[R&F] Civ6 (Almost) Post Mortem

[Knightfall]

With Gathering Storm announced last month, I think it's safe to say that Civ6 is probably nearing the end of its development life cycle, if we assume that Firaxis will be following its standard "two expansion" rule. With that in mind, I was wondering what everyone thinks the series should do going forward: what new features worked and should be kept, which ones should be removed, and which ones should come back from older Civ games? For example, here are my thoughts:

Features to Keep:

• Districts - Made city specialization easier, forced players to spread out, made raiding more viable as a military tactic.
• Eurekas - More natural progression of technological development as opposed to always "beelining" certain techs.
• New Government System - Government and social policies are something that you can alter and fine-tune over time, rather than just being a list of bonuses to pick from.

Features to Discard:

• Hidden Diplomatic Agendas - These usually just become frustrating for the player to deal with, and make the AI seem arbitrary and irrational.
• Too Many Oddball Leaders/Civs - While I definitely think that it's good for the developers to include a diverse set of civilizations beyond the "old favorites" some of them (like the Macedonians or Cree) seem to be kind of random, as if they were inserted simply because they hadn't appeared in a Civ game before.

Features to Bring Back:

• More Units: Bringing back more unites from older games (such as the Longswordsman from Civ5, for example) would reduce the jarring effect of, say, having to keep Knights around until the Modern age because they upgrade directly into Tanks.

(Please note that I don't own Rise and Fall yet, so I can't comment directly on things that it introduces).

Update: I got Rise and Fall for Christmas about a week ago, so I should have a chance to dig into it's unique features now.

 

[Bitterman]

I like odd civs. Can't say the same about some, ejem, cherrypicked leaders.

Features to Keep:

• Districts - Already said.
• Civics - Because gives some reward for culture vs science.
• Government card system - Allows flexibilty and adpatative tactics.
• Worker Charges - Makes workforce something relevant for the entire game.

Features to Discard:

• District escalation costs - Makes the game even more boring in the later eras.
• Unit movement - Imo makes the game excessively slow and sloppy in certain situations.
• Religious combat - Ridiculous and tedious. Find another way to make religion relevant.

There are many more but its 24th December's night and it's time to harvest my crabs already.

 

[Knightfall]

Just thought of another feature to discard: "support units" like battering rams. You never really need to make these unless you're going full warmonger, and they sort of just feel like another thing to take up space and production.

 

[dagriggstar]

Also haven't played rise and fall

Keep
+ District, wonder and improvement systems. I group together as it's all essentially city planning
+ Leader specific agenda, helps differentiate the leaders
+ City state unique bonuses
+ Great people unique bonuses
+ government legacy bonus that increases over time

Scrap or drastically change
- Civics tree is essentially science 2.0. Would like to bring back culture flipping from 4, making loyalty redundant.
- government cards as they require took much micro
- 1UPT
- Weird unit gaps
- Random agendas
- civilisation abilities. Too many bonuses. In reality both leader and Civ bonuses just get thought of as being part of the same ability. I'd like for no Civ ability, UU, UD/I/B, at least 2 leaders (with different abilities) per Civ for 7.
- Tourism doesn't impact the game. I don't think the yield should be scrapped but it needs to do something else maybe flip or help flip cities cause unhappiness in others civs or well something

 

[redrum68]

Well, hopefully the expansion makes some major improvements as I've put 200+ hours into civ6 while having 1000+ hours into each civ3, civ4, and civ5. There honestly isn't that many things I'd keep from civ6 that wasn't already in previous games but here we go.

Keep
+ District/wonder system is at least a good idea though implementation still needs some work as it tends to seem to drag a lot mid/late game.
+ City state unique bonuses.
+ Great people unique bonuses.
+ Era progression influencing costs of some things and changing diplomacy penalties though some of the cost increases need tweaking.

