Civ 7 Feature wishlist, whether reasonable or not!

I would like to see a more realistic approach to religion. Religion should simply be a form of influence and connected to culture. It shouldn't provide unrealistic benefits in any way. As the game progresses religiosity becomes a hinderance for scientific advancement. Eventually ideologies would replace religion as a driver of influence.
 
- Better geography, with multileveled terrain, navigable rivers and such
- Agricultural resources should not be fixed but allowed to be cultivated, something like some civcol4 mods have.
- a City window where to develop the city, with districts and wonders and housing, maybe even with preoductions chains like Millenia
- A diferent war system, less punishing. War was the usual means for building empires, looting a great way for aquiring wealth. The whole system of denoucement should be droped or at least postponed until our era.
- Slavery
- A new system for controling terrain, based on political, diplomatical and, at the end, military power
- New and better diplomatic system
- Real trade, instead of bonus produced by caravans and boats.
- More organic systems, like for example, growth being somewhat independent from food, so you are hard pressed to produce this food or expand, or face a Malthusian reality.
- Deceases
- Stability
- Tech trading and tech sharing. Also, a system of tech adoption, to model the fact that a tech is not widespread adopted by a Nation as it is discovered.
- A real Spy network.
This for starters.
 
It’s not censored for me…that’s weird.

Perhaps he edited it after I saw it (I posted just three minutes after, and loaded the page earlier than that) but quickly enough that it doesn't show as edited?

I would like to see a more realistic approach to religion. Religion should simply be a form of influence and connected to culture. It shouldn't provide unrealistic benefits in any way. As the game progresses religiosity becomes a hinderance for scientific advancement. Eventually ideologies would replace religion as a driver of influence.

Obligatory reminder that the idea of religion and science as conflicting is as recent as the 19th century, and not widely subscribed to. As Wikipedia puts it in the lead:

"[The conflict thesis] maintains that there is an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science, and that it inevitably leads to hostility. The consensus among historians of science is that the thesis has long been discredited, which explains the rejection of the thesis by contemporary scholars. Into the 21st century, historians of science widely accept a complexity thesis.

Studies on scientists and the general public show that the conflict perspective is not prevalent."
 
Modding API/SDK kit and Steam Workshop support.
 
For me - and this goes for all the 4x games - the most important thing would be break out of the many 4x traditions and try to find a new way to do things. One day I would like to see the tech tree as it currently is completely removed from 4x games and turned into more involving and reactive system: find ocean, I come up with boats. I find animals, I come up with hunting or farming, rocks -> mining and so on. That would make feel more involved with the way my civilization evolves and it would also reward exploration - and expansion - better.

The other thing I would like to be replaced is the "one production per city" mechanic which doesn't make sense: why I'm either able to build either a farm or a soldier? What are the other citizens or builders doing while someone is training how to use a sword? At least separate these two but preferably more than that.

Religion should be thought again. Now it's far too often just a perk machine and doesn't feel like an religion but all the benefits but also negative effects it can have on an society, especially on later times, religion vs. atheism.

Also make tall play actually rewarding.

Why not also think if it's always necessary go from stone age to space age?

Implement proper city building elements.

Just my quick wish list for both Civ 7 and all the future games. Maybe someday.
 
Things I would like to see:

