[GS] Civ VI lacks tension

[ezysquire]

A lot of the issues faced (including global warming) are in fact population based.
They should be speeding up population growth in the modern ages and having effects based on that. But that is just one of 1000 ideas posted never to see the light of day.

That's a good one, fitting the franchise genre as being true to history.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Reading the last page or so of Posts, I think there is a lot of agreement here on what could be done to enliven the mid-late game:
1. Improve Food production and distribution through sharing, Irrigation changes, Trade (railroads and sea), city radius changes, leading to Mega Cities with a whole new set of mechanics and problems to solve and capabilities in the late game (Atomic Era on)
2. Increase Instability - Decrease Linearity of the game. Your Empire should go through real Dark Ages or Dim Ages, have to solve new problems every Era to keep anything like an Upward Growth path.
3. Increase Variety - ways of doing things, laying out Improvements, building up Cities in the mid-game so that First Founded - Best Founded isn't the norm for all expansion throughout the game.
4. Obsolescence. Some things you did early in the game should become completely Counterproductive later on: Civics and Beliefs should become Obsolete and require to be replaced - which means, Religious Beliefs should not appear all at once, any more than Resources should.

And, hauling in ideas from some other Threads on the Forums:
Keep the game Fun as well as Continuously Interesting.
That includes having things happen to your Empire that are totally Random (increasing Non-Linearity) but not Game Breaking: a Great Entertainer appears (early Rock Band?) a schismatic Religion starts up - which you can either try to suppress or embrace or ignore and see What Happens Next, because it might change things, but it won't cripple you. Natural 'Disasters' have additional Results: Volcanic eruption reveals a New Resource, a coastal storm scours out a new bay which teems with fish or other coastal resource, a river changes its course as a result of flood or drought and presents new potential and lucrative city location - or so debases an existing site that a city stops growing without intervention - which means that cities can potentially Disappear - providing a site for major Archeological discoveries Eras later, including Great Works of Art/Sculpture coming out of the buried ruins: Venus of Samothrace or the Alexander Mosaic from Pompeii or Chinese Bronzes.
And every event has some pundit making a comment on it.

I'll add some others from the Mod Community:
Give every Great Person a personalized portrait instead of a 'generic head'.
Colorize the Great Historical Moments illustrations
Pump up the map more: Tsunami Waves (Light) crashing on the shore, storm effects like trees crashing down in the rainforest and woods tiles, cattle floating downstream in a flood - if the Map is going for Cartoon Colors, add some real Cartoon Effects. . .

This game "Coulda been a Contender" (quote: Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront) - and it still could.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Usually, designers can't resist the allure of making their random/internal struggle mechanics into something that reduces player agency rather than increases it.

Such is objectively a detriment to "strategy". For it not to be a detriment, choices made should matter more rather than less.

 

[JB1980]

For what it’s worth, I think one bigger factor they could tackle is governments. Effectively you can do what ever you want under any of the governments in the game. This is not realistic. There is no need to pacify nobles in a monarchy, or radical sects in a theocracy, or the opposition in a democracy.

I remember in the original Civ trying to go to war in a Democracy only to find it was blocked by an internal political party. This obviously got defeated by the work around switch to a republic or monarchy and then back again in a few turns.

Imagine having to pacify the Zulu War Party after not having fought a war for several centuries. Or the Indian pacifist Party under Ghandi causing mass sit downs amongst your military after you spend 50 years fight an offensive war in the modern era. These could be added as flavor to the different Vic’s and leaders to add tension to ruling the empire.

It could also change over time depending on which government type you had, and the general positioning out of the policy settings of the world around you. For example, why aren’t I having to spend time dealing with an internal threat from a nationalist party who wants us to strut boldly on the world stage by starting a major conflict, or from a socialist party for me ting a revolt against the democratic capitalist government because hey life is good in the next door communist empire.

Bring in negatives or blockers for doing things against the flavor of your government type, civ and leader traits.

 

[acluewithout]

Civ isn't designed to have a lot of empire management and I'm okay with that. Although... it would be nice if it had just a little more.

In particular. I'd would be great if maintenance costs ratcheted up more over time (Sea Walls sort of do that - but not well) and power should be more of a requirement - it's just so optional.

The Urban Complexity Mod on Steam has some good idea for power - although maybe goes a bit to far. But something as simple as Cities having inherent power requirements after you research certain techs, and Cities with insufficient power being unhappy, would be great.

It would also be great if loyalty and happiness fluctuated more based on things like ideology and distance from your capital.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Civ isn't designed to have a lot of empire management and I'm okay with that. Although... it would be nice if it had just a little more.

In particular. I'd would be great if maintenance costs ratcheted up more over time (Sea Walls sort of do that - but not well) and power should be more of a requirement - it's just so optional.

This is part of what I think is a wider problem: Costs of all kinds rising over time, but being balanced (at least sort of) against rising income. - And not just for 'Gold' costs: one big disconnect in the game now is how the rising Production costs of units are not matched by rising Production capacity even with fully powered Factories in the late game. To use a simple Historical Example, it took the Romans months to manufacture enough weapons and armor to equip a Legion, and a Legion was not considered fully trained and reliable until it had been in existence for at least 5 years. In WWII, the USA could manufacture enough tanks, vehicles and weapons to equip an armored division in about a week, and have the division fully trained and operational in 1 year.
Oh, and the armored division had about 3 times the number of men that a Legion had, and required about 40,000 tons of steel/oil/rubber for its equipment and vehicles where the Legion required about 120 tons of iron for its weapons and armor.
The difference is in Orders of Magnitude, but the Production capability increase from the Industrial Revolution more than matched it.

