Civ 7 Speculation: Fundamental changes.

[Boris Gudenuf]

Oh, I agree. The clear majority of the evidence points to the Steppe Hypothesis, but the Anatolian Hypothesis still has enough scholarly supporters not to be in crackpot territory.

Agreed. And whether or not Anatolia was the PIE 'homeland' it definitely was the origin for the first 'agricultural migration' of farmers into Europe (they've analyized the DNA of the humans and their sheep and cattle, so this is as certain as anything in archeology!) and so was the 'homeland' for agricultural technologies in southwestern Europe, the Balkans, and Greece.

Given they're attested in writing a few hundred years later, I think we can safely assume someone was speaking something that was recognizably Egyptian and Sumerian. The Egyptian-speakers would even be in Egypt. Since the Sumerians were recent arrivals who displaced the native Ubaid culture (who did not speak Sumerian based on non-Sumerian toponyms), there's no telling where they were in 4000 BC, however.

My data may be out of date the way things are changing in archeology, but the earliest dates I have for either Egyptian hieroglyphs or Sumerian proto-cuneiform is about 3300 BCE, which puts them about as far from our 'start date' of 4000 BCE as modern English is from Chaucer. The connection between the two might be apparent, but translation might also be required.
Interestingly, the Egyptian speakers might have also just arrived. There were several cultures that have been identified in what is now the Sahara, which before 4000 - 3900 BCE was savannah, with lakes and rivers supporting herding and fishing. The African Humid Period (AHP) from about 12,500 to 3900 BCE made that possible, but then dried up into the wasteland it is today, killing off the cultures, several of whom appear to have migrated east, into the Nile Valley. Now, there were also earlier groups already in Egypt, like the Fayum A, Merimde and Badarian, all of which had been in Egypt for 500 - 1000 years or more and already had irrigation and agriculture, so which added what into what became Egyptian later is a very open question.
Point is that everybody was moving around both before and after the 4000 BCE Game Start date, which makes all the 'historical' Civs starting on that date in their later form pretty much a Fantasy.

 

[Zaarin]

My data may be out of date the way things are changing in archeology, but the earliest dates I have for either Egyptian hieroglyphs or Sumerian proto-cuneiform is about 3300 BCE, which puts them about as far from our 'start date' of 4000 BCE as modern English is from Chaucer. The connection between the two might be apparent, but translation might also be required.

I mean, I've read Chaucer in its original form. Good luck with something written in a different dialect of Middle English, though, like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. At any rate, in 4000 BC some language was being spoken that was clearly ancestral to the attested forms of Egyptian/Sumerian; after all, that's a good 6,000 years after the most conservative date for Proto-Afroasiatic. For that matter, in 4000 BC there were doubtless other languages related to Sumerian being spoken...but alas, we'll never know.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Ah yes, Chaucerian Engrish. In college I was introduced, mercifully briefly, to Old High German, a language which somehow acted as ancestor to both Modern German and English. That was not evident from studying it, which has remained my impression of the lengths to which languages can diverge over time, even while they are 'related'.

More generally, while we are on Egypt and Egyptian, in 4000 BCE there is no unified Egyptian kingdom or polity, no (as far as we can tell) Very Important priestly class or God King tendencies, no sign of any Pyramids. Is it inevitable, then, that the Egyptian-speaking people living in a marshy river valley surrounded by desert (and good building stone as a resource) will turn into Pyramid-Building, Chariot-wielding, centralized God King Monarchy Egypt so common in the games?
I think a case can be made (although the Alternate History Folks could argue infinite variations on it) that there is some inevitability if you have the right starting terrain and resources, with the potential Civ choices narrowing down as Events take place in the early game. At some point, Egypt becomes, then, Inevitable, and your movement from Neolithic/Eneolithic/Chalcolithic Generalists to Egyptians is made.

This mechanism has a major downside, in that the amount of research required to set the Inevitability Point for each Civ is going to be Huge, and some of the triggering Events may be far, far into the game (like, what triggers a United States and how do you get that trigger before the Industrial Era?).
On the other hand, it has an intriguing Upside, in that the triggers will inevitably fall at different points in time, so a 'Historical Start' which Modders have worked on in every Civ iteration becomes an Automatic Feature of the game.

 

[8housesofelixir]

One thing I could image about a "fundamental change" of Civ VII is the "Improvement Route" described by Elhoim.

Basically, although VI introduced the District system, in practice a large portion of your empire's income is coming from Improved Tiles or Tile Yields. A well-placed Lumber Mill can out-produce a Workshop, some improved luxuries can beat a Bank in terms of Gold, and with the help of a good Pantheon one don't need an early Theater Square.

