Best elements of Civ 6 that should be retained

[Boris Gudenuf]

I also really want to see some sort of region system making it's way into Civ7. I think it's time to move away from the "a city can only work 3 rings" idea. Instead I think a city should be able to make satellite "village" districts, similar to the farming or mining towns from the City Lights mod, but working a bit differently. So a city should be able to build/connect a village district to its sphere of influence, and farm/mile/lumbermill/etc. yields from tiles around this village should go to the central city. Whether it would be better to go with a fixed-on-map region division, or a more fluid system á la old civilization settling patterns, I don't know.

My problem with a District map system is that it assumes that all districts have just about the same boundaries all the time through the centuries, and so is an even bigger abstraction than the current 'tile' system. Also, it's redundant: if you already have a map composed of tiles, why do you feel the need for another system of geographical distinction on top of that - in addition to the Civ Borders, another distinction on yet another layer?

But.
We are thinking about a similar development: the 'hinterland' of a city, the Region that supports it directly or indirectly but isn't part of either the urban, suburban, or suburban sprawl of a city. I originally thought this would be just the tiles around the city close enough for the city to work, and so extremely limited until Railroad and steam power. Turns out I was wrong with that concept. As far back as 3500 BCE Hacinebi and Arslantepe were fortified mining/smelting towns working primarily copper but also other metals, and feeding them from their locations in eastern Anatolia to Uruk and other cities in Mesopotamia - up to 600 kilometers away! No matter how you wiggle your definitions, that's more than a couple of tiles.

So, it ties in with my 'detached Districts' of Settlements - they should represent these separate Feeder areas providing Resources to a major city. They could be as close as a Port City like Ostia to Rome or Piraeus to Athens, notionally only an extra tile away, or as far as, for instance, Arslantepe, a mining complex several tiles away in the mountains or Versailles, a Palace/Diplomacy Complex purposely built more than a days' march from Paris to keep the city mob from getting to it easily!

This is still in a rather hazy form in my mind (which, some would say, is the Home of Hazy for just about everything) but I originally thought of a Settlement as being rather Specific: dedicated to a single type of Resource that it would feed to the Home/Major City. So, they would be Mining, Farming, Plantation, Trade (a separate Trading Post to extend the reach of your land or sea Trade Routes), Military (a detached fort guarding the approach to your city) or Wonder - Stonehenge, St Michel, the Giza Pyramids and other 'isolated' Wonders had considerable population living around them, and so to my mind would qualify as dedicated Settlements rather than Improvements (a category which, in fact, we might be able to do away with completely)

The idea of Civilization Borders and the way they have changed also ties in with this. Uruk certainly had influence to the Arslantepe/Hacinebi areas, but saying that they were part of some kind of Urukian Empire would be a real stretch - until much, much later, like the Classical Era (2500 + years after the initial client-Uruk relationship started), so this Settlement mechanic could also be the basis for much later Colonies established even further away (Intercontinental/over-ocean) to Feed Resources back to a 'parent' City - note that the early American Colonial Empires of Spain and Portugal both fed the riches of the New World through single ports 'back home', which became extremely rich and important as a result

 

[BuchiTaton]

My problem with a District map system is that it assumes that all districts have just about the same boundaries all the time through the centuries, and so is an even bigger abstraction than the current 'tile' system. Also, it's redundant: if you already have a map composed of tiles, why do you feel the need for another system of geographical distinction on top of that - in addition to the Civ Borders, another distinction on yet another layer?

But.
We are thinking about a similar development: the 'hinterland' of a city, the Region that supports it directly or indirectly but isn't part of either the urban, suburban, or suburban sprawl of a city. I originally thought this would be just the tiles around the city close enough for the city to work, and so extremely limited until Railroad and steam power. Turns out I was wrong with that concept. As far back as 3500 BCE Hacinebi and Arslantepe were fortified mining/smelting towns working primarily copper but also other metals, and feeding them from their locations in eastern Anatolia to Uruk and other cities in Mesopotamia - up to 600 kilometers away! No matter how you wiggle your definitions, that's more than a couple of tiles.

So, it ties in with my 'detached Districts' of Settlements - they should represent these separate Feeder areas providing Resources to a major city. They could be as close as a Port City like Ostia to Rome or Piraeus to Athens, notionally only an extra tile away, or as far as, for instance, Arslantepe, a mining complex several tiles away in the mountains or Versailles, a Palace/Diplomacy Complex purposely built more than a days' march from Paris to keep the city mob from getting to it easily!

