Best elements of Civ 6 that should be retained

[pokiehl]

Building quarters adjacent to harbors had been patched out the last time I played.

Oh ok. I stopped that game playing ages ago.

 

[Linklite]

Both of those are built on major rivers, though. I've not played Humankind, but it seems like that isn't the condition for building harbours far away from the city centre?

 

[ManoftheHour333]

The more restrictive quarter placement/volume of quarters/adjacency bonuses mainly coming from quarters in HK really destroyed the optimization puzzle. As well as looking indistinct, a lot of the challenge in laying out a city was lost.

I feel like all districts being adjacent is maybe a monkey paw 'careful what you wish for' situation.

I mean...if you like the optimization and SP primarily sure. But the free min/max style of Civ VI has IMO destroyed late game play and nearly all MP storytelling since everyone has become hyperfocussed on optimizing district placement to get yields instead of interacting with other players late game. It causes massive fatigue to me and also makes it impossible to complete a turn post the renaissance era in 3 minutes...especially if you're at war.

IMO I think people who like optimization with district placement could still easily have fun even if you had to build them in slightly more restricted placement. I mean, bunching cities and districts together near city centers like Japan is already a blast for some...even just clustering the districts together in a general area would be so much better to focus your attention on one area's development/optimization instead of having to do that for each individual city. I dunno I know some people really like the puzzle but I would really like Civ VII to be a game that all my friends want to play with each other instead of just by themselves...including myself in there lol

 

[Zaarin]

Oh ok. I stopped that game playing ages ago.

According to Steam I last played January 28. Feels longer ago than that, but it's been a longer year...

Both of those are built on major rivers, though. I've not played Humankind, but it seems like that isn't the condition for building harbours far away from the sea?

Civ7 needs navigable rivers.

I mean...if you like the optimization and SP primarily sure. But the free min/max style of Civ VI has IMO destroyed late game play and nearly all MP storytelling since everyone has become hyperfocussed on optimizing district placement to get yields instead of interacting with other players late game.

Single player has always been the main focus of the Civ franchise.

 

[Leucarum]

I mean...if you like the optimization and SP primarily sure. But the free min/max style of Civ VI has IMO destroyed late game play and nearly all MP storytelling since everyone has become hyperfocussed on optimizing district placement to get yields instead of interacting with other players late game. It causes massive fatigue to me and also makes it impossible to complete a turn post the renaissance era in 3 minutes...especially if you're at war.

I don't optimize as much as a lot of the full builder players do. I can see how it could cause analysis paralysis for some players, but honestly I don't think district placement is the main reason it takes players a long time to complete turns by midgame. The micromanagement of builders, religious units, military units is much more impactful I suspect.

I was more thinking of humankind where the puzzle was just so dumbed down it was absent, and late game was just a worse clickfest than civ for turn length as you sent your stratospheric yields just meant you had 20 things things get through each turn. Not that that part is entirely the fault of districts...

 

[ManoftheHour333]

Athens isn't a niche case, though. Rome, London, and many other major cities enjoy the benefits of being a naval center without the dangers of building directly on the coast.

True but that just has destroyed any reason to build coastally. Between Lisbon, Amsterdam, Mombasa, Shanghai and more, coastal cities are MASSIVELY important yet in Civ VI only Portugal or Australia would want to build them. I know I'm a naval/ trade kind of player but it has seemed like the biggest hole in Civ VI IMO.

And when you don't build coastal, you don't want to settle new lands or build navies so civs like Phoenicia and Norway suffer. Honestly I have won multiple games on Deity without building a single boat which is just boring. Sea trade and control of coastal waterways were so crucial throughout all of human history from Malacca to Gibralter to Panama. Civ VII needs to either massively buff gold and make sea trades 50-100% more profitable to encourage coastal settling/ control of the seas, or, restrict harbor placement more dynamically.I'm not saying we need to go back to Civ V's only coastal cities can make boats etc., but there needs to be some reason to build coastal cities and much more incentive to build navies and control waterways...I wouldn't mind a whole expansion pack on that!

A very easy way to solve this would be to allow cities to be taken if it's harbor it falls. It sounds silly to me but if people really like the weird harbor 45 tiles from the city center center there needs to be a cost and benefit. That's how having a navy could project power...again assuming they don't find a clever way to make trade more crucial to be regulated via naval supremacy.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

According to Steam I last played January 28. Feels longer ago than that, but it's been a longer year...


Civ7 needs navigable rivers.


Single player has always been the main focus of the Civ franchise.

