Civ 7 Speculation: Fundamental changes.

The folks in Old Town in Alexandria (VA) might disagree with you (as might those located in the Old Towns in Albuquerque, Chicago, San Diego and the many other places mentioned in this Wikipedia article).
I usually see the name historic district instead. You'll have to excuse me as I'm Texan and I'm not sure it's used as much down here. :o
 
To represent civilization's development through history, I think it would be interesting to combine alternate leaders with governors. At the start of the game player chose one of them as leader, while others could be hired as governors. Each person have their unique ability. If they are chosen as Leader, ability is applied to entire civilization, if they serve as governors, then ability is only applied to specific city. At the start of the new era player can decide to change Leader.

It also could be interesting to combine governors with Great People. For example, a Great Scientist give eureka for some techology, and then can become scientific governor in a city with campus. Each scientific governor would have standart abilities (like current governors), but also have some unique bonus ability.

If Historic Moments and Dedications would appear in Civ 7, then let them be specific for each civilization based on real history instead of the same variants for everyone. Maybe even make some sort of "quest" for each civilization based on real history. By completing each step of the quest player would unlock some additional, unique for this Civ bonuses. Maybe even lock all Civ bonuses behind the quest, so it would not be enough to just research some techology to get unique unit/building etc., player also should perform additional actions, for example get access to some resource.
 
Make the map a globe you can spin around by end-game. The main menu shows the map you have revealed in your last save game as a globe similar to the Civ IV main menu's view of Earth, letting you instantly remember where you last left off.
 

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It would feel cool since you get your own globe to spin around and watch the sun rise over, a unique change of perspective compared to the cylindrical earths of V and VI.
 
I guess I’m just accustomed to the flat earth (don’t worry not in real life)

Seems legit to have two-dimesional and three-dimensional perspective at the same time.
Same as a CIV VII minimal edition, with cartoony graphics and all the candy and whistles, and a pro edition, with ultra-stylized graphic but strong mathematic envision perhaps?
 
Another thought I'm having:

Barbarians should go. They don't really correspond ot any historical reality - just to clichés of greco-roman history. But most of the most noticeable barbarian groups of Greco-Roman history have long since been added as one civ or another in the game.

What we should have instead of Barbarians in the old Civ sense is that *everyone* is perceived as a barbarian in the early game. It's only with certain techs and civics, and prolonged contact, that perception shift from barbarians to an identified civilization.

Barbarian civs, and barbarian city states, exist in a state that's neither war nor peace: units can fight (how likely a civ is to be aggressive as barbarians would depend on their settings, etc), but you can have ongoing trade deals with neighboring barbarian cities even while your units are fighting. Trade routes and trade deals would accelerate recognition of a civ as a civilization and moving them outside the Barbarian group. Ideally, you would be able to see their settlement, but maybe not even their names - that would require advancing your communications with that civ (eg, learning their language).

There should be commensurately more city states and cities in the game, to allow for the ones that will invariably be destroyed as Barbarian Encampments in the early stage of the game. Which can also have long-term consquences ("Oh, you were hoping to run into the Jerusalem City State? Too bad, you razed it back when it was a Barbarian Camp...")

Honestly I think Barbarians should stay and the concept of city states should actually be removed. Or it should be like a City state/Barbarian hybrid.

Now I’m not a civ 6 player but, I’ve been playing since civ 3 and haven’t really liked the direction it’s taken with the lack of realism and historical accuracy since civ 5.

I mostly play Rise of Mankind a New Dawn Mod for Civ 4 and for the most part that has satisfied my itch.

One of the features I like is overtime Barbarian cities have the ability to transform into another civilization.

The mod also has option where every player essentially starts out as a proto civilization or small tribe and everyone is essentially at war until you reach the required tech required for diplomacy.
 
I agree although I just think Barbarians should just be Civs with very little diplomatic relations

After all, Barbarians originally just meant people who didn’t speak Greek or follow Greek customs
 
Early civs were built on an idea about how civilization developed and worked throughout the scale of history that they were trying to represent. This wasn't a perfect idea, or even a good idea, but it was an idea. Civ 6 doesn't have an idea. It's a bunch of (purportedly) fun game mechanics and impressions of history that the designers want to present. It's a hodgepodge without a unifying idea or theory.

Let me provide an example. Since the beginning of Civ through 4, you chose every turn what percentage of your commerce yields became gold versus science versus luxuries/culture. This reflected an idea that scientific progress had something to do with commerce and that civilizations at some level had to choose between present wealth (and all that entailed, such as maintenance of large empires) and a 90's notion of "progress". That may not really be how it works, but it at least grounded the production of science in something.

By contrast, in Civ 6, science appears randomly. It grows from the ground, sciency buildings make more of it, it is gained in trade routes, it comes from various resources. There is no unifying explanation for why any of these things create science. Instead, each one has its own justification (Peter's trade routes represent his Westernization drive/Campuses are where sciency stuff happens/mountains are places where people look at the stars). As a result, science is totally incoherent, and because it isn't grounded in anything, it is full of easily exploitable things.

In order for Civ 7 to continue to compete (for me) as a 4x against Old World and Humankind, the Civ 7 designers need some sort of new idea to introduce, and to unify all of the admittedly interesting game mechanics that they have dabbled with since 5. Clearly based on our discussions of new civs etc., a racial/ethnic framework is untenable at best and offensive at worst.
 
Make the map a globe you can spin around by end-game. The main menu shows the map you have revealed in your last save game as a globe similar to the Civ IV main menu's view of Earth, letting you instantly remember where you last left off.