  1. 1UPT has got to go: Too tedious to manage, especially in the late game as well as creating scalability issues. I would prefer a limited ammount of army/navy stacks (you're allowed more with appropriate buildings/technology) with a limited ammount of units per army/navy (more are allowed to stack with buildings/tech). I would really love to see optional tactical combat done in the way that Age of Wonders 4 implements it. Otherwise, should stack combat be abstracted it should give modifiers for combined arms approach (See Through the Ages Board Game approach)
  2. District Limitations: Hugely expansive and sprawling megacities (where two or three end up engulfing a whole continent) are neither historically realistic nor aesthetically pleasing. Districts are a really nice addition to the game but their number and radius from the city center has to be limited forcing you to make tought choices.
  3. Victory Types: These should be game ending conditions instead of game winning conditions. I'd much prefer a system where points are awarded after a game ending condition has been triggered. As it is, you could end up in situations where the end game is tedious and nonsensical.
  4. Non linear tech tree/Multiple tech trees: I believe that the linear tech tree has not only been exhaustingly implemented, but it also leeds to min/maxing and exploitative gameplay. Ideally techs should be split into multiple categories (military, economic, cultural, scientific, exploration, etc) and then, they should be bunched according to eras. In order, for example, to progress from the Neolithical Era to the Ancient Era, you have to research X techs from at least Y categories. Which ones you choose is up to you according to your play style, terrain restrictions and civilization abilities. Also, I feel that there needs to be a future tech penalty research (as implemented in Hearts of Iron IV, for example). What you're trying to research is way ahead of its time, you get a difficulty handicap for doing so.
  5. Golden Age/Dark Ages: This was a very nice feature which needs to be expanded upon with more meaningful choices and consequences.
  6. Religious Units Scaled Back: Religion is very important and certainly has to stay. Religious Units however need to be reworked.
  7. Diplomacy Revamping: Some diplomatic features need to be reworked. I much prefer what Age of Wonders IV has done which seems tidier and more relevant.
  8. Unit Customization: Forges can create better weapons to be equiped, archery units recieve better bows and so on. More talent trees for units.
  9. Composite Production Chains: A woodcutter camp produces logs. This gives X production value. A sawmill takes these logs and produces, for example, 2X production value. Then, later in the game you have a furinture maker who takes these planks and adds coins to the 2X production value. Millenia has done this in a beautiful way.
 
Reduce the number of units by raising maintenance cost.

Add a gold cost to tile swapping between cities. Reduce late game micromanagement.

Server to upload games to train ever-improving AI.
 
So, I regularly play with "Dramatic Ages" enabled, because normal ages are boring and I like the dynamics of cities flipping a lot and the challenge of keeping a continuous Golden Age going. Having played this way so much, I can see a way forward for something I think a lot of folks have wanted in the game for some time now: New civs popping up as a result of revolution/schism/etc.

Basically, I'd love it if, when a Civ enters a dark age, there was the possibility (somewhat remote, but likely enough to occur several times in a game at least) for several of their cities to flip at once and become a New Civilization as a result. Scenarios in which I can see this happening, with some basis in history, would include:

Continental Divide: If you've got multiple cities founded on a continent different from that of your Capitol, when entering a dark age, there is the chance for them to flip as a group and become a new civilization. Examples: Post-colonial revolutions (i.e. America, Gran Colombia), but also the Byzantine Empire arising out of the fall of Rome.

Religious Schism: If you've got multiple cities following a separate religion from your founded or majority religion, when entering a dark age, there is the chance for them to flip as a group and become a new civilization. Examples: just tons and tons, but Pakistan and Ireland come to mind first. Byzantium could also arguably be an example of this.

Ideological Pressure: Ideally I'd like to see the return of Ideologies to Civ 7, and as long as I'm tossing around wishes, I'd like to see them done as in BERT, where they develop over time based on choices you make in civ development. In any case, the way this would work is that, if multiple cities in your empire are receiving some threhhold of loyalty/cultural pressure from a neighboring civ/civs with a differing ideology, when entering a dark age, there is a chance that they will flip to become a new civilization following the opposing ideology. Examples: Vietnam, Fall of the Iron Curtain.

Imperial Decline: Essentially what we see in the current game, where disloyalty simply snowballs as an empire loses control of territory. Example: Ottoman Empire during its "Sick Man of Europe" phase.