Navigable rivers that could be accessed by full on frigates etc. could solve this as there is always a major incentive to settle on rivers. And that could give some bonus to naval units mattering which is another major gripe I have with VI.

Of course SP matters more but the streamlined nature of Civs IV and V allowed for games to suit MP play better. And in the age of streamers I think having MP matches in Civ VII is a no brainer. Back in the Civ V days there were a bunch of people streaming Civ V MP matches but people like PMW etc. only play on deity against AI it seems. I don't really watch those livestreams myself but optimization against AI that can't utilize the system nearly as well as a human just showcases the bad AI that I doubt will be that much better in Civ VII...but by making something slightly more MP friendly you can shift the conversation to "why isn't the AI making use of this policy card hax!" to "omg this combat system and set of bonuses are really engaging when used by multiple humans". I think it'd benefit FXS more to highlight the better parts of their game than the parts that are downright tougher to fix.

 

[Scrabbler]

I think districts are a good addition and would like to see them return. However, I would push them back from the early game to the mid to late game.

Expanding further, in the early game the only district available would be the town (not allowed to be adjacent to the city centre). This would function like a minor economic district and come with a road built to the city. Within each city centre and town you would then have a wider range of buildings that could be built to exploit adjacent resources, improvements and terrain so that every city has a unique specialisation according to its specific circumstances. Then in the early to mid game, harbours and encampments would become available followed gradually by the other districts. I also think science and culture districts should be left to the mid to late game so it is harder to gain a runaway lead in these areas and also because it feels out of place to have these large districts in the ancient era. Instead you would need to build libraries, theatres, monasteries in your cities and towns and, as building slots are limited, this would mean forgoing other types of buildings. Lastly, I would like to see more emphasis on suburbs (neighbourhood districts adjacent to the city centre) in the late game in order to grow cities to a high population.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

I don't optimize as much as a lot of the full builder players do. I can see how it could cause analysis paralysis for some players, but honestly I don't think district placement is the main reason it takes players a long time to complete turns by midgame. The micromanagement of builders, religious units, military units is much more impactful I suspect.

I was more thinking of humankind where the puzzle was just so dumbed down it was absent, and late game was just a worse clickfest than civ for turn length as you sent your stratospheric yields just meant you had 20 things things get through each turn. Not that that part is entirely the fault of districts...

I agree builders need to be automated. I think the simple thing is allow them to improve previously built features and build roads/railroads. As you get more land this can get rougher but if you're playing tall then you can just have a few builders going around and improving farms into "factory farms" or whatever during the mid/late game. Perhaps some civs can have UAs that reduce or nullify the builder charges needed to put down farms/mines/etc.. All of that kind of improving can easily be put onto auto like in Civ V which would reduce that.

Combat system is a whole other beast. But with the hopeful exit of the religious victory that should be reduced.

 

[UWHabs]

I think districts are a good addition and would like to see them return. However, I would push them back from the early game to the mid to late game.

Expanding further, in the early game the only district available would be the town (not allowed to be adjacent to the city centre). This would function like a minor economic district and come with a road built to the city. Within each city centre and town you would then have a wider range of buildings that could be built to exploit adjacent resources, improvements and terrain so that every city has a unique specialisation according to its specific circumstances. Then in the early to mid game, harbours and encampments would become available followed gradually by the other districts. I also think science and culture districts should be left to the mid to late game so it is harder to gain a runaway lead in these areas and also because it feels out of place to have these large districts in the ancient era. Instead you would need to build libraries, theatres, monasteries in your cities and towns and, as building slots are limited, this would mean forgoing other types of buildings. Lastly, I would like to see more emphasis on suburbs (neighbourhood districts adjacent to the city centre) in the late game in order to grow cities to a high population.

Yeah, this is another model to consider. Basically all of the T1 buildings would become city centre buildings (or perhaps you would also have a generic "town" district where those buildings could also be placed if they capped the number of buildings in the city centre), and to me, all of the T2/T3 buildings would essentially be when the district system would begin. That would also line up more if you had more of the buildings as regional bonuses, so that you gain less by having a university in every city.

Obviously it would need some rebalancing of adjacency bonuses, since if I'm pulling in 250 science a turn, it doesn't matter whether I place a +1 or +2 campus. But I think it would also give a more interesting breakpoint in the game if the specialization came about a little later once you had the basic infrastructure of your city online. You could even modify things further so that you don't get your first district in a city until it gets to size 4 or 7 or something so that you can't suddenly have these 1 pop tundra cities with a research lab putting out a ton of science.