Discard/Change
- Civics tree is lame and feels like another tech tree.
- Eurekas force players to end up going for the same things every game.
- Diplomacy and deals as its way too easy to take advantage of the AI as well as finding optimal deals takes way too much micro/time.
- AI leaders and agenda needs a lot of work as they tend to be schizophrenic.
- Government card system allows too much change in mid/late game causing lots of micro and needs to be more about building up bonuses not swapping them every 2 turns.
- Religious combat is just painful.
- Number of unit types and progression needs to be smoothed out with gaps just being too large and not enough variety.
- Culture/tourism just seems lacking and boring. I don't seem to end up in border wars or have culture bombing like in previous games.
- Sea tiles/cities are too weak.
- Most wonders are meaningless/weak/expensive.
- I'd rather have less civs that feel more unique than tons of civs whose bonuses and unique units/buildings mean very little.
- Lack of city diversity as all cities kind of end up feeling the same as I want to get them to 7 or 10 pop with the same districts and buildings. Don't end up with as much specialization and uniqueness across them.
- Worker system where they can only be used a few times which causes a lot of needing to build them and micro them throughout the game.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Keep
+ Wonders on the map. Makes the map look better and it's great to see your wonders on the main map.
+ Civics tree separate from tech tree. Just makes sense Social progress and tech progress are not the same and rarely move at the same pace.
+ Support and civilian units that attach to military units. Finally! It is so good to be able to escort a settler now!
+ Great People unique bonuses.
+ City State Unique bonuses.
+ Dark/Normal/Golden/Heroic Ages. Probably needs some tweaks but a great concept!
+ Builders instead of workers. Much better to get that instant gratification when a builder improves a tile, plus less micro.
+ Amenities. Works better than civ5's global happiness IMO.
+ Policy cards. Yes, I love being able to pick cards and customize the benefits my government gets.

Change
- 1upt. Moving groups of units is a real pain. It does not fit with the strategic scale of the game. Also, the AI simply can't handle it. I don't want "stacks of doom" but some small stacks or maybe merging different units like corps and armies would work. Corps and armies were a great concept that need to be taken further.
- Districts on the map. I know what the devs were going for. They wanted to add more interaction and strategy with the map but I don't feel like it quite works. It just looks weird that you are "unpacking" your city and spreading it out over hundreds of miles. I mean, NY has a financial district but it's still close to the city center, it's not in Connecticut! The idea that your city can have a district 2 tiles away is just weird. Plus, it makes cities look random and disjointed. Maybe if districts were renamed to "towns", it would work a lot better. Then, you could see districts as separate towns that are close to the main city and provide special benefits. Or, you could keep the district concept but just keep some districts inside the city center and some outside. Science, culture and commercial could be inside. I definitely want military encampments and airbases to stay on the main map as they are essentially military bases that should be separate from your city center. Space districts should stay outside.
- Governors. Another good idea that did not quite work out in the execution. Right now, they seem to add micro without a clear benefit. If you want to use them right, you basically have to shift them around constantly and keep track of what bonuses they give. So governors could be discarded and I don't think it would change the game that much. But if you keep them, they definitely should get a rework.
- Culture victory and tourism. I get how things (wonders, great works etcc) give you tourism but how tourism interacts with the culture victory is still very obtuse and unclear. So I feel like it definitely needs a rework.
- Religion. Picking unique bonuses for your religion is great but the whole mechanic of spreading your religion and religious combat is very micro and tedious. Definitely needs to be fixed.
- Loyalty. A good idea on paper but it needs more complexity.

Conclusion
Overall, civ6 was a big move forward for the franchise but there are some areas that still need some more work. For me, 1upt is the biggest item in the "change" column that needs a rework.

 

[Knightfall]

Overall, civ6 was a big move forward for the franchise but there are some areas that still need some more work. For me, 1upt is the biggest item in the "change" column that needs a rework.

I definitely agree that this game has been a "big move forward". Overall, I think it's going to have a trajectory similar to Civ3: initially controversial, some of its features didn't really work, and took a while to hit it its stride, but ultimately changed the franchise for the better.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I definitely agree that this game has been a "big move forward". Overall, I think it's going to have a trajectory similar to Civ3: initially controversial, some of its features didn't really work, and took a while to hit it its stride, but ultimately changed the franchise for the better.

