Civilization 6 - Ideas for the future

[Von Falkenheyn]

Having logged more than eighty hours in the base game so far, I would like to offer a few ideas about what I would like to see materialize within future content.

• Unit Customization - Army Research - Weapon Research

The concept of corps and armies is, in my view, an excellent way forward. I would like to see more of this as follows: merge a pikeman and a musketman to create the Spanish Tercio. Merge two spearmen/hoplites to create a phallanx, merge a tank with mechanised infantry to create a panzer division and so on. This could create all manners of interesting new fields for unit customization and tactics. Also, I would like to see units with slots, for instance a spearman could be armed with superior shields or spears. The concept of auxilliary units is very very good. Firaxis should expand upon that and make these units upgradable. Perhaps the UI could change a bit. Instead of appearing as "chained" units these support items could be slotted into the unit and simply have the graphic on the map changed accordingly. All I'm saying here is give us more unit differentiation. Promotions are excellent and auxilliary units are the same. Just give us a bit more. Buildings could be involved as well. For instance stables could provide barding for cavalry, there could be forges producing superior swords and so on. Give units a "timer" based special ability which can have critical effects say once every 20 rounds.

• Terrain Customization & Defensive Structures

We could have engineering units build tunnels in mountain hexes which would allow for railroads/roads to pass through. We could have canals built which would allow ship movement along hexes. We could have the Dutch for instance having a land reclaiming ability. Also, a very neat idea would be to have castles built by engineers high upon the mountains. The extra height could award +1 in range and extra visual range. A neat building for either military units or military engineers to construct would be an outpost. The outpost would have no defensive value but would provide for visual range. This would be really useful for covering blind spots in the map.

• Resource - Building Interraction

In CIV V we had the forge - iron interaction and the stable - horses interaction. These mechanics could be expanded in CIV VI and give color to otherwise bland resources. Why should I go after gypsum instead of silver? Is copper only important just for the added production? Instead of simple abstracted modifiers to production, food or gold give players the chance to have these items interact with buildings like for example the water mill does with rice and wheat. Allow players to construct new composite resources by using buildings and basic resources. A good example of this would be textiles. Use sheep or silk together with a manufacturing building (or more simply with the industrial district) and produce textiles. Textiles could offer extra amenities to four cities as usual but could also give a boost to commercial hubs and trading routes. Combine Coal and Iron to create high grade weaponry. Use Fish and Salt together to create extra food. Use sugar and citrus/bananas to create more food. Use Jade/Diamonds to create jewlery and so on.

• More random events - Quest Lines

The freshening up of the AI on barbarians was a welcome surprise. Barbarians can get really nasty early on and that's a very nice challenge. However even these upgraded barbarians can quickly become stale. Give us more random events. Volcanos errupting near mountains. Earthquakes. The Black Death. Chilling Episodes that last for a few turns (The Little Ice Age). And give us the ability to mitigate the effects of these with certain techs/buildings. For instance, the Black Death could be ameliorated if one has an Acqueduct/Bath district. Earthquakes could be less severe if one has Construction and so on. Boosts are fine as an idea but a bit bland in implementation. Give players interesting quest lines. For instance: after you explore a new continent you find strange writting curved on a stone. Find a tribal village within 5 rounds to recieve X bonus. As it is, city state quests are terribly bland. Another line for quests could be: your populace would like to see a granary built. Build a granary to recieve either A, B or C reward.

• Leader Playing Style

The new diplomatic system with Casus Beli, Hidden Agendas and so on is great and I'm sure that in the near future the AI will be able to handle it better. What I would like to see is, say, a system of three "beliefs" being implemented, based on quests you fullfill, wars that you start and other decisions that you take. For example, we could have Rationalism, Idealism and Revolutionism as the three Beliefs. Imagine these as the peaks of a triangle. You start out right in the middle of the triangle and are pushed towards one of the three peaks according to your historical decision making. This could affect how the AI interracts with you and it could give you perks and bonuses if you lean towards one of the peaks.

• Leader Council and Great People

Customizing Great People with each one having a unique ability was great! Take this one step further: create a council of advisors and have great people populate it as an alternate ability. These leaders could give various bonuses to all of the realm.

• Resource Ouposts

Sometimes you just want a remote resource but are unwilling to create a whole new city just for that. Perhaps this would aggravate a neighbor with which you have good relations or whatnot. Something allong the lines of the Portuguese Feitoria from CIV V would be an interesting way to harvest far flung resources as needed.

 

[ViterboKnight]

Some Unit Customization ideas are good.