This is still in a rather hazy form in my mind (which, some would say, is the Home of Hazy for just about everything) but I originally thought of a Settlement as being rather Specific: dedicated to a single type of Resource that it would feed to the Home/Major City. So, they would be Mining, Farming, Plantation, Trade (a separate Trading Post to extend the reach of your land or sea Trade Routes), Military (a detached fort guarding the approach to your city) or Wonder - Stonehenge, St Michel, the Giza Pyramids and other 'isolated' Wonders had considerable population living around them, and so to my mind would qualify as dedicated Settlements rather than Improvements (a category which, in fact, we might be able to do away with completely)

The idea of Civilization Borders and the way they have changed also ties in with this. Uruk certainly had influence to the Arslantepe/Hacinebi areas, but saying that they were part of some kind of Urukian Empire would be a real stretch - until much, much later, like the Classical Era (2500 + years after the initial client-Uruk relationship started), so this Settlement mechanic could also be the basis for much later Colonies established even further away (Intercontinental/over-ocean) to Feed Resources back to a 'parent' City - note that the early American Colonial Empires of Spain and Portugal both fed the riches of the New World through single ports 'back home', which became extremely rich and important as a result

Settlements would synergize nicely with the implementation of more significative denizen mechanics. For example:
- Settlers would replace builders since its more logical to see these settlers as the founders of villages (farming, mining, fishing, etc.)
- Barbarian settlements (villages/camps) would also have some form of identity and functionality even before turn in City States.
- Both villages (detached) and neighborhoods (attached) could have improvements like workshops (manufature goods) and shrines (X religion happiness).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Settlements would synergize nicely with the implementation of more significative denizen mechanics. For example:
- Settlers would replace builders since its more logical to see these settlers as the founders of villages (farming, mining, fishing, etc.)
- Barbarian settlements (villages/camps) would also have some form of identity and functionality even before turn in City States.
- Both villages (detached) and neighborhoods (attached) could have improvements like workshops (manufature goods) and shrines (X religion happiness).

Keeping the same configuration for Settlements as for Districts, there would be 5'slots' in a Settlement: Up to 3 could be the Extraction/Shipping elements: Mine, Smelter, or Plantation, Warehouse, OR Farm, Granary, and Caravanserai/Trading Post. The other two slots could be virtually anything: Shrine, Monastery, Pilgrimage Site for Religion, Fort/Walls for protection, Workshops to use a resource on-site, etc.

- And "Barbarians" as the only Visual Clue to the 'other populations' on the map, could also be Settlements, which potentially could enhance their usefulness as Trading Partners: just to remind everybody, 'Barbarians' in northern Europe invented the wooden barrel for enhanced efficiency in Shipping, the Mouldboard plow (about 100 CE, NOT later in the Medieval Era - that was the iron version: Gauls were using wooden versions 1000 years earlier!) and also the long iron sword, link mail armor, possibly the 4-tree saddle which made efficient use of the lance possible, and regularly traded Amber, Timber, Furs, and Hair (there was a fad in Imperial Rome for blond wigs among the aristocratic women, so many German women sold their hair for Big Bucks: one of those Trade Goods that have never quite made it into the game!) to their Civilized neighbors to the south.
Point is, Natives should be much, much more in the game than just Mindless Opponents: Barbarian Clans was a toe in the water, but it needs to be greatly expanded in the future.

 

[kaspergm]

My problem with a District map system is that it assumes that all districts have just about the same boundaries all the time through the centuries, and so is an even bigger abstraction than the current 'tile' system. Also, it's redundant: if you already have a map composed of tiles, why do you feel the need for another system of geographical distinction on top of that - in addition to the Civ Borders, another distinction on yet another layer?

I mostly agree, my enthusiasm for fixed regions has cooled a lot after having played Humankind and Old World, both of which show why this approach may not make the best or most fun game. When that's said, I think one could justify another layer because the hex layer separates improvements and districts, whereas a region layer would separate cities on a larger scale.

But I do think a better approach might be one where you settle/build/whatever mechanism is used first an unspecialized village to claim a part of the map - as it works currently - and then you can decide to develop it into either an urban town or let it remain a village, but once a settlement is developed into an urban town, you can link other villages to it for support, similar to how you attach regions to a city in Humankind.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

There just needs to be a way to automate builders and reduce the amount of options for district placement..

Two absolutely terrible ideas I'm afraid, these would make the game much less interesting IMO.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I am going to Gordian Knot all of this increasingly convoluted mess; both gameplay and visual, and propose that you keep the concept of adjacency bonuses, move just about all of the districts back to the city centre, and make the exclusion zone for building cities one tile

That's how it used to be and every city ended up the same using an identical optimised build order, would be a huge step backwards IMO.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

Two absolutely terrible ideas I'm afraid, these would make the game much less interesting IMO.

Hmm well I just like being able to play the game and have limited time.