Thanks. I suspect this conclusion will still hold true after Gathering Storm is released. GS appears to add a lot of good stuff that overall will move the franchise in the right direction even if some of the new features could use some improvement. Heck, I suspect that some day, we will look back and wonder why civ did not have climate change and natural disasters or grievances sooner and we won't want to go back to civ games that lacked these features.

 

[Sostratus]

Combat wise:
I think the shift to a linear combat formula (outcome based on difference in strength rather than ratios) is better. It's just easier to work around and balance and keeps things pretty easy to understand.
I also am very happy with the 1upt + corps/armies system when combined with support class units.
Support units are very underutilized as class, imo. We could be doing so much more with them. But I just can't help but keep coming back to the brilliance of corps/army units as a method to bolster combat strength (basically putting more units on one tile) with support units allowing utility. Right now supports basically exist as siege or healing, but there is no reason they couldn't become more refined and add extra breadth - like shield walls (mantlets) granting ranged defense for melee units, or making anti tank capability / machine gun crews a support unit to be embedded with a primary combat unit. (One can imagine gaining a big boost vs tanks or a "ranged first strike" on defense, a la Impi Spear throw in civ5.) Between the two layers you could pretty much dial in whatever you want.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Combat wise:
I think the shift to a linear combat formula (outcome based on difference in strength rather than ratios) is better. It's just easier to work around and balance and keeps things pretty easy to understand.
I also am very happy with the 1upt + corps/armies system when combined with support class units.
Support units are very underutilized as class, imo. We could be doing so much more with them. But I just can't help but keep coming back to the brilliance of corps/army units as a method to bolster combat strength (basically putting more units on one tile) with support units allowing utility. Right now supports basically exist as siege or healing, but there is no reason they couldn't become more refined and add extra breadth - like shield walls (mantlets) granting ranged defense for melee units, or making anti tank capability / machine gun crews a support unit to be embedded with a primary combat unit. (One can imagine gaining a big boost vs tanks or a "ranged first strike" on defense, a la Impi Spear throw in civ5.) Between the two layers you could pretty much dial in whatever you want.

I actually think that ranged units like archers and catapults should be moved to support so that you could attach them to melee units. It would make sense since ranged units like archers and catapults have typically worked in a support type role, not as a main force. For example, in combat, archers and catapults would never work alone but would be positioned behind the main force to soften them up before the main force charged forward. Just this simple rule change, allowing you to "stack" an archer or a catapult with a melee unit, would make a big difference to combat.

I also think you could expand the corp/army mechanic by adding an extra type, the "regiment":
regiment: 2 units
corp: 3 units
army: 4 units

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Governments and policy cards are the reason Civ5 players aren't playing Civ6.

What about Great People? Obviously the individualized care for each is a plus, but is GP recruitment something better or is it a step in the wrong direction?

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Governments and policy cards are the reason Civ5 players aren't playing Civ6.

What? Can you explain that? I think most would say that the governments and policy cards in civ6 are superior to civ5's social policies system. In civ6, we have real governments to choose and we can customize and change our policies whereas in civ5, we just get a static system of picking bonuses that you can't change.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

What you just said is exactly the reason I have heard, in testimony, that the players do not like civ6. There is nothing to elaborate; the explanation is that the freedom given by policy cards causes strategic optimization to produce homogenization. Add to this the cribbed tech tree and what you have is a game where you're playing the same game, every game.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

What you just said is exactly the reason I have heard, in testimony, that the players do not like civ6. There is nothing to elaborate; the explanation is that the freedom given by policy cards causes strategic optimization to produce homogenization. Add to this the cribbed tech tree and what you have is a game where you're playing the same game, every game.

Uh?! The social policies in civ5 sucked. You tended to pick the same ones every game too depending on your play style. Plus, it was so mechanical. Hit the next culture threshold, pick the next SP. It was utterly static and predictable. With civ6's cards, you are going to change it up depending on the game you are playing. They are much more flexible.

