Civ 6 vs. Civ 5 in regards to future 7

[GeneralZIft]

I'm not sure. I usually feel bored because I'm overwhelmed. Not in a good way, but in a "so much to micromanage" way.

 

[Zegangani]

I'm not sure. I usually feel bored because I'm overwhelmed. Not in a good way, but in a "so much to micromanage" way.

I don't think that's the sort of "overwhelming" gameplay Boris Gudenuf meant.

Yes, in Civ6 that's your repeated decisions for nearly everything, "micromanagement"; but what I think Boris was envisioning is varied and more meaningful decisions that may get, whose impact may be momentous. Deal with your envious Neighbour and try not to make him start a War against you bc your Army is on another continent, while also trying to finish the costly War in the other Continent, bc your Population are getting exhausted about it. And then the effect of that may be reflected in your diplomatic relationships with other Players, particularly your Trade Partners that want to restrict the Trade between you due to Grievances/Infamy, which may impact your Economy and the Happiness of your Population, and thus may cause a revolt and a Government Regime...etc. Macro-Decisions that may have serious consequences on many fronts of your Empire.

Though, correct if I'm wrong, @Boris Gudenuf, and that's not exactly what you meant.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Since we've spent X million years developing a Big Brain (well, some of us) with which to make Decisions, it behooves the game to give us Big Decisions to make. Shoving dozens of units around the map one by one may keep us busy, but not likely Engaged. Deciding whether to improve a tile may be a decision, but in a 10 city Civilization with 90 population points working 85 tiles, it's a long way from being a Big Decision.

The Late Game needs more Macro, not Micro in decision making and management, and it should be relatively easy given that all the systems affecting your Civ in the late game should be bigger, more complex, with more different game mechanics interacting in them. To keep making decisions about single tiles or units from the time you have only 6 tiles and 3 units at the Near Start of Game to the time you have 200 tiles and 50 units in the late Eras is astoundingly bad game design, yet we accept it as 'normal' in the games.

 

[Bibor]

Other stuff as well. A pollution system can’t be very relevant in the beginning of the game. An ideology system like Civ 5 has is a great way to shake up the end game and makes little sense earlier. Espionage also makes more sense to increase in relevance as the game progresses.

Overall I think having different systems kick in or gear up as the game progresses makes a lot of sense. Not only in terms of accuracy but in that the late game just needs that kick in the pants.

Espionage and pollution are as old as civilization. You're right that mechanics should increase and/or decrease in relevance, but mechanics becoming completely broken as the game progresses is just ... not good game design. In their effort to curb ICS, Civ5 and Civ6 developers introduced artificial caps on expansion, instead of using real world ones: If mountains are impassable, so should jungles be etc.

Civ7 should really think hard on what it wants to be: a "goofy" game that taps into history for inspiration or a well-crafted game that can be liked by both casual and "hardcore" players. It can be done. It has been done before.

 

[pokiehl]

Espionage and pollution are as old as civilization.

I’m positive you understood that I was referring to scale and magnitude of impact.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Other stuff as well. A pollution system can’t be very relevant in the beginning of the game. An ideology system like Civ 5 has is a great way to shake up the end game and makes little sense earlier. Espionage also makes more sense to increase in relevance as the game progresses.

Overall I think having different systems kick in or gear up as the game progresses makes a lot of sense. Not only in terms of accuracy but in that the late game just needs that kick in the pants.

We badly need realistic anti snowball mechanics. A combination of Dramatic Ages/Loyalty, the pops retaining individual cultural identity like in Civ 3, the ability to push borders with culture, a difference in the way cities you capture fumction vs ones you found.

Civ has always had a bit of a problem with it being far too easy to paint the map

Since we've spent X million years developing a Big Brain (well, some of us) with which to make Decisions, it behooves the game to give us Big Decisions to make. Shoving dozens of units around the map one by one may keep us busy, but not likely Engaged. Deciding whether to improve a tile may be a decision, but in a 10 city Civilization with 90 population points working 85 tiles, it's a long way from being a Big Decision.

