god-king for example, if you want to use it again you'd have to pay a cost (no anarchy though). Additionally, perhaps when you get a new government all previously used policy cards can be used again freely. I think this makes sense for the same reason the Devs said you get anarchy for switching to the same government twice and that is you are regressing in a sense if you change back.
I also agree many of them are numbers based but probably for good reason. Even though in Civ 5 you had a select few that offer neat abilities like culture from barbarian kills or gifted great people from city states, most were number based. Adding numbers and percentages to Civ 6 subsystems is probably a lot easier to come up with and balance. I would like to see a few that offer unique strategies, it just would be pretty hard to balance them.
I think the policy card system is one of the best things that Civ VI brings to the table. At a minimum though, like with many things in the game, I think it needs a few passes on its balancing and UI.
On the other hand, I think there is ample room to make the different government types feel more unique. I like the idea of legacy bonuses, but it's a very passive system. Adding some powerful policy cards that can only be unlocked by reaching certain legacy thresholds might be a way to help that. An example off the top of my head might be something like:
Landed Aristocracy
Required Government Type: Monarchy
Required Legacy Bonus: 15%
Policy Type: Wildcard
Effect: Every three farms within a city's radius adds +1 amenity in that city.
I actually pretty much agree with OP at this point. I found the introduction very exciting at first, but by now, I think the idea has grown somewhat stale. Arguably, at lot of the problem boils down to horrible balancing.
Probably half the cards, I never use, because they are simply plain bad compared to the other cards. This is particularly true for the military and wildcards. The diplomatic cards probably have the best internal balance, because in this group, I can really find myself switching between a lot of different cards in the same game, with no single card holding a fixed spot entire game. The economic cards are a sore point, because several of them are just massively overpowered, so you'll want those in at just about all times in all games. Those are the ones like extra builder charges, double gold from economic buildings, extra hammers and - if having a religion - double faith from religious buildings. Double science would be massive also, if not because science is so unimportant overall in this game. I agree with OP, you'll always want as many economic cards as possible, which is bad, because it eliminates the point of different governments. I can't think of a time when I wanted to pick Monarchy or Fascism, even when I play domination game, I'll pick at least the balanced government option (Theocracy and Communism).
I do think micromanagement is becoming an issue. The 50 % discount on upgrades is the worst offender in this regard. I constantly find myself forgetting to switch that card either in or out when I should have, which is not making the game more fun, but is just a nuisance. The discount on purchasing plots would be the same if not because the discount is so poor that it hardly matters. One could fix this by giving these cards also a passive growth - i.e. instead of the (massively OP) 50 % discount on unit upgrades, the card could be coupled with the lowered upkeep cost, so it's -1 gold per turn and 25 % discount on upgrades. Similarly, the one with plot purchases could also increase rate of border growth passively.
A bit related, and something I feel is very poorly designed, are the cards for discount on military units or wonders. Often I'll find myself running one card - say, 50 % discount on classic and medieval melee units - because I'm building up an army of swordsmen. Then I'll get the civic that unlocks the card for renaissance melee unit discount, and this makes the older one go obsolete. But I haven't gotten the technology for musketmen yet, so this means I just lose out on the ability to get the bonus to produce swordsmen. That makes zero sense and is genuinely irritating. So either the cards need to go obsolete at a later point, or alternatively subsequent cards need to include bonus to all prior eras.
I still love them over Civ5's system as inflexible as it was. But perhaps this system is too flexible? And maybe some policies shouldn't be allowed to use with others (like say the communist type policies used with the capitalist type policies). And maybe restrict moving them around as much.
I like the system although I don't use it optimally and mostly agree with the above post (@kaspergm 's). But maybe if pikemen weren't on a leaf tech so you could switch from sword to pike at around that point. Or if there wasn't that much spacing between units of the same type. I like the spacing, but if they'll keep it there should be overlap between era-related cards (ancient+classical, classical-renaissance, renaissance-modern, modern-info for example) - You may lose bonus to archers but by that time you should be able to get crossbows. But anyway pikemen should be more accessible while knights can safely be on a leaf tech, they are quite strong and worth the time.
I am in the minority in that I prefer social policies to cards. I do like government legacy bonuses I wish they were more meaningful however. If I were designing the game I wouldn't have cards, just different governments (And more governments) we could swap in and out. My main problem is it feels like extra micro for little payoff from an enjoyment stand point. At least with social policies I could talk myself into I'm building up a society.
I hate having a culture tree. It feels like culture is pseudo-science yield, like there is not really that much to differentiate it from science. Thinking about it I think I like civ IV style culture the most, where it doesn't have anything to do with government models but if you neglect it you risk your border cities flipping (Or in mods - revolting).
I would not mind a return to a Civ IV-like system, where there's diferent aspects of your civ that all have impact, like IV had Government, Economy, Religion, etc. Would like to see more than 5*5 options though, as the IV system is a bit too easy to optimize, imo.
I would not mind a return to a Civ IV-like system, where there's diferent aspects of your civ that all have impact, like IV had Government, Economy, Religion, etc. Would like to see more than 5*5 options though, as the IV system is a bit too easy to optimize, imo.
Maybe splitting economic into 2-3 groups, some only available for more advanced governments will have that effect? I mean, for military you mostly choose your focus (cavalry? infantry? cost? upgrade? amenities? and most are era-related). Same with great people (but maybe they should be combined with district bonuses as kind of a social focus). DIplomatic have few policies and few slots. Perhaps breaking down economical policies will feel more like choosing policies in different categories (with the possibility of sometimes two cards at a time, perhaps more for military).
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.
