#1 priority thing I want is just a return to the realistic graphics of Civ5. If I can't stand to look at it for hours on end I'm not buying it, as was the case for Civ6.
As a modder - my biggest modding complaint with Civ5 is that there's so much you should be able to do, but just can't, for no particularly good reason. e.g. there's a database table to define "processes" - those are the "convert the city's production into gold/science/etc. for an unspecified amount of time" things - but you can't make one that converts hammers into faith. You can't make buildings give negative happiness, even though policies can; there's a table to define what types of "invisibility" units can have, but literally the only one that works, even if you explicitly define a new one, is the invisibility that submarines have. What's the point of giving us the option if the option doesn't even work? Or on the Lua scripting side - why isn't there an event hook for when combat happens? Why can I get but not set the amount of tourism accumulated by a player? Why can't I manually set the religious strength of a missionary? All these things exist in the C++ game core - but I can't use them because they never bothered to push them to the Lua environment.
That's what I'm crossing my fingers for from Civ7, as a modder - no more hardcoding. Give me the freedom to be creative with UA/UU/UB effects instead of having to plan everything around the confines that had no good reason to be put there in the first place.
As a player -
It was weird that Civ5 originally shipped without religion. I hope religion is a part of Civ7 from the vanilla release rather than having to wait for a DLC to add it.
I like the idea of beliefs, how unlike Civ4 where all religions do basically the same thing, in Civ5 different religions have different effects. I don't like beliefs being mutually exclusive though. It doesn't make sense why my people can't sing choral music in temples just because other people also sing choral music in temples. In you fall behind even slightly in the faith race to a pantheon or first great prophet, there's basically no good way to catch up, leaving you with only bad options for beliefs. I would like that to not be the case.
In Civ4 a single source of a strategic resource could supply an infinite number of units. I like how strategic resources are limited in Civ5, but the way Civ5 does it is sort of half-assed. Why do the leaders try to sue for peace by offering me all their horses and iron when it's the modern era and there is literally nothing I even could build with them if I wanted? Why is it even an option? And for that matter, why don't half the things in the modern era cost iron, what are the tanks and battleships made out of? Wood? Papier mache? And when I run out of oil, you would think that should make my oil-dependent units unable to move as far - but it doesn't, it apparently causes their guns to break down instead of their movement? I would like to see the way strategic resources are handled make more sense. And supply lines! How are my tanks deep in enemy territory even getting this oil anyway? How are my infantry, surrounded and deep in the jungle, not starving to death?
Spies are more interesting in CivBE in that there are more missions they can do than just stealing technology. I don't like how in CivBE every player has access to a national wonder that permanently lowers intrigue enough to make the high level missions literally impossible, but having more things to do than just stealing techs is interesting.
Health! Why did Civ5 get rid of health from Civ4? (CivBE kind of brought it back, but it's a reskin of happiness more than anything else) Bring back the health system! With doctor specialists/Great Biologists! And plagues if you screw up health badly enough!
And slavery! The whip was a big part of Civ4 and history in general and there was no real equivalent in Civ5.
CivBE's concept of wonders taking up tiles is interesting, and in CivBE it's limited to only the late-game victory wonders, but I really don't want it to become how all wonders work, as is my understanding for Civ6. I don't want to have to give up farmland for them, they would be in the city and not out in the countryside anyway, and the shortage of people with the knowledge and skill to make and covert 3D assets has been a constant challenge for the Civ5 modding community. I would like wonders to go back to just being high-powered buildings.