A future Civ may push down the Yields inflation, but considering that a lot of civs are evolved around a UI-based or Yield-based gameplay, especially after GS - and most importantly, it seems that Civ series is going for more creativity of game mechanisms - the "Improvement" route may also continue and even being expanded.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

One thing I could image about a "fundamental change" of Civ VII is the "Improvement Route" described by Elhoim.

Basically, although VI introduced the District system, in practice a large portion of your empire's income is coming from Improved Tiles or Tile Yields. A well-placed Lumber Mill can out-produce a Workshop, some improved luxuries can beat a Bank in terms of Gold, and with the help of a good Pantheon one don't need an early Theater Square.

A future Civ may push down the Yields inflation, but considering that a lot of civs are evolved around a UI-based or Yield-based gameplay, especially after GS - and most importantly, it seems that Civ series is going for more creativity of game mechanisms - the "Improvement" route may also continue and even being expanded.

Tied into this is also the change that Civ VI produced in the Workers that produce Improvements, in that they suddenly became limited in effect by their number of Charges, but the number of Charges can be varied by Civ, Civic or other means. I could see them building on this, perhaps to the point of making Charges even more variable, or allowing you to convert military Units into Workers or Charges for workers, or instantly make Workers out of City Population (Mobilizing the Workforce with a vengeance!). All those could be part of a mechanism increasing the variety of 'Improvements' and/or allowing Progressive Improvements: your Ancient Shallow Mine becoming a Deep Mine becoming an Open Pit Mine as the game and Technology progress, each adding Bonuses from the tile but requiring more Charges to improve the Improvements.

This would also have the benefit to the game design of being almost the opposite of what Humankind does, in which everything is produced in the city and on the map without any Builders/Worker Units at all and Settlers only for special Colonial applications. I suspect that the Civ VII designers are going to want to distance themselves from any hint of copying Humankind, just as in their nomenclature and mechanisms Humankind has worked to differentiate itself from the way Civ has done things.

 

[Evie]

Add to the list of changes I'd like: while wonders being dominant presences on the map is good, wonders taking up full tile in their own rights just doesn't work on the map scale of Civ VI, and there are just too many things competing for tiles in the VI games between wonders, resources, tiles improvements and so forth.

On the other hand, I do appreciate the limitation on wonder-building that the idea offer, so what I would like is for every district in the game (city center included) to come with one wonder slot. The wonder would be the dominant feature of its respective district, and very distinctive on the map still, and the number of wonders a city could have woudl still be space-restricted (as much if not more than before, eg, now you have to chose which Encampment wonder you want, and you can only ever have one encampment wonder in each city), and geographic placement restrictions would still apply (eg, Pyramids must be built in a Holy Site on a desert).

This would in turn give more room for districts, which may include new districts. One I would like to see is the Agricultural (or Agri-Food) District - a late game district replacing the old farm improvement, representing the transition from homestead farming to large-scale industrial farming and food transformation.

(In the same vein, I'd like to see districts renamed to represent satellite towns and other similar-sized entity of the main city rather than merely neighborhoods. Naming them might even be a possibility, though their similarity to a main Civ City should stop there. Likewise, what gets to be a UB, UD or UI should be recalibrated based on the idea that a district is essentially a satellite city in its own right - so the Ice Hockey Rink (to name one) should be a building, not an improvement (it' snot nearly large enough to take up an entire tile).

 

[Ryansinbela]

I prefer buildings being put in classes instead of districts

What agricultural type buildings do you recommend

 

[criZp]

This would also have the benefit to the game design of being almost the opposite of what Humankind does, in which everything is produced in the city and on the map without any Builders/Worker Units at all and Settlers only for special Colonial applications. I suspect that the Civ VII designers are going to want to distance themselves from any hint of copying Humankind, just as in their nomenclature and mechanisms Humankind has worked to differentiate itself from the way Civ has done things.

Relying even more on builders just to distance from another game would be a very poor move if you ask me, one of the mayor problems in civ is the excessive unit micromanaging you have to do.

 

[criZp]

Add to the list of changes I'd like: while wonders being dominant presences on the map is good, wonders taking up full tile in their own rights just doesn't work on the map scale of Civ VI, and there are just too many things competing for tiles in the VI games between wonders, resources, tiles improvements and so forth.

I'd say wonders on the map scale doesn't work because it looks like they aren't a part of any city, they just stand around all isolated. The problem with not enough tiles I think can be solved rather easy: at some point in the game you unlock the ability to upgrade tile improvements (say, build one farm on top of an existing farm) to a version that lets two citizens work that same tile.

