ggalindo001
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2002
- Messages
- 304
I must first admit that I am really enjoying Old World -- and I never thought I would. I'm not that big of a fan of this time period, and I always love taking my civilization into the modern "space age" eras. In spite of that, I have just been gobsmacked at how much I am enjoying this game, and several concepts that I believe should be contemplated in the (hopefully) future Civ VII. All of these, but one, could potentially be added into Civ VI to make that game go into the stratosphere -- in other words, these are not complex changes and mostly "no-brainers" in terms of forwarding the genre forward. And most importantly, all can be easily max-min by the AI to make for a very solid opponent at higher levels without "cheating".
1. Technology choices limited to selection of what is drawn at a given time -- To me, this is BY FAR the most important item that should be contemplated into the Civ series. Instead of "fast tracking" research and civics, now I have a bit of the luck of the draw in terms of the tech tree. It is not constraining -- but because of the implementation, if there is a tech you really want, you have to really weigh the strategic choice of selecting now vs. waiting for the "deck" to be reshuffled. And the introduction of the "wild cards" of free X really also make decisioning interesting. I know there are other "systems" that appear to be more impactful -- but in my opinion, this very understated item, must be ported over to Civ 7 to really put more interesting, strategic choice into research and civics.
2. The introduction of multiple "currencies" (strength, money, civics, growth, etc.) -- It takes a little getting used to, but once I realized the power of this, it because very intuitive and incredibly flexible in wide vs tall. To those that do not have the game, if you are building a unit, you use the city's strength currency to build it -- meanwhile other currencies in the city go to the empire-wide stockpile. On the strength side in particular, it leads to the strategic decision of building units in city in a powerhouse strength city vs. allow it to go empire-wide and be used in the field. Again, a very interesting decision to make.
3. The introduction of orders -- For most folks that I have read reviews of in comparison, this is what they cite as the biggest -- it clearly is the most obvious. Another clear no-brainer -- and it makes for some very interesting strategic decisions esp. when at war. I have found myself having to make very critical decisions on my precious orders and often have to make strategic sacrifices for my greater goal. And everything requires orders -- healing requires orders, promotion requires orders, building requires orders, changing governors requires orders. In critical situations, you often cannot do everything you want or need to do. It creates significant strategic tension for the player.
4. City Combat -- I find in Old World that it is still a little difficult for the AI to take a city, but not nearly as impossible post walls for the AI in Civ 6. Basically, the way it works is that you do have city defenses (which can be enhanced by walls, moats, etc.) and then if there is a unit in the city, that unit takes a some of the damage away from the city defenses. If you don't have a garrisoned unit in the city, your cities can fall quickly to the invaders - and without the Civ 6 "ranged fire" mechanism. If you do have a unit in the city, then you can fire back, etc. while still having material defensive city defenses. This approach feels a lot more balanced than what you see in Civ 6 where city capture by the AI is almost impossible after walls.
5. City Placement -- One of the more controversial items is that you can only found cities in specific spots on the map. I think this also adds to strategic tension early in the game (and ostensibly protects against suboptimal city placement by the AI) -- if I saw this ported over to Civ 7, I would do this on the initial map, but then once a particular technology is founded (a late Renaissance or early Industrial era technology), then you can found cities anywhere on the map. In the Civ series, this would make early wars necessary to expand, and in the late game, the removal of the restriction would allow for both colonized expansion and national growth.
6. One Unit Per Tile done better -- I will first say that I am a fan of limited stacking of units (there is a mod in Civ 6 that allows for one melee, one ranged, one mounted) in a tile -- and would like to see something like this get some prominence in Civ 7 -- however, I am very much a fan of how Old World dealt with 1UPT and certain units. Ranged units hit their intended target, and collateral damage units that surround the target. Spear classes "penetrate" the intended target and create damage to the unit behind the target. Axemen have "cleave" capability which hit their intended target and then collateral damage to the units to the left and right. Small changes but create some depth in terms of staging the attacking units (and setting up your defensive positions).
7. Scouts that actually work -- In every Civ game, Scouts are generally throwaway units after the early discovery phase. In Old World, they are vital across the entire game. In the early to mid-game, they are needed to understand if a major attack is coming from beyond -- and in the late game, to know what you will need to bring to the table in an attack/counterattack. Their "hide" ability in the woods make them perfect map revealers throughout. I find myself building a few strategically placed scouts throughout the game.
These were the "easy to implement" no-brainers.
