Civ 7 Feature wishlist, whether reasonable or not!

[iammaxhailme]

Here's some random things I'd love, many of which kinda partially exist already but I'd like to see more depth:

- More than anything... AI that knows how to play to win (without just being "I'm still a really dumb AI, but all my numbers are multiplied by 2").
- More serious factionalism once the world gets advanced, somewhat similar to ideology from Civ 5. Cold wars, ideological blocs/alliances, etc.
- Similar to above, religious ones in the middle ages. Crusading alliances, holy wars, etc. A "you converted me" defensive holy war casus belli exists in Civ 6, but where my "DEUS VULT!" offensive CB?
- This could be tied in to either of the above, but more individual (not world congress level) embargoing, trade alliances, defensive pacts, etc. A lot of this would
- A toggleable game mode where you can see a large section of the map at the beginning (let's say a 10-length large hex of tiles and THEN choose your civ and where you start within your area. Kind of like Beyond Earth. I can't count how many times I've been laugh-crying over getting a really cool start for a civ I'm not actually playing! (Shoutout to giant marsh starts in Civ 5 when I'm not Dutch!)
- I really like the concept behind monopolies/corps mode. I hope that can be integrated into the main branch of gameplay (with some rebalancing - the tourism boosts they give are still very OP even post nerf)
- An idea for a DLC for civ 7 could be a "folklore leaders" pack, where various civs get leaders from their folklore. We already had a few good ones in civ 6, like Dido or Gilgamesh - it's fine if they may have been real or based on real people. Some other possible examples... Johnny Appleseed for the USA, Paul Bunyan for Canada, Robin Hood for England, Aeneas for Rome, Odysseus for Greece, etc. Maybe Papa Legba for a Caribbean civ? The heroes/legends mode has some good ones that could be re-used, like Maui, etc.
- Similar to above: Non-leader influential people. Like Gorgo from civ VI, who was not really a queen regnant, but more of a queen consort (to use british terms). Other ideas could be... Benjamin Franklin, Machiavelli, Rasputin, Cardinal Richelieu, etc.
- More options of trading. For example, trading map knowledge earlygame (I think this was in early entires in the series), trading unique units (maybe via some kind of "mercenary" feature?), buying/selling land, etc.

I'll probably think of more later.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

More than anything... AI that knows how to play to win (without just being "I'm still a really dumb AI, but all my numbers are multiplied by 2").

Better AI sure but playing to win would be horrible, nothing more immersion breaking than hearing about an AI planning a Domination victory.

 

[Leyrann]

Better AI sure but playing to win would be horrible, nothing more immersion breaking than hearing about an AI planning a Domination victory.

Are you saying no one historically planned to conquer the whole world?

If anything, that's the most sensible victory for the AI to be planning for.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'm going to predict a new combat system. I think it would be a mistake to go back to stacks of doom, but I think they'll want to try something else.

 

[1SDANi]

I'm going to predict a new combat system. I think it would be a mistake to go back to stacks of doom, but I think they'll want to try something else.

I agree, I'd say it'd be best to go back to 4's "stacks and collateral", maybe with archers and skirmishers also being collateral units for the sake of making it more obvious that it's bad to overcommit to a single army, maybe also without a limit on how many units can take collateral damage or how low collateral can bring their health, I never understood those limits.

In general I'd like to see a return to the zoomed out scope of earlier civs, it's so weird to see a university the size of Tokyo.

If I were to make a completely unrealistic wish, I would absolutely love to see a stability mechanic akin to Rhye's and Fall's, I love how it acts as a sort of resistance against snowballing to allow for comebacks without making the game less competitive or adding too much complexity.

 

[civac]

Collateral in 4 does not make a ton of sense. It works fine as a game system but is not great for immersion.

 

[1SDANi]

Collateral in 4 does not make a ton of sense. It works fine as a game system but is not great for immersion.

I've always seen it as Civ 4's version of indirect fire, where it's less a precise strike on a single enemy and more a targeted fire on a group of enemies, the archers in a formation may be trying to hit the spearmen at the front of the enemy formation, but they may hit some of the archers behind those spearmen in the process, or a catapult may fire a boulder at the front where spearmen are, but it may take out some of the archers behind them in the process.

