Civilization 6: Ideas

[yasinbin]

some of the changes would be good , like-
- upon meeting new civ for the first time you get a tech boost, which always happened in earlier days.people traded and learned from each other.
-'no more stacking' please
-@OP your idea of class is a bit difficult but good. what i think game Dev team can do it like...give all civ in a class similar UU, unique building- if you are getting what i am saying then doing this won't be tough.
-more idealogies,social policies
-your people can choose to be atheist.Atheism can get some bonus just like any other religion in BNW.
-you can trade & gift researched technologies with other civ.
-you can steal other civs map by killing their scout/tireme in early game ...and the home country will have no knowledge about it, if it is say 10-15 tile away from any nearest city.
-if you are having too much unhappiness, your cities revolt (except your capital) and becomes another AI civ/CS ... ( just an idea)

 

[Trackman97]

What kind of benefits would an Amerindian class give? Would they lack a bunch of techs until contact with European civs? Would they suffer epidemics and loss of population?

Actually, a lot of Amerindian civilizations were actually pretty advanced in terms of astronomy, sanitation, & a few other fields until they practically got wiped out from plague. So a weakness of epidemics but a benefit of being industrious, increased food production from accurate calendars, and maybe some other stuff.

 

[Trackman97]

This is a direction that I would like civ to take, be more open world style. I kinda want this to be more alternate world than what would have happened if the existing cultures of people were placed down on a foreign planet at the same time, having lost most knowledge & being unable to change.

Some of this would most likely increase the time between turns & may only come about as an expansion pack (or even have to wait until civ VII)

Here are some of my ideas.

Military: Make the units you can have customizable. There would be a menu screen in which you can have ten or so units. When you create a new unit you would first be presented with three choices, land, sea, or air unit (land & sea would require certain technologies to be researched) then when you choose one of those you're then presented with new choices. So for land those could be infantry, long-range. Then you can choose their mode of transportation in battle (foot, horse, tank, etc.), then their primary use as offensive, defensive, scout. Then you choose the weapons, armor, etc. The final choice would be a peasant unit, which would be the cheapest unit, but removes population (though can be join a city but this destroys the unit), also receives a penalty making it weaker than normal, and can be out hired from you by a friendly nation if they aren't already occupied with war, a professional unit (needs research) that would be considerably more expensive but doesn't remove population, receives no penalty so is stronger than peasants, and can't be hired by other nations unless they are paying you for them & even then is more of a rent than buy, or elite unit (requires research & a wonder) which is even more expensive, again doesn't remove population, gains a bonus so is stronger than normal, but can't be rented out to other civ. Also you can only have a limited number of elite units. Finally you can then name them & start producing them.
If you have a professional unit for a long time and a lot of those units have gained lots if experience then there is a chance of them becoming an elite unit if you start permitting it even if you don't have the required tech & wonder built to make a new elite unit. Units will then become stronger & get the benefits of elite.
When you get a new tech that gives you better equipment you can modify your existing units to make them take advantage of the new technology. The greater change in equipment (like say from bow to gun vs rifle to machine gun) will require a larger amount of gold to upgrade. If the change is to great elite units will be downgraded to professional units when you upgrade them unless you have the required research & wonder to keep it elite.
Finally certain technologies will apply automatic benefits to units created only after the technology was created.

Technology: (A friend of mine came up with this) Have major technologies & minor technologies. Major technologies require many turns to complete & are researched by the entire civilization. They give large bonuses & unlock large amounts of stuff. Minor technologies only take one to a few turns to research & can be researched by cities by directing a small amount of gold to go into research into that. Each major technologies would have a bunch of smaller minor technologies that for easy viewing you can see by clicking on the major technology that requires it. These technologies give a lot smaller bonuses & are not necessary to research major technologies.
I also personally like the alternate tech trees with different possible routes, though I feel that you should be able to go back & research some of these alternate ones but that they become extremely hard to research once you research something else, also some can lead some of the same technologies while also leading to unique ones.
Being able to have a chance to gain a technology from another civ just by chance, especially if you have a lot of trade/immigration (if they put that into the game) coming from that country.