I also think some of the other items that Old World brings to the table should be contemplated, though they are not "easy to implement"
1. Families and Dynastic leadership -- This is another item that at first I thought I would absolutely turn off -- I don't want to care about all of these families, etc. What I found is that it not only adds a level of color to the game, it adds unbelievable strategic depth that can make or break your macro strategic goals. All within your relative control. And this could be very much "evolved" based on the nature of your industrial era governments (democracy -- you have to keep the "families" (now Political Parties) happy or you can be voted out, communism -- you have to keep the "families" (now Politboro) happy or you will be overthrown, etc.) This would not be an easy add, and it would have to evolve over the life of a civilization game -- but it is a dynamic that could add a lot to the game. And the fact these families can influence pockets of your units as well -- and slow down production for cities that are not happy with you.
2. Events that range from small to major -- I think there is a real reluctance on the part of Civ 6 to not have "bad events" that you cannot somehow control. I think that is a mistake. I've had several situations in Old World where an event happened that forced me to do something that I didn't want to do. Most of the time, it is having to choose a side in a war between 2 other empires -- and by choosing a side, you are going to be declared war on by the other. Civ 5 had something similar with the ideologies, this was a real miss in Civ 6 where I could just be-bop around and not have to choose. This has added tremendous challenge to the gameplay as a result.
.
3. AI that at least isn't brain-dead -- My biggest gripe on Civ 6 is the brain dead AI -- the Old World AI still has issues, but it still must be respected. You can no longer get away with building a few units and go full builder mode -- you must have a defense or you will be overrun. Combat AI is decent -- not perfect, but certainly way better than Civ 6. I did have one game of Old World where the AI Babylon had clear technological superiority, but because I had lots of units on defensive positions, they never attacked. This was on "Strong" (medium) difficulty. I have a feeling had that been on one of the upper difficulties, they would have gone after me. And the toggle of Ruthless AI is helpful in this respect as well. What is impressive about the AI is the "builder AI" --- because of many of the items above that can be Max-Min by the AI, even with non human combat AI, it serves as a formidable challenge. I've had more than one situation where the AI "suckered" me into a war thinking I would clean up, only because of bad scouting, they unleased hordes of units against me once my units were exposed in open terrain.
And I wanted AI to be the last item here, as much as it is far superior to Civ 6, I wanted this to be mostly a discussion beyond AI.
Two final thoughts
1. I really want Civ 7 to be awesome -- I like the mechanics of Old World, but I really would want this on a Civilization series wide scale. And there are a lot of things that Civilization does well that Old World doesn't even attempt -- so this isn't meant to bash Civ 6 (except maybe the AI) but ideas on improvement.
2. If you haven't tried Old World -- I would highly recommend it. Outside of the Civilization series, it is the only game I have played in the 4x genre that gives me that "one more turn" feeling.
1. Technology choices limited to selection of what is drawn at a given time -- To me, this is BY FAR the most important item that should be contemplated into the Civ series. Instead of "fast tracking" research and civics, now I have a bit of the luck of the draw in terms of the tech tree. It is not constraining -- but because of the implementation, if there is a tech you really want, you have to really weigh the strategic choice of selecting now vs. waiting for the "deck" to be reshuffled. And the introduction of the "wild cards" of free X really also make decisioning interesting. I know there are other "systems" that appear to be more impactful -- but in my opinion, this very understated item, must be ported over to Civ 7 to really put more interesting, strategic choice into research and civics.
2. The introduction of multiple "currencies" (strength, money, civics, growth, etc.) -- It takes a little getting used to, but once I realized the power of this, it because very intuitive and incredibly flexible in wide vs tall. To those that do not have the game, if you are building a unit, you use the city's strength currency to build it -- meanwhile other currencies in the city go to the empire-wide stockpile. On the strength side in particular, it leads to the strategic decision of building units in city in a powerhouse strength city vs. allow it to go empire-wide and be used in the field. Again, a very interesting decision to make.
3. The introduction of orders -- For most folks that I have read reviews of in comparison, this is what they cite as the biggest -- it clearly is the most obvious. Another clear no-brainer -- and it makes for some very interesting strategic decisions esp. when at war. I have found myself having to make very critical decisions on my precious orders and often have to make strategic sacrifices for my greater goal. And everything requires orders -- healing requires orders, promotion requires orders, building requires orders, changing governors requires orders. In critical situations, you often cannot do everything you want or need to do. It creates significant strategic tension for the player.
4. City Combat -- I find in Old World that it is still a little difficult for the AI to take a city, but not nearly as impossible post walls for the AI in Civ 6. Basically, the way it works is that you do have city defenses (which can be enhanced by walls, moats, etc.) and then if there is a unit in the city, that unit takes a some of the damage away from the city defenses. If you don't have a garrisoned unit in the city, your cities can fall quickly to the invaders - and without the Civ 6 "ranged fire" mechanism. If you do have a unit in the city, then you can fire back, etc. while still having material defensive city defenses. This approach feels a lot more balanced than what you see in Civ 6 where city capture by the AI is almost impossible after walls.