 

[PetrusvonDoom]

Loyalty, Revolts and Resistance: I would like a deeper loyalty mechanic, where the game creates an illusion that there are people living in civilizations, that they have needs to be met and will not always be in accordance with the interests of their leaders - if revolting for cultural reasons (influence of foreign culture), religious (people following a religion not recognized by the state), economic (lack of food, lack of purchasing power), ideological or military (war fatigue or enemy propaganda makes people no longer support the leader in a war). If loyalty falls enough, part of the civilization may revolt, being led by a Revolutionary Leader - who may be interesting historical characters associated with rebellions and revolutions, such as Che Guevera, Robespierre, Spartacus, Garibaldi, Joan of Arc, Hamilton... . - and the player can choose to fight these leaders, negotiate with them or recognize the independence of the rebellious cities. And when a player has their cities dominated by another, they can request asylum from another player, leading a government of resistance, which lasts until the cities' loyalty to the Resistance player ends or until a limit of turns. The Resistance could secretly train units in occupied yet loyal cities, use spies and guerrilla tactics, and negotiate with other nations asking for troops, resources, and using their remaining political influence to try to convince other civilizations to join in a war for liberation or to embargo the conquering civilization until it liberates one or more invaded cities. It would be a desperate way for a player to try to survive after losing their territories.

Plagues: I think the term speaks for itself.

Random Events: Random events like those in Humankind, bringing some roleplay flavor to the game.

Logistics and Attrition System: Cities need to be connected by roads, ports and airports to share resources, to increase loyalty, migration of people. Armies need to receive resources for military campaign, through supply routes and conquering or plundering strategic points such as farms, mines... Make players consider Scorched Earth strategies, worry more about sieges (with the population suffering from hunger, disease and loss of loyalty. The invader may be worried about how long he can keep his troops surrounding a city).

Seasons: Each game turn represents a season, with each season influencing the game's economy, map, and units. And the seasons vary according to the tilt of the map axis.

 

[Core Imposter]

First, I want this to be true and not leak.

When the game is launched, we find out that we are starting as cavemen and have to fight other early hominids and dinos and whatever in a fully fleshed out prequel "Hominidae" just to get to: Barbarian! which is the second stage of the game, and you have to beat that to get to the beginning of Civ 7.

So, the first leader which was all have to play is Lucy!

Lucy (Australopithecus) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[AriochIV]

I'd like to have proper mechanics for nomadic/pastoral civilizations, instead of pretending that Scythians built cities.

I'd like better AI. I prefer that the AI play more like it is a character in a virtual world rather than a live player trying to "win," but I realize that it's also important to challenge the player, so it can't be all that.

I'd like to see a feature like palace building from earlier versions (that is, a sort of visual progression system), but one which is better integrated into the game instead of just a sort of minigame.

I'd like unit graphics that are a little more like Civ V in terms of giving the visual appearance of formations of troops on the map instead of more gamey unit counters.

I'd like more complex behavior of minor tribes, barbarian camps and city-states, to give them the feeling of minor civilizations rather than simplistic game objects to be collected or exploited.

I would like it if the bonuses of special terrain features (like Natural Wonders) felt more plausible to a real world and less like absurd fantasy magic. (Same goes for Wonders and some civilization bonuses, while I'm at it.)

I'd like a return to the old "domination" style victory condition, in which you can win through having a certain threshold of population and land percentage, rather than having to capture all the capitals (including those of your allies). The latter is just dumb.

When the game is launched, we find out that we are starting as cavemen and have to fight other early hominids and dinos and whatever in a fully fleshed out prequel "Hominidae" just to get to: Barbarian! which is the second stage of the game, and you have to beat that to get to the beginning of Civ 7.

So, the first leader which was all have to play is Lucy!

I would like a prolonged early game, maybe even going a bit before the founding of the first city. But it's worth remembering that the game is called "Civilization," not "Anthropology" or "Humankind."

 

[Louis XXIV]

Collateral in 4 does not make a ton of sense. It works fine as a game system but is not great for immersion.

I also think it overly encouraged artillery. Personally, I want a combat system that takes less time to resolve. Whether it's forming armies and having them fight as a complete army or whatever they think of, I don't want Civ3's game where you had probably 50 units in a stack and had to fight through all of them.