Culture: I feel that nations close to each other will in a way come to resemble each other & define their group culture. If they don't have contact with another group of civilizations then they can't affect their developing culture. First make it so if someone researched one of the branching technologies (like steampunk) then that makes all other nations that have contact with them have a slightly easier time researching that than something else. The closer your civ is to that civ will also determine how much easier it is to research it. This effect is still in effect if you go to war against them, though for non-war related technologies the effect is diminished & for war related technologies this effect is increased.
If you live in harmony for a long time then your populations will become part of a new group that is the same culture or class. This then provides a diplomacy bonus with that group. The class name can be named after the civilizations that are involved within it. The class then persists even if you then declare war against them. After a long time of being at war then the class will be separated into sub-classes, which decreases diplomacy bonuses & other class bonuses. If this continues long enough then the class will completely disappear & any class bonuses will as well.
If a city is having large amounts of civil unrest, or the government is overthrown by the capital being ransacked by barbarians or a civilization that just wanted to attack the capital & immediately made peace afterwards, if some cities are partially another class/sub-class & don't have a large amount of units in it they may break away & create their own civ. Also when the capital is destroyed & government destroyed, if there are two or more cities far away from each other & both have a large force of units in them there is a chance that they will break away from each other & the cities closest to them will join them. If you are the leader of this civ you can choose to join either one. If those cities were native to the mother country or part of the mother country for a long time then a class named after the mother country will be created, (nations can be part of multiple classes, as well as cities). There is also a chance that if one of those cities was conquered recently & is still mostly populated by people belonging to the class of the country they were conquered by they may revert back to their old country, even reviving it if that country was completely conquered.
Some of the benefits of classes: diplomacy bonus with ones inside the same class unless mitigated by sub-class, easier researching of techs already researched by other people in the same class, some effects that can be applied if you continually do something. For example if your populations grow fast you may get a population growth bonus, or if you produce lots of buildings/units you may get an industrious bonus.
Finally classes can become one class if those groups word together for many years. This will create a super-class that has some universal bonuses with classes with exclusive bonuses & so on. The higher the rank in class the bigger the bonuses are. Other civs not part of your class can also choose to take upon them that culture or may unwittingly do so if your troops are stationed there for awhile.

Sorry this is a long post & some of these ideas may be hard to implement, but I think with the increase in RAM, & processing power, plus human creativity this may be easier than some think to implement.

 

[Arachnofiend]

You should be able to plunder trade routes without DOW kind of like what Germany did to the US during WWI & II

...Except Germany attacking US trade routes was seen as an act of aggression and led to the US to enter the war?

 

[Josh123914]

...Except Germany attacking US trade routes was seen as an act of aggression and led to the US to enter the war?

Not unless said Cargo ships are loaded with muskets that go to the French and English.

 

[cinattra]

some of the changes would be good , like-
- upon meeting new civ for the first time you get a tech boost, which always happened in earlier days.people traded and learned from each other.
-'no more stacking' please
-@OP your idea of class is a bit difficult but good. what i think game Dev team can do it like...give all civ in a class similar UU, unique building- if you are getting what i am saying then doing this won't be tough.
-more idealogies,social policies
-your people can choose to be atheist.Atheism can get some bonus just like any other religion in BNW.
-you can trade & gift researched technologies with other civ.
-you can steal other civs map by killing their scout/tireme in early game ...and the home country will have no knowledge about it, if it is say 10-15 tile away from any nearest city.
-if you are having too much unhappiness, your cities revolt (except your capital) and becomes another AI civ/CS ... ( just an idea)

-The tech boost upon meeting a new Civ is interesting. It sort of encourages exploration. The boost should be tiered sort of like the gold you get from being the first to meet a CS. I think though the boost should be based on finding the capital of the other Civs. The boost could decrease with each Civ as they come across the same capitals so that each Civ that finds a capital first gets rewarded more than the subsequent Civs. Yep, some Civs will have a natural advantage and that seafaring Kamehameha comes to mind.
-I actually don't mind stacking to a point if there is a way to limit how many units can be stacked and if they have it so that all units in a stack will take damage if attacked by archery/siege units.
-I never liked tech trading. It always seemed like late in the game the AIs would get so far ahead of you tech wise. It was a buzz kill. If it's allowed there should be a way to limit it. For example only Civs that have a DoF can trade techs.
-I kinda of like the idea of being able to kill another Civs unit without repercussion if that unit is too far away from home. The unit though has to be killed in like one turn or something otherwise its like someone was able to slip away during the fighting. This could be in affect up until radio.
-How about a revolting city just becomes its own Civ? If it can keep its freedom for 10 turns then it becomes recognized as such by the other Civs.