I'm sure there are other good ways that this could occur that I'm not thinking of right now, but the way I can see this working (based on Civ 6 mechanics because we have no idea what Civ 7's mechanics will look like) is that rebelling cities still enter a "free cities" stage (though preferably not as long of one as in Civ 6) wherein civilizations have a chance to fight for the free cities through warfare or loyalty pressure as now, but if free cities are exerting more influence on each other than existing civilizations are exerting upon them, that pressure - rather than creating just a region of endlessly hostile independent cities that you can't interact with through trade, envoys, or diplomacy - instead flip into a new major civilization entering the game. In this case, the free cities sharing borders would greatly increase the loyalty pressure between them.

Similarly, isolated free cities, after a long enough period of hostility, could transform into City States (à la Barbarian Clans mode), keeping their names but (assuming Civ 6 mechanics for City States) gaining the attributes of a CS not currently in the game.

The Continental/Religious/Ideological situations I'm referring to above would basically determine which cities are lost at the start of a dark age - like if a civ is going to lose at least two cities, and one of these sets of circumstances applies, then those specific cities are the ones lost (rather than just whichever cities have the least loyalty pressure, which I think is how it works now?) and a message appears saying "You have entered a dark age, and your cities following Eastern Orthodoxy have declared their independence" or "Ethiopia has entered a dark age, and their colonies on the continent of Lemuria have declared their independence," or similar.

Much like civs have preferred religions that they'll go for in Civ 6 based on history, there could be a short-list of "related civs" for each civilization that are more likely to arise from these situations, so that it's not entirely random (these could be based on history where applicable or just geography where not.)

There's a lot that I'd love to see (and don't expect to see) in Civ 7, but the kind of dynamics of world history that could result from this kind of system would probably be my number one choice if I could choose anything.
 
As a longtime player going all the way back to Civ I days, there are a few features from each iteration of the game that I think are worth reconsidering.

From Civilization I
• Temples: If a city is founded near a hill or mountain, consider building a temple in it to mitigate what Vesuvius did to Pompeii. (I know, all the temples in the city didn't save Pompeii, but as a Civ I mechanic, I thought its spin on temples was fun.)
• Aqueducts: Ancient and classical civilizations needed aqueducts for city growth; reconsider that mechanic in Civ VII.
• Bribery: If you have the funds, you could bribe an enemy unit.
• Great Library: If you build it, you acquire all the techs other civilizations already have that yours lacks.
• Map exchanges: Part of diplomacy was trading maps with other civilizations to expand your horizons. Bring that back.
• Civil wars: If I recall correctly, capturing another civilization's capital before you captured its other cities would split that empire in two. I'd like to see if that concept could be updated.

From Civilization II
• Civilization representatives: I liked the idea of meeting with representatives from other civilizations instead of the civilization avatar. But this could be updated two ways:
1) Introduce an element into the game where a different faction/political philosophy/avatar gains sway over the other civilization, making diplomatic engagements a bit livelier
2) Update the representatives' fashion from the ancient era to the modern era, similar to how Civilization I did when you met another civilization's leaders
• Sanitation systems: Industrial and modern era civilizations need sanitation systems to fight back disease and encourage city growth; reconsider that mechanic in the next iteration.
• Partisan fighters: They give your nation a fighting chance when being invaded.

From Civilization III
• Culture heads: I'm a fan of the early Civ games with each city having its citizens, tax collectors, Einsteins, and Elvii represented in the city view screen. But I liked Civ III's swerve in which a conquered city had cultural-appropriate citizen heads, and only over time would your civ's culture heads become the majority.

From Civilization IV
• Separation anxiety: If your civilization is too large and/or spans more than one continent, a rebellion could form a new breakaway nation. Of course, what made this concept somewhat successful is that Civ IV really amped up the number of civilizations/avatars.

From Civilization V
• Customization: You could pick and choose from social policies and ideologies to add depth to your civilization and play style.
• City states: I hope they can be included and enhanced in this next iteration.
• 1 UPT and promotions: I favor this form of combat/maneuver compared to stacks of doom, and the idea of promotions to make certain units the go-to types in later tactical situations.