My personal take is to have them form an army (and move it as an army). Your army would have more combat effectiveness based on the units in it (the strength of the individual units, the total number and health of the units, and how "balanced" it was). Then it would play out like a Total War battle on auto-resolve. There are obvious downsides of this idea, but it would be different from what came before while still being reasonably immersive.

 

[Core Imposter]

But who would auto-resolve the battles? Where's the fun in that?

 

[Core Imposter]

We obviously need the option to bind units into army groups on the strategic scale and the option to one button it or fight it out in detail.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I'd like to see the terrain effect more things with units outside of just directly effecting combat. For example, I don't think units should be able to just sit on the icy snow at the north pole and heal, or in the middle of the dry sahara. Maybe lategame higher tech units with supply convoys, but not like, an ancient Roman legion. I think units should heal faster on tiles that have freshwater, or on their resource (i.e. cavalry healing on tiles with horse pastures).

 

[How to know]

I'd like to see hexagon tiles within hexagon tiles for cities planing, to make cities more compacted and release more land to the rural and wild space, while making Food actually impactful. I want to see a different civic system than what we have in Civ6, civic tree is stupid as a concept, anything can be better than that.

 

[PetrusvonDoom]

Mod and World Builder support for consoles. :v

 

[Leyrann]

I'd like to see hexagon tiles within hexagon tiles for cities planing, to make cities more compacted and release more land to the rural and wild space, while making Food actually impactful.

That would be geometrically impossible, however triangles within hexagons are possible.

This has in fact been a concept that I've posted about on the forums at least once, possibly multiple times, and would love to see. You could also use the triangle grid for terrains (meaning you can have multiple terrains on a single hexagon), unit stacking limits (1 per traversable triangle in the hexagon), river tiles, et cetera.

Also, my own wishlist item: Double tile improvements. By which I mean a 'center of tile' and a 'full tile' improvement that can coexist. For example, a center of tile improvement might be a village or a lumbermill, and does not remove a feature (like a forest), while a full tile improvement would be a farm or a pasture, which does remove features. You can even add different interplay between the improvements. Perhaps a village + farm gives an additional 1 gold, while a village + pasture gives an additional 1 food.

 

[KnightModern]

dark & golden ages would have variant, not just basic dark age, basic golden ages
akin to millenia variant age system, but limited to civ who gets dark or golden ages, reserach is less tied to dark & golden ages, of course

 

[Leyrann]

dark & golden ages would have variant, not just basic dark age, basic golden ages
akin to millenia variant age system, but limited to civ who gets dark or golden ages, reserach is less tied to dark & golden ages, of course

Honestly, dark and golden ages are a great concept, but they do desperately need a rework. Once you get the snowball running currently, it's far too easy to just string them along. I'm pretty sure I've had games where I literally had a golden age every single age until the game ended. And that's while playing on Deity and without conquering anything.

Also, going into a dark age to get a heroic age is gimmicky, and even if you're not hitting a golden age every time, you still feel like you're getting your golden age after you were doing great things, instead of while you were doing great things.

A better concept might be to have some kind of general value that increases if you conquer, build wonders, or achieve stuff, and decreases if you lose conflicts or don't achieve anything, where the higher it becomes, the more benefits you get, and the lower it becomes, the more penalties you get. Above a certain value, you hit a golden age with additional bonuses, below another certain value, you hit a dark age with additional penalties.

Or something like that. I don't know, I came up with this on the spot.

 

[JokerKara]

I wish that each next eras would pass slower than it was in Civ 6, where you could had flights in 1300, or gunpowder 200 BC for example. On PC there were mods allowing to extend resarch time for techs, but on consoles we just had to go on with this ridiculousnes. I hope this time it will be implementented better into the base game. Also - there was late game crashes on console versions, which make the game unplayable - please Firaxis, this time do it properly. Last but not least - return of the cool features, like secret societies or legendary heroes.

Actually, one more thing - I would like to have a choice to pick certain selected civilizations on one continent, and the other ones on other continent - for example, when I'm playing as some European civ, for imersion reasons, I would prefer to be able to choose to have other European civilizations around me on my starting continent, and on the other continent, some native american civs, on third continent african civs, etc.