 

[Jeppetto]

In order to bring more gameplay validity to the Leader System, I'd much rather see separation of Leader and Civ I think, the same way as playing as Rome doesn't mean you must play Autocracy or playing USA doesn't mean you must play Democracy. Civ would be more complex and specifically intended to change the way you play and determine what you aim for. Leaders would have less complex benefits that would be more in line utilizing X to achieve Y. They would still be released together, rarely would they release Civ without releasing Leader for them and as rarely as now would they release Leader only, even then mostly representing existing Civ.

So let's say that you have Civ that gets Eureka everytime they build District they haven't build yet. Then there's Leader that gets Inspiration everytime they get Eureka. These two could be Civ and its Leader released together for natural synergy, but you could also have prior a Civ that gets additional Science from Eurekas and you could combine the two, too, If you know you are good at trigerring Eurekas and so you get two benefits from what you intend to do.

Also as I've mentoined before, separation of Cultural Ideas from Governmental Development, represented by two different yields, Culture and Influence, where one would be for enacting Policies similar to Civ 6 Culture and one about acquiring Ideas similar to Civ 5 Talent Tree.

 

[Kimiimaro]

I would like to see some form of economic victory rewarding industrial and economic powerhouses. Hegemonies of luxury goods would be nice to get rewarded, too, as civilisations historically managed to reach huge profits when they secured one. Take the Veneto-Genoese, Portuguese and subsequently Dutch hegemonies on spice trade. Civ VI introduced us religious victory, I'm sure Civ VII could give us an economic one.

I wouldn't mind if industrial era got a bit more love, too. It was a crucial step in the history of the world, and allowed for a boom in nearly everything in countries that embraced it, starting from mass-production of goods, going through skyrocketing of scientific advance, population boom in cities, revolution in travel, ending with rise of the middle class and growth of its power. We already do get a lot of second-tier buildings + sewers, a bunch of units, new themes, yes. But growth of cities still feels nearly untouched by the industrial era. And railroads feel a bit underwhelming. Power was a step in the right direction here though.

I imagine Civ VII raw resources could use possibilities of getting converted to more valuable products somehow.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I prefer buildings being put in classes instead of districts

What agricultural type buildings do you recommend

The earliest 'food' or agriculture-enhancing Building (that can be identified archeologically) is the (central) Granary, which shows up as early as 7000 BCE in the Peiligang Culture of central China and Sesklo Culture of Thessaly in northern Greece.
Later, central open areas indicate the probable presence of Markets, which not only produce 'Gold' or wealth, but more importantly make the distribution of food 'automatic' in that the population will trade and haggle among themselves without the 'government' having to distribute everything.
Mills to grind grain into flour centrally and more efficiently show up by the very beginning of the Roman Empire (0 - 25 CE) and may be much earlier, with large sized grinding stones initially powered by men or animals, later by waterwheels (the horizontal axis waterwheel was invented about 240 BCE in Alexandria, Egypt but there is no evidence yet that it was applied to grinding grain that early) or windmills (invented/used as early as 1700 BCE in Babylon, but only for raising water for irrigation. First definite evidence of use to grind grain is in 950 CE, the vertical-axis windmill developed in Persia both for grinding grain and raising water for irrigation)

After that, in the city you really have to wait for the Industrial/Modern Era and the development of Processed Food (breakfast cereals, canned foods, frozen foods in the late Industrial, and Supermarkets to distribute them efficiently in the Modern Era - first one in New York in 1930 CE)

Other 'Buildings' contributing to increase in Food Supply would be anything that increases and speeds up Trade - Harbors, sailing technologies, development of the wooden barrel as a Universal Container in about 100 CE, railroads, Warehouses, Containerization in the 1950s CE, Air Freight with jet aircraft for luxury or specialty food distribution, etc)

 

[8housesofelixir]

Granary ...... Markets ......Mills

Had a brief look at Humankind, what they have for "Agricultural Infrastructures" are: Millstone, Granary, Irrigations, Animal Barns, and Artificial Reservoirs.

Other 'Buildings' contributing to increase in Food Supply would be anything that increases and speeds up Trade - Harbors, sailing technologies, development of the wooden barrel as a Universal Container in about 100 CE, railroads, Warehouses, Containerization in the 1950s CE, Air Freight with jet aircraft for luxury or specialty food distribution, etc)

I would also add Canal here, that's how Chinese Empires supply their million-people capital in a pre-Industrial society. The other two major pre-Industrial million-people cities, Rome and Edo, were both being supplied by naval trade routes coming from other parts of the empire.

 

[Ryansinbela]

Could you check my Building list and see if it’s good

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Had a brief look at Humankind, what they have for "Agricultural Infrastructures" are: Millstone, Granary, Irrigations, Animal Barns, and Artificial Reservoirs.