 

[RealAntithesis]

Change:
Districts: while fine as a concept, they should be attached to the city centre so the CBD can grow outwards in a more natural way rather than scattered over hundreds of miles all over the map. As such, the adjacency bonus system should be reworked to consider all tiles in the city territory. This would also reduce the unnecessary diversion of the adjacency mini game.

Religion:
Keep, but remove religious combat as a mechanic. Religion should be more of an abstract general concept affecting the civilisation. Rework the method of spreading and defending religions.

Loyalty and tourism: should be rolled into the culture mechanic. Especially tourism, which has absolutely no use (to me anyway).

Great People: unique abilities are good, but each Great Person should also have a generic ability for that class, so players then have a choice of either using the unique ability or, if the unique is more or less useless (eg boosts tourism), then the player can alternately go with the generic ability (eg improve a tile as in Civ5). This would also make Great Prophets somewhat relevant after all the religions are founded.

1upt: change to limited stacked armies. The existing corps and fleets are kludges that don't consider the benefits of the different types of units that actual armies or fleets utilise. While there has been a suggestion of making range units support instead, this essentially just introduces a form of stacking, so may as well work in a proper army and fleet mechanic (obviously without reintroducing the old stacks of doom).

Edit: wonders that are actually wondrous. There are quite a few wonders in Civ6 that seem quite useless and not worth taking up a tile for.

Add:
In addition to governments and civic cards, longer term 'doctrine' like bonuses that will define what you want your civilisation to be over its multi thousand year life. Certain more powerful doctrines could also have negative consequences.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

1upt: change to limited stacked armies. The existing corps and fleets are kludges that don't consider the benefits of the different types of units that actual armies or fleets utilise. While there has been a suggestion of making range units support instead, this essentially just introduces a form of stacking, so may as well work in a proper army and fleet mechanic (obviously without reintroducing the old stacks of doom).

I've given it a lot of thought recently and I am starting to think that perhaps the simplest and most elegant solution to 1upt would be to add "army units". These armies would be a single unit on the main map but with the equivalent combat strength of a small stack of single units. These army units would have both melee and ranged attack, would exert ZOC and would automatically lay siege to an adjacent enemy city. Of course, they would cost a lot to build and have high maintenance cost. Players could still build individual units for skirmishes and scouting. Small cities could still be useful to build these single units. But you could build army units from your big cities to actually conquer enemy territory. This idea is elegant because it would preserve the essence of 1upt while allowing the player to essentially build stacks in one go and in a way that is easy to manage.

Add:
In addition to governments and civic cards, longer term 'doctrine' like bonuses that will define what you want your civilisation to be over its multi thousand year life. Certain more powerful doctrines could also have negative consequences.

I love it. I might call them "national plan" or "national agenda". My thought is that they would interact with diplomacy as well as give you powerful bonuses. Each civ could have 2 active at the same time. The diplomatic aspect could work better than the current agendas and since these doctrines could change, it could change diplomatic relations in interesting ways. Maybe a civ is hostile towards you for awhile but then one of you changes doctrines and makes it easier to be more friendly.

Here are a couple examples I came up with. They would require gold to activate and take 1-2 turns to activate to prevent players from flipping between them too quickly.

Expansionist
+ diplomacy towards civs that settle far from them.
- diplomacy towards civs that settle near them.
+ 1 free settler in your capital when you first activate the doctrine
-25% cost to building settlers

Defensive
+ diplomacy to civs with units far from your border.
- diplomacy to civs with units near your border.
Free walls in your capital when you first activate the doctrine
-25% cost to building walls.

Trader
+ diplomacy to civs that send trade routes to you.
- diplomacy to civs that don't send trade routes to you.
+1 trade route capacity and +1 free trader in your capital when you first activate the doctrine
-25% cost to building traders.