• Merge units to create combined units: interesting, as long as all possible combinations are possible and provide useful and unique effects (unless I use some pointless and absurd combo, like a tank+swordsman!!!)
• Units with slots: the possibility to obtain special weapons and equipments sounds nice. This introduces a new concept (it reminds me of Master of Magic), that is how to obtain new Weapons And Artefacts, and then give them to specific units.

 

[westyofoz]

A very good list of suggestions. I particularly like the outposts suggestion. It was done before in one of the previous Civs (I can't remember which one) and I thought it worked well.

 

[RealAntithesis]

I'm still unconvinced of the idea to combine units into what are essentially still single (unstacked) but different units. To me, corps and armies don't feel like corps and armies - they just feel like exactly the same unit but with slightly better stats (and higher cost). Combining different unit types into different types of combined units is more interesting, but at the end of the end of the day, it still results in a single unit, but one that is the result of a 'recipe' (like combining items in Dota to give different items, or combining templars in Starcraft to give Archons etc). Rather than having to think up new units for different recipes of base units, just allow different units to be stacked (whether using a great general to link them or some other mechanic), which allows flexibility for any combination. While there appears to be some fundamental objection some people have against stacks, I think limited stacking, with some rules, will work. And it should go some ways to resolving certain problems currently as well.

The other ideas are good - the game needs more variety and 'spice' to keep things interesting.

 

[westyofoz]

I would like to see combined units having more of a bonus, like a corps attack and move and perhaps an army attack twice. There seems little benefit in combining units for a slightly stronger unit that attacks once.

 

[Von Falkenheyn]

A few more comments after more hours spent on the game:

• Builders and Infrastracture

The limited charges builder idea seems like a good thing but in reality, it's a nightmarish task in micromanagement. At the start of the game it seems really quick and easy but later on it becomes tedious. After I have a few cities built, I need to use markers to remember what tile needs to be improved. Then, after a building slot has emptied, I have to remember to produce the builder (or spend the gold and buy one outright) and then I have to actually send the builder to do what it is he has to do. With one or two cities, doable, with multiple cities tedious. Also, the fact that you have to spend a charge to first clear a forest and then build what it is that you'd like built is annoying and time consuming. Dedicating a policy to have builders completed faster and/or with more builds is doubly tedious and nightmarish. You then have to remember to switch policies! My solution to the problem: either devise a way of recharging builders or dispense with them completely and have tile improvements being built like in Endless Legends; via the city building cue as projects. In any case, Firaxis please bring back the building cue! It's so annoying having to remember every little detail by heart.

• Engineers and Support Units

Almost tottally useless as it is! Two builds would be fine if we were talking only about military infrastructure (airbase, fort, etc) but it's totally unaccepatble when it comes down to road building. Either embed these units as slotted items to other military units (and thus reduce the clutter on the map) giving special abilities to said units or give the engineer some real power with more road building charges available. Also, the restriction on military installation builds is not fun. Why not be able to construct two airbases with one engineer?

• Road Building

While the idea of dispensing with the tedious road building process is a good idea, what replaced the builders constructing roads was not. Trading units in the beginning are precious! You don't want to utilise them constructing roads between your city when you want them pumping as much gold as possible for your coffers. Later in the game, when money is not an issue, using traders to build road is simply a waste of time. My idea: dispense with road building entirely and abstract it as follows: Use a tool to design a path between two cities and then assign city production to the designed project. If both linked cities provide their production then the road gets built even faster. This way you free your trading units to do what they really should: bring in the bullion! Again this is not a new idea. It has been utilised in Endless Legends where a city "builds" the road system of a province.

• Tech Tree

As it is, the tech tree feels bland and at times, doesn't make sense. Especially in the end game, the techs give you very little. The tech tree certainly needs fleshing out, but a more radical approach would be to dispense with the linear system altogether. Simply split the techs into epochs and then have each civ research 10 ancient techs in order to progress from one era to the other. There could be some mandatory tech prerequisites but otherwise the players would be free to implement their mix of techs. Ed Beach talked about breaking established patterns but with the Boost system they've done just that. Especially in the ancient era there is a well trodden path through which you have to go in order to recieve optimal boosts. Another way to do this is one which has already been partially implemented in the game. Multiple tech trees. One tech tree for military, one for economics, one for social ideas, one for growth/production and so on. These could be worked with either science or culture or a combination of both. It would be impossible for players to be good in all fields. For example, killing barbarians and enemies could give advanced knowledge in the military field and so on.