In the past I thought a spherical world map would be cool but now I'm a little skeptical. Some people see Civ analogous to a board game hence no true spherical map. I would prefer if Firaxis brought back the zooming out satellite feature from civ 4 that gave the illusion of a spherical world.

If they do take the time to implement some spherical like map I don't think Hexagon tiles are going to work. There's been much discussion on the forums in the past how a spherical map could work but it's mathematically impossible to make a perfect spherical map with hexagon tiles without adding pentagons.

I kind of think those who want a spherical map have been thinking about it wrong, and really a spherical cube might be better. Though that would require going back to square tiles.

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In the past I thought a spherical world map would be cool but now I'm a little skeptical. Some people see Civ analogous to a board game hence no true spherical map. I would prefer if Firaxis brought back the zooming out satellite feature from civ 4 that gave the illusion of a spherical world.

If they do take the time to implement some spherical like map I don't think Hexagon tiles are going to work. There's been much discussion on the forums in the past how a spherical map could work but it's mathematically impossible to make a perfect spherical map with hexagon tiles without adding pentagons.

I kind of think those who want a spherical map have been thinking about it wrong, and really a spherical cube might be better. Though that would require going back to square tiles.

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You need a few pentagons with your hexes, but how would that be an issue ?

I mean, the mix works for Rimworld, why not for civ ?
 
You go to a new iteration because you want to attract new players to the game. You make another expansion if you want to keep the existing userbase paying. With that in mind you need to simplify the game and make it easier for new players, not add more stuff to what is a fairly overwhelming game for a lot of people. Every person I've tried to introduce to civ VI just finds all the bonuses a bit overwhelming...

Something like getting rid of city states and faith as a resource. Then have religion in game act in a similar way to city states.

I wouldn't consider it a fundamental change, but some of the discussion here led me to the idea that what if there just wasn't a city center district. What if when you found a city, that tile becomes a district of any available type.
 
You go to a new iteration because you want to attract new players to the game. You make another expansion if you want to keep the existing userbase paying. With that in mind you need to simplify the game and make it easier for new players, not add more stuff to what is a fairly overwhelming game for a lot of people. Every person I've tried to introduce to civ VI just finds all the bonuses a bit overwhelming...

Something like getting rid of city states and faith as a resource. Then have religion in game act in a similar way to city states.

The Vanilla Game is already a fine Place for new Players. And CSs are one of the simplest implementations of the Game, nothing that can confuse someone.
Although, I find Faith generation a bit weird. It's not even as useful as the generation of Culture helping to research the Civics Tree (could have been better implemented). The only thing that it's useful for, is for buying stuff with it, which is just nonesense (How should Faith Buy you Units and Buildings? Pray for it and you shall have it?), except for Religious Units. But that's not enough reason to make Faith be abe to be generated, at least not in this sense. Perhaps making Faith as a Mechanism like the Loyalty Systeme (available as a Mode, so you can switch it on an off as you like, with the appropriate Relegious Victory Type of course).

And speaking of Modes, I think they are a good implementations, since you could customize the Game Settings as you like, without the need of a Expansion that comes with a set of new Mechanics, that you can't choose which one to have in the Game and which not (wouldn't hurt to have the option to desable the World Congress).

I wouldn't consider it a fundamental change, but some of the discussion here led me to the idea that what if there just wasn't a city center district. What if when you found a city, that tile becomes a district of any available type.
I would prefer to be able to build the Tier 1 Buildings in the CC, because a Campus "District" in the Ancient Era, just to have the Library in it, isn't realistic.
 
With that in mind you need to simplify the game and make it easier for new players, not add more stuff to what is a fairly overwhelming game for a lot of people. Every person I've tried to introduce to civ VI just finds all the bonuses a bit overwhelming...
Maybe they're just not 4X players? Civ6 is pretty simple and straightforward as far as 4X games go. I for one want to see Civ7 more integrated, not more simple (except insofar as some simplification is necessary when comparing an expanded game versus a base game).

Something like getting rid of city states and faith as a resource. Then have religion in game act in a similar way to city states.
I strongly disagree with getting rid of city-states. Unique city-states have been a wonderful outgrowth from generic city-states in Civ5, and I'd like to see Civ7 progress to the next logical step of minor factions (and roll barbarians into that system, too). However, I strongly agree that Civ6's implementation of religion is horrible. Religious Victory was a major misstep. TBH I wouldn't mind seeing government work like Civ6 religion, while religion should be something that appears spontaneously and something that the player can react to (adopt, ignore, suppress) rather than control. Paradox mechanics are rarely a good fit for Civ, but I actually think CK3's religion system would work great for Civ7.

And speaking of Modes, I think they are a good implementations, since you could customize the Game Settings as you like, without the need of a Expansion that comes with a set of new Mechanics, that you can't choose which one to have in the Game and which not (wouldn't hurt to have the option to desable the World Congress).
I sympathize as there are expansion features I, too, would like gone, particularly the World Congress and tornadoes specifically, but that's only going to exacerbate the problem that systems don't interact.
 
I strongly disagree with getting rid of city-states. Unique city-states have been a wonderful outgrowth from generic city-states in Civ5, and I'd like to see Civ7 progress to the next logical step of minor factions (and roll barbarians into that system, too). However, I strongly agree that Civ6's implementation of religion is horrible. Religious Victory was a major misstep. TBH I wouldn't mind seeing government work like Civ6 religion, while religion should be something that appears spontaneously and something that the player can react to (adopt, ignore, suppress) rather than control. Paradox mechanics are rarely a good fit for Civ, but I actually think CK3's religion system would work great for Civ7.
I totally agree with you!
 
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