The game, while open-ended, becomes such a bore if you’re going to play optimally. With 1287 different adjacency bonuses and needing to place districts in specific areas to get them/ high bonuses it become a micromanage headache to perfectly get them aligned and so unsatisfying if you can’t. I’ll give you that the final project can be equally as satisfying…but if you’re trying to have fun and not spend 200hrs on one game (Or play MP abd only have 3min per turn) it’s frustrating and boring. I’m not saying build order or overall arrangement of the districts has to change; but just a slight district placement guidelines to clump them around the city center/each other limits option just a little bit can save loads of planning. Plus it actually forces you to use the map-you’ll have to settle a coastal city or a mountain city to get the bonuses instead of making weird clumps of everything in one city…adding to the specializing of cities I think Civ VI wanted to be.

Builders auto-building improvements would be unoptimal often but literally last night I was playing a MP game with my friend and I couldn’t control my builders in the 3 minutes usually given…just an option would be massively nice for the wide empires that Civ VI encourages. The main thing is really allowing builders the ability to build roads again…that was so useful and the only-trader-roads system is gross on many levels.

Plus…less options allows for the AI to be better developed and make more logical decisions. Might help development and allow for more investing AI instead of having them never improve tiles and all that jazz.

This is an opinion but I think the game becomes interesting based on the diplomatic interactions and victory pushes. And of course the story that develops from these interactions and conquests. Semantic district placement and spending so much time organizing IZ floodplains bonuses can be fun but shouldn’t take over the game as it is now. And I think slight ways to limit your options (As means to streamline gameplay) is the way to accentuate the interesting stories we enjoy sharing. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I was playing a MP game with my friend and I couldn’t control my builders in the 3 minutes usually give

Yeah MP is such a different beast, I'm not a great fun of builder automation but perhaps in the late game there could be an option similar to Civ 4 where you can tell your Builder to improve the tiles belonging to a specific city.

 

[aieeegrunt]

That's how it used to be and every city ended up the same using an identical optimised build order, would be a huge step backwards IMO.

Unneccessary detail and micromanagement is a step forward?

We have’nt even scratched the surface of how dumb it is for Athen’s library to be located in Epirus and all the other weirdness districts bring

Stereotyped gameplay means the game isn’t challenging you enough. You think district placing doesn’t have the exact identical problem? You don’t found your cities in the optimum locations so you can place your districts in the optimum order and locations?

What solves stereotypical gameplay is the game system offering you challenges of sufficient magnitude and variety that the challenge is not basic minimaxing, but being able to adapt to changing circumstances

 

[Noble Zarkon]

You don’t found your cities in the optimum locations so you can place your districts in the optimum order and locations?

No, that's the interesting challenge the game presents - balancing district adjacency with map features, key resources, strategic locations, tile costs etc. You can't just get the best adjacency every single time.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

Unneccessary detail and micromanagement is a step forward?

We have’nt even scratched the surface of how dumb it is for Athen’s library to be located in Epirus and all the other weirdness districts bring

Stereotyped gameplay means the game isn’t challenging you enough. You think district placing doesn’t have the exact identical problem? You don’t found your cities in the optimum locations so you can place your districts in the optimum order and locations?

What solves stereotypical gameplay is the game system offering you challenges of sufficient magnitude and variety that the challenge is not basic minimaxing, but being able to adapt to changing circumstances

Exactly. I feel that with districts being so flexible, my thought process goes to “I should put my city center here to get XX adjacency” instead of “I should put my city here to gain resources and strategically disadvantage my neighbors”. Personally I think the later works best for 4x style games like Civ and while district building/city planning is fun to optimize (And some rewards should come from it), it doesn’t lead to memorable games of overcoming novel challenges. Instead we just have to remember times where we got our IZs *just* right…which is a different kind of bliss than what I’ve associated with Civ type games. It’s more akin to the Sims than it is the a 4x game IMO

 

[ManoftheHour333]

No, that's the interesting challenge the game presents - balancing district adjacency with map features, key resources, strategic locations, tile costs etc. You can't just get the best adjacency every single time.

You are correct but it seems to me that in the current game, the district planning is the most important thing. I see mountains as sources of campus and holy site bonuses instead of strategic boundaries and floodplains as optimal for IZs over anything else.

All we’re saying is that it should be more balanced as settling land etc. without as poignant district concerns would lead to less bloat in the early/mid game, and shift the focus to resources and diplomacy…which I would argue are more inherently impactful and memorable.

 

[reddishrecue]

Different civilizations thrive from different zone types also since they are unique in their own way.

 

[Leucarum]

The builder charge system is a strike against automation, since you really don't want them doing the wrong thing...

But even assuming they kept builder charges I'd love an auto-repair/rebuild option for builders after disasters have pillaged/removed tiles. That's becomes late-game busy work and would just be nice quality of life feature.