 

[ShrimpTruck]

Honestly I have won multiple games on Deity without building a single boat which is just boring. Sea trade and control of coastal waterways were so crucial throughout all of human history from Malacca to Gibralter to Panama. Civ VII needs to either massively buff gold and make sea trades 50-100% more profitable to encourage coastal settling/ control of the seas, or, restrict harbor placement more dynamically.I'm not saying we need to go back to Civ V's only coastal cities can make boats etc., but there needs to be some reason to build coastal cities and much more incentive to build navies and control waterways...I wouldn't mind a whole expansion pack on that!

I think the best way to make costal waterways matter is to make it so active trade routes to the trade partner are required to exchange luxury and strategic resources. There’s already lots of trade going on between players across the map, it just doesn’t involve moving anything. As it currently stands, pretty much all international trade routes are equivalent, so if someone blocked your routes through their land it wouldn’t matter. Meanwhile, with this change if the guy I were at war with could plunder my trade routes to block all my shipments of cocoa and niter or an enemy could say he won’t let me send routes through the highly important sea lane they control, I would be forced to respect their navy. Maritime routes would be inherently more advantaged by this change just since they are already better for the long distance trade this change would make relevant.

 

[Widdershins]

The "cities" in Civ 6 are so naturally thought of as provinces to me that I have a hard time understanding it any other way.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

I think the best way to make costal waterways matter is to make it so active trade routes to the trade partner are required to exchange luxury and strategic resources. There’s already lots of trade going on between players across the map, it just doesn’t involve moving anything. As it currently stands, pretty much all international trade routes are equivalent, so if someone blocked your routes through their land it wouldn’t matter. Meanwhile, with this change if the guy I were at war with could plunder my trade routes to block all my shipments of cocoa and niter or an enemy could say he won’t let me send routes through the highly important sea lane they control, I would be forced to respect their navy. Maritime routes would be inherently more advantaged by this change just since they are already better for the long distance trade this change would make relevant.

Given the current system, I don't think this would go far enough. I find myself rarely trading with the AI past the classical era and at that point it's often to just get more gold. Amenity shortages aren't that common for me...I don't find myself trading with the in general due to the terrible deals they offer and brainnumbing agendas. For strategic resources this is maybe the case but I can't see blocking trade routes really hurting unless the gold stakes are substantially higher. Also the AI never trades strategics...there's gotta be risk and reward.

One thing I've floated (An have seen others mention) is that cargo ships/ water traders (I would bring back the distinction) generate tons of gold if they pass through your coastal waters. That way as you're building your empire, if you see a natural chokehold that cargo ships would have to pass through to get to harbors and the like, you could plant a city on/near the coast and once you set up a harbor district, you can start collecting taxes on any passing traders. This could even be just the edge of a continent ala the Cape of Good Hope. I think that this would taxing NOT occur with land traders-assuming that cargo ships generate ~50% more gold for the sender ths would just be a great way to further incentive people to want to trade over the water over just "whatever"-ing it with land or generic trader units.

But the biggest thing is that controlling vital cities with a lot of water tiles or ones that have naval chokepoints could allow you to reap massive rewards. Perhaps in the mid-game other resources like science and culture can be gained from oceanic taxes further making controlling theses trade cities vital and causing really solid mid game conflict. Best of all, it'd actually make navies relevant since they would be the main tools you could use to attack these cities with. Might be what Civ VII's economics needs since I just felt it was so lacking in VI.

 

[VGhost]

Thought I'd answer this as a personal exercise in positivity.

On reflection, my favorite new piece in Civ6 is policies. Sure, some of them need to be reworked, rebalanced, replaced, or removed, but it definitely feels like incorporating way more actual government decision into the game than before.

I'm largely positive about districts, although I've thought ever since they were first announced that some at least should add a secondary production queue to the city. The industrial zone and harbor (with shipyard, or a (national) wonder like a Venetian/Ottoman "Arsenal"?) are obvious candidates.

Loyalty (and especially the loyalty lens!) is good but needs to be rebalanced. I want to see every player's cities with gradually lower loyalty away from the capital/towards other civs, want a little more chance to react, etc. - as others have said.

The housing/food/amenities balance in this game I also want to commend - I always struggled with it in previous Civ games but it's pretty straightforward to manage in this one.

Two ideas added in the DLC I'd also want to see kept: barbarian clans should be the default, and the tech tree shuffle should at least be an included-at-launch mode.