From Civilization VI
Cultural differences: Each civ had its own cultural traits depending on its avatar as well as unique units.

Those are my thoughts. Your mileage may vary, and that's fine with me.
 
The game should have Tall and wide playability

Civ 5 was terrible for this, Civ 6 got better. Lets go the full way and accommodate but styles of play
 
The game should have Tall and wide playability

Civ 5 was terrible for this, Civ 6 got better. Lets go the full way and accommodate but styles of play

Nah.

Only one of these two is historical. And it isn't tall.
 
Nah.

Only one of these two is historical. And it isn't tall.

This is really missing the point. There should be a downside to endlessly expanding without any thought - besides the gameplay reasons, think about the fact that it is far harder to govern a huge empire than it is a small state.
These empires tended to split up and revolt if they weren't adequately maintained

Wide Vs Tall goes beyond just realism. It also goes towards a customisation aspect. Wide empires (we are talking about reckless expansion in this case) would not have the relative resources to properly exploit the land.
In comparison Tall empires, it should be easier to defend and easier for them to construct infrastructure.

Basically, I think it's stupid to imply that the game should have only one way to play: spam settlers until you fill the map. Because it's mindless and unrealistic
 
There should be a downside to endlessly expanding without any thought - besides the gameplay reasons, think about the fact that it is far harder to govern a huge empire than it is a small state.

Of course there should be.

Hey, what about a maintenance cost for cities? Say, you've got a maintenance that depends on how far away from your capital you are, to make expanding in all directions preferable (shorter travel times and such), and another that depends on your total number of cities, simulating how larger empires become exponentially harder to govern due to their complexity. What's even better, this way you limit a civ's ability to expand until their economy catches up, without ever reaching a point where building a new city is the wrong decision even once what you have is developed.

You could even tie colonization mechanics into this, if you really want to! Provide additional maintenance costs, similar to the 'total number of cities' ones, which start off very small but grow faster than the total number of cities mechanism, so that you get to reap the benefits from colonization early on, but they become unwieldy in the long term, encouraging you to grant them independence, which could then even form a new civ mid-game!

...oh wait.

We had this system.

Nineteen years ago already.
 
It's perfectly fine if there is strong resistance to expansion initially or that small empires are more efficient than big ones. Unlike what you say a lot of people who say they prefer tall play do indeed want to be able to sit on 4-6 cities the entire game to avoid micromanagement. Not wanting to manage many cities is fair enough. If the game caters to this, however, there are issues. Competition for land and resources is a driving force of conflict between players. Without it you not only get weird looking maps with swathes of unclaimed wilderness the incentive structure of FFA play gets really wonky too. Moreover, game mechanics enabling tall play to be competitive need to be restrictive and unintuitive like the extreme punishment for going above the happiness threshold in Civ5 as well as the scaling costs of social policies and technologies.

Edit: Was meant a s a reply to GeneralZlft.
 
just jumping back onto the forums and dont have time to read everything thats come before so idk if im repeating other ppl's points, but

undo button!!!!! please please please if im in single player and all i wanna do is undo moving a unit to a tile i didnt mean to move them to dont make me reload the entire map graphics or whatever just to return to the start of the turn. you can even put a little star of save files that have undo disabled for people who care to brag about the authenticity of the quality of their gameplay just please even if i have to go thru 4 menus to enable it, it will instantly make the game so much better than civ 6 unless the rest of the game manages to fail hard on every other point

also really hoping that the leaders look more like civ6's poundmaker and kupe rather than civ6's qin shi huang
 
- More realistic and less cartooney graphics.

- More compact cities.

- Production better suited towards Era progression so that I can start and finish wars in the same Era.

- An AI that ends wars before being utterly annihilated.
 
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.
Yes, I completely agree with that. RFC was great, this should be the template for Civ7. The stability mechanism was a great method to solve the snowballing problem.
 
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