Militaristic
+ diplomacy to civs with big militaries
- diplomacy to civs with small militaries
-25% cost to building military units

Philosopher
+ diplomacy with civs producing a lot of culture
- diplomacy with civs not producing a lot of culture
-25% cost to building culture districts

 

[Sostratus]

I love it. I might call them "national plan" or "national agenda". My thought is that they would interact with diplomacy as well as give you powerful bonuses.

Easy ways to make this work could be through the era dedication system - you are literally choosing a national dedication, just for era score instead of for policy reasons- or also through the government plaza. Build the building, level up your government, choose a "doctrine" to fine tune what your government is all about. This of course should be locked in until you change your government. perhaps it replaces the legacy bonus & card system and offers a little more flexibility. Are you a merchant republic focused on trade, or recruiting mercenary armies? Is your democracy focused on developing great people or providing for the welfare of your booming population? Etc.

In the past people have brought a desire to have gov't specific policy cards as well, which is getting at the same itch.

 

[RealAntithesis]

These armies would be a single unit on the main map but with the equivalent combat strength of a small stack of single units. These army units would have both melee and ranged attack, would exert ZOC and would automatically lay siege to an adjacent enemy city.

There are a couple of ways to do this. My version was to use Great Generals or purchasable 'lesser' generals to attach other units (melee, ranged, support) up to a certain limit (Great Generals would have a bigger army limit). Each unit would essentially retain their individuality and able to attack and defend separately but move as one army unit.

This way, the make up of the army is important and units can support each other with the strongest unit defending against attacks and the Great General also lending certain buffs and abilities as it goes up levels (lesser generals have no abilities).

The downside is that all the units in the army become susceptible to collateral damage from bombard, moves at the speed of the slowest unit and the maintenance costs are significantly higher than for each individual unit alone.

Same thing for Great Admirals and fleets.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

There are a couple of ways to do this. My version was to use Great Generals or purchasable 'lesser' generals to attach other units (melee, ranged, support) up to a certain limit (Great Generals would have a bigger army limit). Each unit would essentially retain their individuality and able to attack and defend separately but move as one army unit.

This way, the make up of the army is important and units can support each other with the strongest unit defending against attacks and the Great General also lending certain buffs and abilities as it goes up levels (lesser generals have no abilities).

The downside is that all the units in the army become susceptible to collateral damage from bombard, moves at the speed of the slowest unit and the maintenance costs are significantly higher than for each individual unit alone.

Same thing for Great Admirals and fleets.

Sounds great!

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I like a lot of things that Civ 6 did though there are some things that can be expanded upon:

Districts: The district idea is a great concept, but graphically sometimes the cities do look disjointed and not connected. I would say for the most part make the first ring around the city center to be where most of the districts would be able to be placed, specifically the cultural or commercial ones come to mind as well as many wonders. The science (Campus) would be a lot more flexible and could be placed outside of the first ring. Some districts like the military, aerodrome and spaceport wouldn't need to go right by the city center. That would leave a lot of more room for more improvements along the borders.

Great Prophets: I don't like the fact that great prophets don't have a use after you found a religion. I proposed earlier that they could have two charges where one you found a religion, and if all the religions have been founded they could have another charge and contribute something that they were known for historically, like John the Baptist creating a relic, or Martin Luther giving a Eureka towards Reformed Church and more combat strength against other religions. More great people for other districts like great entertainers or great aviators would be nice as well.

Governments: I like the way the government system works although I wish that there would be more cards, or especially specific govt. buildings, that would be tied to the specific government that you chose. Also organizing cards that you could pick from would be nice, whether it would be choosing favorites, or most often used, along with the types of cards.

Agendas and Leaders: I like the idea behind the agendas but it definitely needs a little work. I also like the idea of alternate leaders and would like to make it to where there could be a combination of national agendas and leader agendas that they pick out of an already set pool.
Here is Greece for an example: Greece as a Civ could have a set Cultural and Scientific focus. As for the leader if you pick Pericles he would also have a Diplomatic (befriending city-states and gaining favor) and Maritime (building up navy) focus while Alexander could have an Militaristic and Expansionist focus.