Well aware. In fact, Food/Agriculture bonus-producing mechanisms has to include Agricultural Technologies, Buildings within the city and Improvements to the rural setting, which would include Irrigation techniques, biological manipulation (modified crops since the potato and maize began to be developed about 9000 BCE), different field usage, mechanization of plowing, planting, and harvesting, chemical enhancements (fertilizer, pesticides, etc) and finally, Future Tech of things like Direct Gene/Molecular manipulation, hydroponic advances and 'vertical farming'

I would also add Canal here, that's how Chinese Empires supply their million-people capital in a pre-Industrial society. The other two major pre-Industrial million-people cities, Rome and Edo, were both being supplied by naval trade routes coming from other parts of the empire.

My Bad: more generally, Water Transportation by canal, river or sea or all three was more important in the supply of food to a city than anything until the Railroad. Quite simply, without a water transportation means, no city of any size before the railroad could be sustained. Land transportation by any kind of animal-drawn transport was just not capable of delivering the tonnages required to feed a city, and after a certain point no amount of increased agricultural efficiency could supply enough food from close to the city.
In game terms, before trucks and railroads, the city radius remains 1 tile unless you have a river, canal, or seacoast with Harbor, and there's only so much you can do to extract food from that 1 tile radius.

 

[8housesofelixir]

In game terms, before trucks and railroads, the city radius remains 1 tile unless you have a river, canal, or seacoast with Harbor, and there's only so much you can do to extract food from that 1 tile radius.

Wholly agree. The majority of the pre-Industrial cities had a size of walking distance - Léon Krier wrote a lot of pieces argue for that fact. Super per-Industrial cities like Tang's Chang'an was actually a collection of small cities (called Fang 坊 in Chinese) clustered into a massive one (Chang'an had 108 Fangs, so basically 108 small cities), and the city also had a massive wheat field within the city wall.

In addition, I am not a huge fan of far-away Districts, and the current Civ VI cities don't look like a "Provincial Capital" either, so I cannot really say these Districts are "outlying specialized local towns". Therefore, similar to the food extraction, I think that Districts should be limited to the 1st ring of the City Center before the invention of Mass Transit. Limited District placements can also work towards City Specialization - since you cannot plop every single District in every single city, you really need to plan out what each city is actually for.

 

[Evie]

I'd much rather change districts to be outlying specialized towns and cities to be regional administrative center. The map size just don't support the notion of a city sprawling over even an inner ring, let alone a whole middle and outer ring too. That's the devs being utterly unable to work their ideas and their desire for smaller more competitive maps (urgh) at the same time and creating a horrendous hybrid due to that failure.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Wholly agree. The majority of the pre-Industrial cities had a size of walking distance - Léon Krier wrote a lot of pieces argue for that fact. Super per-Industrial cities like Tang's Chang'an was actually a collection of small cities (called Fang 坊 in Chinese) clustered into a massive one (Chang'an had 108 Fangs, so basically 108 small cities), and the city also had a massive wheat field within the city wall.

In addition, I am not a huge fan of far-away Districts, and the current Civ VI cities don't look like a "Provincial Capital" either, so I cannot really say these Districts are "outlying specialized local towns". Therefore, similar to the food extraction, I think that Districts should be limited to the 1st ring of the City Center before the invention of Mass Transit. Limited District placements can also work towards City Specialization - since you cannot plop every single District in every single city, you really need to plan out what each city is actually for.

I've put this in other threads but apparently not this one so I'll state it here.

What I think Civ 7 should do would be to have a separate 3 rings inside the city "center" which would be used for districts/wonders in order to make the cities not seen so spread out.
The other tiles around the city would be best saved for the improvements like normally and previous versions.

Some districts might need to be built farther away that would make sense like the military encampment or the harbor/naval districts needing to be built on water, etc but still be in the city "center".

 

[Jeppetto]

The problem is that founding City with good adjacency access and planning the adjacencies is major part of putting some brainpower to work when creating city and its infrastructure. Most of you want to remove that added aspect because you don't like its visual look. All it will lead to is even more effortless city-spam as now even the little planning required is gone. Why bother planning anything, just slap the city somewhere, multiply all benefits, all good. I really like Civ 6's District system more than Civ V's clicking things in the list simulator, even If it's just small step into better things. And once again I think we're reaching the territory of ruining gameplay aspect for historical realism, at which point let Rome auto-lose the game come Medieval Era... For history.

 

[Evie]

That seems wholly unrelated to what a lot of us are saying, and mostly you raising straw men for the sake of bashing everyone else in this thread.

Planning should matter. Adjacencies should matter. I don't think anyone has suggested otherwise. But the flavoring of those districts should not ne the gross nonsense that it is right now, where a single city with all its neighborhhod takes up half of Europe.