The Late Game needs more Macro, not Micro in decision making and management, and it should be relatively easy given that all the systems affecting your Civ in the late game should be bigger, more complex, with more different game mechanics interacting in them. To keep making decisions about single tiles or units from the time you have only 6 tiles and 3 units at the Near Start of Game to the time you have 200 tiles and 50 units in the late Eras is astoundingly bad game design, yet we accept it as 'normal' in the games.

I’m not sure which one of you said it, but a regular poster here described it as “early game has fewer decisions per turn that are far more impactful, and late game has far far more decisions per turn that are far less impactful” ane that is an excellent way to describe late game burnout

I suspect the human brain itself is designed to seek the former and avoid the latter as an efficiency technique

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

We badly need realistic anti snowball mechanics. A combination of Dramatic Ages/Loyalty, the pops retaining individual cultural identity like in Civ 3, the ability to push borders with culture, a difference in the way cities you capture fumction vs ones you found.

Civ has always had a bit of a problem with it being far too easy to paint the map



I’m not sure which one of you said it, but a regular poster here described it as “early game has fewer decisions per turn that are far more impactful, and late game has far far more decisions per turn that are far less impactful” ane that is an excellent way to describe late game burnout

I suspect the human brain itself is designed to seek the former and avoid the latter as an efficiency technique

I remember the post about the decisions, but it wasn't mine.

And, as I've posted before, the idea of a World-Spanning military victory is a Myth: nobody ever even came close. Likewise, no religion has ever even had half the world's population as adherents. The Overwhelming Victories required by the game to 'win' are all Fantasy and should be seriously rethought and re-defined.

Then, not requiring ridiculously overwhelming conditions for 'Victory', the game could impose conditions to stifle Late Game Runaway Play (based on Loyalty, Ideology, Religion, sheer Bloody-Mindedness in your Population, etc) that would not make the gamer feel that the game is unwinnable and not worth playing.

 

[aieeegrunt]

One of the mods I have allows you to adjust the power and range of Loyalty effects

I’m considering an experiment of upping the former and decreasing the latter, in an attempt to make the core regions of a nation basically impossible to hold

 

[GeneralZIft]

I do dislike loyalty because it makes off-continent colonies unnecessarily hard. If you ever try putting cities on the other side of an opponent's "main blob" you'll get totally eradicated by Loyalty pressure.
And it does tend to turn the game into groups and groups of blobs. Which might be realistic but it's definitely not strategically fun.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I do dislike loyalty because it makes off-continent colonies unnecessarily hard. If you ever try putting cities on the other side of an opponent's "main blob" you'll get totally eradicated by Loyalty pressure.
And it does tend to turn the game into groups and groups of blobs. Which might be realistic but it's definitely not strategically fun.

The problem here is that loyalty is so heavily influenced by population numbers

Keying it to culture like Civ3 makes a hell of a lot more sense.

A small colony with a strong cultural identity can persist very easily; the Afrikaners spring inmediatly to mind

 

[GeneralZIft]

The problem here is that loyalty is so heavily influenced by population numbers

Keying it to culture like Civ3 makes a hell of a lot more sense.

A small colony with a strong cultural identity can persist very easily; the Afrikaners spring inmediatly to mind

I haven't played Civ3, but that does sound interesting.

 

[UWHabs]

We badly need realistic anti snowball mechanics. A combination of Dramatic Ages/Loyalty, the pops retaining individual cultural identity like in Civ 3, the ability to push borders with culture, a difference in the way cities you capture fumction vs ones you found.