 

[cinattra]

While the idea sounds great on paper, when you try to develop a game like civ it becomes nigh-on impossible. Think of how many things in-game need icons at the moment. Around 75 buildings, 130 units, 30 Social Policies and 100 Techs. 305 icons, approximately speaking. And that's just the icons for one group - doesn't include models, unit skins, quotes and so on. Imagine if you were giving unique stuff to 7-8 groups. You'd end up having the game take exponentially longer to make, as well as making it even harder to balance.

Civ 5 has the most variation between civilizations in the history of the franchise - now there are tiers, with unique improvements, two unique units and all that sort of thing. I would say for Civ 6 we'd definitely get more variation again, but the scale on which you're suggesting would be way too difficult to make.

You're right but without the desire without the push to try the impossible then I'm stuck in Africa because some explorer chose not to go find a short cut to Asia.

That being said gameplay is still more important than looks. Mods can handle the aesthetics.

 

[cinattra]

Oh and pleeeaaze go back to those fantastic, awesome movies from Civ2. What a great reward for completing wonders! I missed them so much in the sequels. I still remember the movies for the Eiffel Tower, Shakespeare Theatre, Cure for Cancer, Hoover Dam or Apollo Program and I haven't played the game for 10 years.

The art for wonders in Civ3 was a sad, depressing joke and in Cv4 it was so drab and unispiring. In Civ5 the pictures are great but they're just still pictures. And I wouldn't mind more imaginative tech art either.

Also the victory screens - what an underwhelming reward for winning the game )

Oh yeah, and bring back the city screens from Civ1!

I know some people will snort contemptuously at those "cosmetic" features but if you remove all art and media from a strategy game then all you have left is a dry spreadsheet number crunching. That's partially what's preventing for example Endless Space to gain more popularity IMO.

Ditto! Yep and you are right the wonder movies were great.

 

[cinattra]

As for the aforementioned ideas about diplomacy and casus belli - that would mean a bump in complexity and a shift towards a Paradox-type grand strategy game. And although I wouldn't mind such a development I really doubt Firaxis will go this way. Everything they did in the past 15 years points to "streamlining" and "simplifying".

I almost fear the next Civ will be RTS.

Someone's head on a pike for sure if this happens.

 

[Phrozen]

Other then most of the vanilla civs, the civs in game are kind of in classes now.
Economic: Portugal, Netherlands, Arabia, Carthage, Indonesia, Morocco, Venice
Science: Maya, Babylon, Korea, Assyria
Warmongers: Germany, Japan, China, Zulu, Ottomons, Songhai, Aztec, Denmark, Mongols
Cultural/Tourism: France, Brazil
City State focused/World Leader: Greeks, Siam, Sweden
Religious: Celts, Byzantines, Ethiopia

 

[Arachnofiend]

Not unless said Cargo ships are loaded with muskets that go to the French and English.

Oh, I certainly don't deny that America was supplying the Allied war effort long before officially entering the war. The equivalent of what was happening then in Civ terms would be if England and France were using all that trade route money to rush buy units. Naturally this puts Germany at an economic disadvantage and it is to their benefit to cut off Allied trade routes but that doesn't really change the fact that they blew up an American merchant vessel and the Americans would certainly not be too keen on that.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Germany took out a full page ad in the NY Times warning that if the Lusitania left port loaded with munitions, they would sink it. The Americans were the villains of WWI. Too bad we can't send an ultralisk back in time to destroy the Allies with its Kaiser blades. :E

 

[Viregel]

Just going bac to MerchantCo's Class idea; what if instead of Social Policies, there was a system that allowed civs to chose and customise their culture, like Religion? It could work something like this:

Once a civ gets enough culture, they can choose a "Cultural Benefit" or something better named. These would be stuff like "+1 culture from Desert Tiles" or "Great People give off a small amount of science when expended", which is similar to Religion, but I'm sure that could be reformed in Civ VI as well. To win a Cultural Victory, you would need to get more foreign cities in the world following your culture than anyone else's. However, to prevent you from converting one city and instantly winning the game, if more of your opponent's population have your opponent's culture, then it doesn't count. Furthermore, you have to have at least one city from every civ under your cultural influence. Example: Byzantium spread their culture to Spain, who have three cities. Seville, who greatly admire Hippodromes, instantly decide to accept the Byzantine Culture. However, Madrid and Barcalona are content with their Matadors, so they decide to turn down the Byzantine Culture. Byzantium doesn't win a Cultural Victory. However, if Barcalona suddenly decide that fire-spitting boats are the new thing, and there are only two civilizations in the game, then Byzantium wins. I haven't got the idea fully made yet, but that's the general gist of it. Also note that a lot of this is contradictory, but I can't be bothered to revise it.