 

[Zaarin]

secondary production queue

I love this idea.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

Thought I'd answer this as a personal exercise in positivity.

On reflection, my favorite new piece in Civ6 is policies. Sure, some of them need to be reworked, rebalanced, replaced, or removed, but it definitely feels like incorporating way more actual government decision into the game than before.

I'm largely positive about districts, although I've thought ever since they were first announced that some at least should add a secondary production queue to the city. The industrial zone and harbor (with shipyard, or a (national) wonder like a Venetian/Ottoman "Arsenal"?) are obvious candidates.

Loyalty (and especially the loyalty lens!) is good but needs to be rebalanced. I want to see every player's cities with gradually lower loyalty away from the capital/towards other civs, want a little more chance to react, etc. - as others have said.

The housing/food/amenities balance in this game I also want to commend - I always struggled with it in previous Civ games but it's pretty straightforward to manage in this one.

Two ideas added in the DLC I'd also want to see kept: barbarian clans should be the default, and the tech tree shuffle should at least be an included-at-launch mode.

Having harbors provide an extra production queue is a great idea actually; makes sense as the city center would be the center of the city's land based endevaors while the harbor could act as a "importing hub" to build other structures and units (i.e. buying mercenaries from across the sea lol). It would also make actaully having a harbor a massive plus since you could theoretically produce everything twice as fast. However I do see this as getting to be another thing to regulate mid/late game...

Interesting that you're so sold on policies! I agree that the system was elegantly and freely designed but I would like to see some really weight to your choices. Like, perhaps you don't have the option to change non-wildcard policy slots until the end of an era (Wildcard slots could be replaced whenever you get to a civic that gives new cards like this current). A mix of this would make your choices at the beginning of an era/ set peiod of time feel more weight-y and if they make governments more dynamic, perhaps you could trade off number of policies in a government (That would be static all era) for less overall policies but they were wildcard (And able to be more freely changed). Balancing would be important and you'd always have to lock some policies away for the whole age but I think they would make your choices matter more than just "oh no that's unoptimized-lemme just wait 1 turn to get naval tradition and change it". It would also give you less to actively worry about changing if you have less potential slots to keep thinking about to get the biggest bang for your buck if you get what I mean.

 

[Leucarum]

I don't mind policy cards too much. The civics in Humankind were I think better done than the policies in Civ6 though. It's an element I'd love to see the civ developers take inspiration from. Having events in your empire allow you to take a stance on policy matters feels more organic than slotting cards in and out, plus the long-term nature of them means you have to make decisions and trade offs for the long term rather than just doing the policy card can-can.

Ironically I feel like some of the humankind civic system took inspiration from Alpha Centauri so... I guess I'm saying I'd like it to go full circle?

 

[bbbt]

I'm largely positive about districts, although I've thought ever since they were first announced that some at least should add a secondary production queue to the city. The industrial zone and harbor (with shipyard, or a (national) wonder like a Venetian/Ottoman "Arsenal"?) are obvious candidates.

I'd probably say the Encampment is the most obvious candidate to me, going more RTS style where you have your barracks to recruit infantry and your archery range to recruit archers, etc. Allowing only a few basic military units (conscripts?) to be built in the city center and any professional units built in the encampment (maybe dependent on a building as well), would certainly make it a lot more necessary and a change in strategy.

Otoh, part of a 4x is having to juggle priorities for what you want to build, and managing production queues is already a big enough headache with only one per city.

 

[AntSou]

After playing @TheMarshmallowBear Governor Overhaul I'm convinced Governors were definitely a must keep improvement to the game, which require a few tweaks: 1) need to fulfil a function of either/both governor (city) and minister (empire-wide); 2) need to have greater variety; 3) need to be better balanced.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I'd probably say the Encampment is the most obvious candidate to me, going more RTS style where you have your barracks to recruit infantry and your archery range to recruit archers, etc. Allowing only a few basic military units (conscripts?) to be built in the city center and any professional units built in the encampment (maybe dependent on a building as well), would certainly make it a lot more necessary and a change in strategy.

Otoh, part of a 4x is having to juggle priorities for what you want to build, and managing production queues is already a big enough headache with only one per city.

I think for me it would ideally be in this order of priority, apart from the city center:
1) Encampment
2) Harbor
3) Industrial Zone (Factory for corporation products)
4) Aerodrome (could include space race projects?)

I think if we made an exception for one, I'd want all of the above so it would make sense realistically. But I agree that having 5 potential production queues in a city would be crazy.