Civ has always had a bit of a problem with it being far too easy to paint the map



I’m not sure which one of you said it, but a regular poster here described it as “early game has fewer decisions per turn that are far more impactful, and late game has far far more decisions per turn that are far less impactful” ane that is an excellent way to describe late game burnout

I suspect the human brain itself is designed to seek the former and avoid the latter as an efficiency technique

4 was good in that if you tried to spread too far too fast, you could easily bankrupt yourself. I remember some games where I'd have a good rush and take out a neighbour, only to absolutely destroy my empire and end up abandoning the game. Neither 5 nor 6 came close to replicating that - 6 almost tries with loyalty, but since captured cities immediately give you loyalty, you can solve those problems by continuing to push. It's only when your attacks stall that you can fall into a trap, but even then, because you also get era score bonuses for wiping civs out, it's too easy to move from a conquest phase to a golden age phase to recover in. If you had cities retain their old loyalty, and maybe even gave you like negative era score for capturing cities or wiping out a civ instead of positive score, you could really create some challenges in trying to retain your land after a conquest.

And yeah, you do need different things at play early and late. Although sometimes the game simplifies a little much instead of giving you some good late game mechanics. Even something like forcing you to send scouts out as like oil prospectors, or having your late game "exploration" be about searching and finding resources, rather than just have them unlock and magically know where they all are, could at least give you some "exploring" in the late game. Although on the flipside, they also need to do a better job at avoiding that late micro. Plotting builder charges and manually handling that early on makes a lot of strategic sense. But late game, I really don't want to manually move my builders around to plant farms. Or even something like governors. Great early game decisions, but by the time you get to like the medieval era, the micro decisions stop making sense. Would love it if, say, once you reached Urbanization, governors changed from being city governors to regional governors. Or simply have governors "retire" and give a permanent bonus and stop me from having to move them around manually.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

4 was good in that if you tried to spread too far too fast, you could easily bankrupt yourself. I remember some games where I'd have a good rush and take out a neighbour, only to absolutely destroy my empire and end up abandoning the game. Neither 5 nor 6 came close to replicating that

You get happiness penalties from more cities and population in Civ5, increased for occupied cities without a courthouse. Though I haven't played a lot of Civ4, so I can't say whether the Civ5 penalties are as extreme as Civ4's

 

[pokiehl]

The civ 5 expansion penalty is like hitting a brick wall. The civ 4 expansion check felt much better and more organic.

 

[vorlon_mi]

The civ 5 expansion penalty is like hitting a brick wall. The civ 4 expansion check felt much better and more organic.

My experience was that the Civ5 penalty affected the total *number* of cities; yes, it felt like a brick wall.

The Civ4 limit was on the *rate* of expansion. As each city grew to size 3 or 4, it became more self-sustaining and not a net drain on your empire. You could then expand further. Conquered cities, if they were big enough, could begin contributing economically as long as you kept them out of rebellion.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I'm not against anti-snowballing measures but put them in after the game is out for awhile.

 

[UWHabs]

My experience was that the Civ5 penalty affected the total *number* of cities; yes, it felt like a brick wall.

The Civ4 limit was on the *rate* of expansion. As each city grew to size 3 or 4, it became more self-sustaining and not a net drain on your empire. You could then expand further. Conquered cities, if they were big enough, could begin contributing economically as long as you kept them out of rebellion.

4 also had it so that cities had a number of turns before they could start contributing anything. So if you captured a big city it would always have like 5 or 10 turns before you could start getting anything back from it. You had to have enough capacity for that time to sustain yourself.

I mean, even in 6, if you didn't get positive loyalty from a city until 5 or 10 turns after you captured it, and it kept pumping out negative loyalty in the meantime, that would be a real drain on things. Probably that would be too much, but if they also added in maybe a couple policy cards explicitly countering that, maybe that would be another way to make sure you fight to continue to expand.

 

[vorlon_mi]

In both Civ3 and Civ4, it was possible to incorporate the city with culture. But smaller cities were easier to overwhelm / assimilate in those games; building some local culture in a Civ3 city or use a Civ4 Great Artist to culture bomb.