 

[Grallonsphere]

Well I do hope they improve the design of this franchise to make it a true grand strategy game rather than the tactical wargame masquerading as a strategy game that it still is.

1st - My personal (long standing) pet peeve: the calendar which is locked in AD/BC mode since Civ I. Entirely nonsensical in all instances but Earth map historical scenarios. And since G&K with its ability to found religions this stopped making sense even there. The default mode should be year 0 at the founding of your first city. And I would add the ability to reset your calendar when/if you actually do found a religion.

2nd - Overhaul the entire production system so that your total output can be used as you see fit rather than being dependent on units such as the worker (I seem to recall Call to Power worked in a similar fashion). For instance you should be able to start enhancing your territory from the get go. It would be assumed a portion of the population is directed to plow the nearby field - the production factor would increase overtime as your society becomes more complex & diversified.

Say you have a population of 1000 souls to start with and each one of them represents an output of 0.5 Production Unit (PU) at game start - this gives you 500 PU to play with in a zero sum mechanism where what you allocate in one section cant be allocated in another. So you could prioritize what you want - when & where you want without being straight-jacketed by the engine.

You should also be able to produce different things simultaneously - such as urban infrastructure (granaries, harbors, etc), landscape infrastructure (tile enhancements), civilian & military units, science & technology, social cohesion (to keep discontent low), religious fervor, artistic & literary creativity, etc. I'd use barometers that would represent the maximum attainable output for each sphere of activity - per era. So if we go with with the 500 PU mentioned earlier, and if you use 100 of those for landscape improvement then 20% of your city's total output would be devoted to that - leaving you with 80% to spend elsewhere. Consequently the development of the surrounding tiles would take 5 times as long as if you'd out 100% of your PUs into that barometer.

In the same logic, there should be a gradation of each barometer, dependent on your level of development. I'm currently using a mod that allows to upgrade your buildings - why not adopt that idea? Say the barometer for urban infrastructure during the primitive stage represent the basic amenities (a granary, a bartering ground, a shrine, a hunting lodge) - when it's full your city is considered to have all of those and the attendant modifiers would apply as you go up the barometer (+2 on all the basic food output when the granary is completed, +1 when the shrine is up, etc). When the barometer is full you have to wait the relevant tech/set of techs for it to reset to the next level of development which will upgrade your current amenities and possibly add new ones (sewer, aqueduct, etc) on on again until the next stage. Thus a whole lot of micromanagement would be eliminated.

3rd - The tech system should *NOT* be linear for that makes every game predictable and ultimately boring.

4th - Each of the main 'currencies' (science, faith, great people, etc) should accrue from the get go. Regarding the great people I find the current system where they are dependent on specific structures to be clunky. Add to this that you can only build 1 structure at a time and I usually get my 1st great person rather late. Make it into a pool from which you can draw when you choose - and according to *your* preference (and the general 'persona' of your civilization).

5th - Civilizations are rather generic as things stand. You should be able to customize (and I don't mean dig into esoteric coding either...) each of them by choosing, in a *user friendly* interface! So you would have the Earth historical civilizations as templates and then play around with them. For instance I could pick Rome, discard Augustus, chose a female instead, give it a name, change her appearance (think of all the DLC money you could get with cosmetic packs for your leaders, skins for the units, etc), change the starting attributes (bias location, starting units, special units - or buildings or wonders...

Also civilizations shouldn't remain the same throughout the game. They should evolve. Take the Romans for instance. Their predecessors were the Etruscans, then they became Romans, later Italians. Same thing for the Gauls, who became Gallo-Romans, then Franks and now Français. In fact I think the game should stop after each 'meta era' is completed and calculate your civilization score which would give you a pick as to which successor civilization you could chose. The successor would retain a number of traits from the previous one but you could also add new ones depending on your total score.

Well that's it for now. But should the devs read this and should they have to chose only one thing - change the godsdam calendar!



G.

 

[cinattra]

Wow! What a second post!