I'd like to see the Industrial Revolution/Industrial Era start a massive increase in both Gold and Production income, and Gold and Production costs. A sailing ship's maintenance amounted to replacing sailors who drowned or retired, torn sails and rotten rope and occasional rotten plank - and they lasted a long time: rthe wooden sailing ship-of-the-line HMS Victory was in active service for almost 60 years, far longer than any modern (iron/steel) capital ship. A steaming Ironclad required constant fuel (coal) and mechanical maintenance in skilled mechanics, spare parts, machinery. The constant Maintenance Costs, basically, went through the roof compared to earlier ships - unless you had a heavy industry infrastructure in Steel Mills, Shipyards, coal and iron industry (Factories, Powerplants) to produce what you needed in quantity.
Put simply, a Pre-Industrial Civ cannot easily build, and cannot possibly afford to keep, an Ironclad or later warship.
To use an In-Game Example, the battleship Minas Geraes, Brazil's UU, was built for Brazil by Great Britain, and had to be upgraded in the Philadelphia Naval Yard because Brazil did not have the industrial infrastructure to either build or maintain a battleship: Minas Geras' sister ship rusted away at dock because they couldn't even afford routine running maintenance on her, and that disconnect between Requirements and Capabilities should be in the game.

BUT balanced carefully, or we'll get the same disconnect we've already got in cost of units versus Production now.

 

[Infixo]

To use a simple Historical Example, it took the Romans months to manufacture enough weapons and armor to equip a Legion, and a Legion was not considered fully trained and reliable until it had been in existence for at least 5 years. In WWII, the USA could manufacture enough tanks, vehicles and weapons to equip an armored division in about a week, and have the division fully trained and operational in 1 year.

Probably that is one the reasons why 1 turn is 40 years in the early game, and becomes 0.5 year at the end.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

For what it’s worth, I think one bigger factor they could tackle is governments. Effectively you can do what ever you want under any of the governments in the game. This is not realistic. There is no need to pacify nobles in a monarchy, or radical sects in a theocracy, or the opposition in a democracy.

I remember in the original Civ trying to go to war in a Democracy only to find it was blocked by an internal political party. This obviously got defeated by the work around switch to a republic or monarchy and then back again in a few turns.

Imagine having to pacify the Zulu War Party after not having fought a war for several centuries. Or the Indian pacifist Party under Ghandi causing mass sit downs amongst your military after you spend 50 years fight an offensive war in the modern era. These could be added as flavor to the different Vic’s and leaders to add tension to ruling the empire.

It could also change over time depending on which government type you had, and the general positioning out of the policy settings of the world around you. For example, why aren’t I having to spend time dealing with an internal threat from a nationalist party who wants us to strut boldly on the world stage by starting a major conflict, or from a socialist party for me ting a revolt against the democratic capitalist government because hey life is good in the next door communist empire.

Bring in negatives or blockers for doing things against the flavor of your government type, civ and leader traits.

Great post! I agree.

Probably that is one the reasons why 1 turn is 40 years in the early game, and becomes 0.5 year at the end.

Yes. Each Population number was also specified as increasing exponentially, back in earlier versions of the game, which helped explained why the food tank got bigger and bigger.

These types of fudges make a lot of sense from a game design perspective. The question is always how much do you want each era to feel different, and how much do you want it to feel the same?

 

[Fippy]

IV has lots of tension until you "master" deity, i had years of not knowing which games i will be able to win,
or if an AI will run away with culture (wave Gandhi), or AP votes.
Let's please not compare real Civ games with smartphone games like VI.

Moderator Action: Please do not troll this community with lines like your last. It is not civil. leif

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Probably that is one the reasons why 1 turn is 40 years in the early game, and becomes 0.5 year at the end.

Very glad you mentioned that, because I should have - thank you.

BUT in terms of play of the game, the relative Production Capability compared to Production Requirements, even with the telescoped time frame, just isn't there, and it hasn't been there for a long time (since the deletion of influence form multiple Factories/Industrial Hubs before the 1st expansion pack, Rise and Flail)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IV has lots of tension until you "master" deity, i had years of not knowing which games i will be able to win,
or if an AI will run away with culture (wave Gandhi), or AP votes.
Let's please not compare real Civ games with smartphone games like VI.

Comparing the reason why some games have tension and others don't was kind of the point though.

I did point out the same earlier in this thread - that choices need to be meaningful to outcome, and that having no pressure of losing directly implies most choices made aren't.

 

[ChocolateShake]

I think the game just needs the AI to focus on specific victory types at some point, and then just go for it. I would've lost quite a few more games had Gilgamesh figured out how to counter the spies that were stopping his last spaceship component, or a civ with lots of tourism gone all out to get to the finish line.

I'm enjoying Civ 6 quite a lot as I've always played Civ more as a relaxing game, the amount of warfare that I've always perceived to be necessary at deity hasn't appealed to me personally. Any empire management additional tension would be welcome. Civ 2 had civil wars which were exciting, I think it's time those made it back.

I also think the government system has to be revisited. In Rise of Nations, you had to choose between one government or another, with permanent effects. I think it's time a system like that is introduced, or something like rebellions breaking out if you change government.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Please discuss the topic. Civ4 version players trolling other versions does nothing to help understanding. Neither does sarcasm. Please be civil.