For Civ6, the loyalty pressure mechanic makes it *harder* to assimilate a smaller border city. I have sometimes done a raze/replace if the smaller city didn't have many (or any) districts. I have sometimes just sent my troops past the simmering, unhappy border city to conquer the next larger AI city. If I can (in a few turns) conquer a larger city, with even a third city, I can begin a virtuous circle of loyalty, where the conquered cities exert positive pressure on each other. Even while the war is going on, I can bring in religious units, under my military, to keep them from being squashed by enemy troops ' denounce the heretic.'
Religious conversion helps the virtuous circle, so that the conquered cities are productive, once I've crossed the loyalty hurdle.

 

[aieeegrunt]

In both Civ3 and Civ4, it was possible to incorporate the city with culture. But smaller cities were easier to overwhelm / assimilate in those games; building some local culture in a Civ3 city or use a Civ4 Great Artist to culture bomb.

For Civ6, the loyalty pressure mechanic makes it *harder* to assimilate a smaller border city. I have sometimes done a raze/replace if the smaller city didn't have many (or any) districts. I have sometimes just sent my troops past the simmering, unhappy border city to conquer the next larger AI city. If I can (in a few turns) conquer a larger city, with even a third city, I can begin a virtuous circle of loyalty, where the conquered cities exert positive pressure on each other. Even while the war is going on, I can bring in religious units, under my military, to keep them from being squashed by enemy troops ' denounce the heretic.'
Religious conversion helps the virtuous circle, so that the conquered cities are productive, once I've crossed the loyalty hurdle.

Like a lot of things in Civ6, an interesting concept with awful implementation.

It being easier to take an hold a giant metropolis than a small border town is both the complete opposite of how things actually work, and bad gameplay to boot.

I thought Civ3 had overall the best system. The more cities you added the more corrupt your state became, which is both good gameplay and a fair approximation of history.

The way culture influenced your ability to hold what your military seized was also good gameplay and good history

 

[kaspergm]

Regardless of civ version, all the good ones share the same traits:
...
2. all mechanics should be equally relevant from T1 to T300
...

As others have also pointed out, not only do I think this is impossible to achieve, I also think it's undesirable to strive for.

One of the big problems with Civ has always been the snowballing, and I think having the same game systems being important the entire game exactly makes the game prone to this. A key example of this is how an early head start in science (and/or to some extent culture in Civ6) will make you likely to not only stay ahead in science entire game, but also give you advantage wrt. military power etc.

One of the best features of Civ5 imo. was how the world congress to some extent "restarted" parts of the game halfway through. You could be behind on the diplomatic and economic game in the first half, but once the world congress kicked in, if you played your cards wisely, you could make significant shifts in the power situation in these areas.

Imo. we need this extended to other areas. Here are a couple of suggestions how this could work:
- Religion should lose importance or stand more as an alternative to science in second half of the game. State religion and atheism needs to become an aspect of mid- and late-game governments.
- Military units endlessly upgrading and retaining their promotions needs to be reworked. Maybe we need to take elements of the "Heroes" pack from Civ6, where you gain some sort of general with a limited time span who will help your army for a certain number of turns before dying. Or maybe we just need to rethink upgrade lines - Swordsman upgrading into Longswordsman and keeping his promotions may be fine, but maybe he doesn't upgrade into Musketman?
- Science and Culture needs to be spread much - MUCH - more effectively than through hard research. It does not make sense that everybody needs to research everything from the bottom. From-zero research should be MUCH more expensive, but things like open borders, trade routes and alliances should give you instant boost to techs your partner has researched - not necessarily full 40 % like in Civ6, but each aspect could give a gradual boost. In late game, we could have the option to keep technology secret to prevent this, which would have diplomatic implications.
- Warfare should play into the science and culture area more. Capturing cities should give you boost or even full access to technologies of the target. Defeating a military unit of an advanced technology should similar give you boosts or even full access to that technology (like, if you defeat an archer unit without having invented archery yourself, taking a look at their equipment will give you a pretty good idea of how a bow is constructed and works).
- World Congress needs to be less random than Civ6!
- Victory Conditions need to be something else than just "filling the bucket first". Earning different kinds of points over the ages (a bit like Humankind had it) might be a way to consider.