5. City Placement -- One of the more controversial items is that you can only found cities in specific spots on the map. I think this also adds to strategic tension early in the game (and ostensibly protects against suboptimal city placement by the AI) -- if I saw this ported over to Civ 7, I would do this on the initial map, but then once a particular technology is founded (a late Renaissance or early Industrial era technology), then you can found cities anywhere on the map. In the Civ series, this would make early wars necessary to expand, and in the late game, the removal of the restriction would allow for both colonized expansion and national growth.
6. One Unit Per Tile done better -- I will first say that I am a fan of limited stacking of units (there is a mod in Civ 6 that allows for one melee, one ranged, one mounted) in a tile -- and would like to see something like this get some prominence in Civ 7 -- however, I am very much a fan of how Old World dealt with 1UPT and certain units. Ranged units hit their intended target, and collateral damage units that surround the target. Spear classes "penetrate" the intended target and create damage to the unit behind the target. Axemen have "cleave" capability which hit their intended target and then collateral damage to the units to the left and right. Small changes but create some depth in terms of staging the attacking units (and setting up your defensive positions).
7. Scouts that actually work -- In every Civ game, Scouts are generally throwaway units after the early discovery phase. In Old World, they are vital across the entire game. In the early to mid-game, they are needed to understand if a major attack is coming from beyond -- and in the late game, to know what you will need to bring to the table in an attack/counterattack. Their "hide" ability in the woods make them perfect map revealers throughout. I find myself building a few strategically placed scouts throughout the game.
These were the "easy to implement" no-brainers.
I also think some of the other items that Old World brings to the table should be contemplated, though they are not "easy to implement"
1. Families and Dynastic leadership -- This is another item that at first I thought I would absolutely turn off -- I don't want to care about all of these families, etc. What I found is that it not only adds a level of color to the game, it adds unbelievable strategic depth that can make or break your macro strategic goals. All within your relative control. And this could be very much "evolved" based on the nature of your industrial era governments (democracy -- you have to keep the "families" (now Political Parties) happy or you can be voted out, communism -- you have to keep the "families" (now Politboro) happy or you will be overthrown, etc.) This would not be an easy add, and it would have to evolve over the life of a civilization game -- but it is a dynamic that could add a lot to the game. And the fact these families can influence pockets of your units as well -- and slow down production for cities that are not happy with you.
2. Events that range from small to major -- I think there is a real reluctance on the part of Civ 6 to not have "bad events" that you cannot somehow control. I think that is a mistake. I've had several situations in Old World where an event happened that forced me to do something that I didn't want to do. Most of the time, it is having to choose a side in a war between 2 other empires -- and by choosing a side, you are going to be declared war on by the other. Civ 5 had something similar with the ideologies, this was a real miss in Civ 6 where I could just be-bop around and not have to choose. This has added tremendous challenge to the gameplay as a result.
.
3. AI that at least isn't brain-dead -- My biggest gripe on Civ 6 is the brain dead AI -- the Old World AI still has issues, but it still must be respected. You can no longer get away with building a few units and go full builder mode -- you must have a defense or you will be overrun. Combat AI is decent -- not perfect, but certainly way better than Civ 6. I did have one game of Old World where the AI Babylon had clear technological superiority, but because I had lots of units on defensive positions, they never attacked. This was on "Strong" (medium) difficulty. I have a feeling had that been on one of the upper difficulties, they would have gone after me. And the toggle of Ruthless AI is helpful in this respect as well. What is impressive about the AI is the "builder AI" --- because of many of the items above that can be Max-Min by the AI, even with non human combat AI, it serves as a formidable challenge. I've had more than one situation where the AI "suckered" me into a war thinking I would clean up, only because of bad scouting, they unleased hordes of units against me once my units were exposed in open terrain.
And I wanted AI to be the last item here, as much as it is far superior to Civ 6, I wanted this to be mostly a discussion beyond AI.
Two final thoughts
1. I really want Civ 7 to be awesome -- I like the mechanics of Old World, but I really would want this on a Civilization series wide scale. And there are a lot of things that Civilization does well that Old World doesn't even attempt -- so this isn't meant to bash Civ 6 (except maybe the AI) but ideas on improvement.
2. If you haven't tried Old World -- I would highly recommend it. Outside of the Civilization series, it is the only game I have played in the 4x genre that gives me that "one more turn" feeling.