 

[NorthernPrince]

The main things I want to see:
-happiness by cities, which means that if the luxury isn't connected to the trade network other cities can't benefit from it. This could work for strategic resources as well.
-revolts and revolutions which spawn new city states or civilization (maybe even dead ones, which can come back to life). Spies could influence the stability of other civs, raise the unhappiness, make people angrier.
-migration from poor, less developed and unhappy nations to rick civilizations.

 

[HanNorwood]

Mostly I think of Diplomatic Overhauls when I think of ways to improve the game, among other things.

-Real alliances. When you have a DoF with two people, and they have a DoF with each other, they'll say "Perhaps this makeshift alliance will to lead to great things in the future." Ok. Except, let's not make it makeshift. Allow people to make REAL alliances with multiple Civs, and name them. It would be fun to watch the political arrangement of the world change over time, and also lead to some interesting groups. Let's watch Mongolia and the Huns team up on England.

-Tech Trades. So, in Civ Revo, you could trade techs, or buy techs, or sell techs. Let's see that again, only scaled up to Civ 5 levels. It would be good for players and Civs that aren't geared for Tech, as by allying with someone like Korea, you could keep up with the rest of the world.

-More options for advanced setup. Here's what I see: Eternal War, Eternal Peace, Real Start Locations (Earth Maps). Those are the only three examples I could come up with of the top of my head.

-Custom Nation. Mods are hard to make. I know this, I did Hukkak's Revised and the NMBC civ's back in Vanilla. But maybe, only one at a time, you could have your own nation. Use a picture from your computer as the loading screen (or select a leader animation to use) colors, UUs, UBs, and UAs stolen from other civs, symbol (this is gonna be the hardest to manage. Probably another civs), and name.

-The return of colonization and vassal states. I loved these concepts back in Civ 4, and would colonize as fast as I could to have a loyal servant.

-Exchanging maps with other civs. Oh, come on! Who doesn't want to see what your best friend does before getting satellites?

-The ability to move your capital to another city. You cannot do it while at war, and maybe about once an era. The palace would stay in the former capital, but it wouldn't be the capital anymore. You could only move capital to cities with 10+ population.

-A history book. Major events that happen to your civilization are automatically placed into an option near demographics. Examples of waht could be included: Religions being founded, DoW's, Cities being captured (yours or enemies), Cities being founded. Stuff like that.

-Naming areas. I always like the mechanic from Civ Revo allowing you to name "Great Plains" and "Great Rivers." Except, more freedom with it. Allow your own names, and to check what their called by mousing over them. You choose to establish the number of tiles (must be the same type of tile). You could only name things in your own territory though.

That's all I can think of, but I'll post again if I come up with anything.

 

[Notlob]

Probably been done to death already but what I miss from Civ IV to V is the large differences the different leaders made, these were so great that they did shape the way you played (and thus the civilisation, the whole point of being a leader!). I also believe that there is scope for civilisations to develop differently to their set unique units, buildings and hex improvements (say that a Scandinavian civ started in the Sahara, why would they develop ski troops?).

Taking Civ V and looking at Civ VI, this is what I would do:

1. Great people can be used to unlock unique buildings, unique tile improvements or unique units depending on the environment that your civ is based, the resources you have available etc.

e.g.
- The majority of your civ is based in or around mountains, a great engineer or merchant can unlock the terrace garden hex improvement
- You are based in largely forests, a great prophet can unlock earning faith from forests
- You have a great general but you have only used warriors and/or swordsman in any fighting therefore you are restricted to unlocking the legion unique unit
- You are based around rivers, a great engineer or artist can unlock a hanging garden building.

2. Allow stacking of units but restrict army size based on the size of the population and the resources available, you can increase your military to a high proportion of your population but this will decrease production, science etc. See 3 and 4 as to why this isn't a return to the stack of doom.

3. Units cannot heal outside of foreign territory nor can they heal in cities that have not been suppressed or are in revolt (Stalingrad anyone?)

4. Militia are a type of unit that must be built and need to be stationed in cities i.e. cities don't automatically have defence like in Civ V (yes, a return to older Civ rules), or you station other military units in cities (this also allows for blitzkrieg style invasions as you'll struggle to have units in all cities)

5. Cities can grow organically like in Civ V or have tiles bought but tiles can be lost to other civs with greater culture (another return to Civ IV but mixed with my favourite feature of Civ V)

6. Only scouts can cross sea and ocean without the aid of naval units (sorry but the mass exodus' available in Civ V is a stretch too far)

7. Minor civs expand and develop a lot like the barbarians do in Civ IV but you can negotiate, influence or fight them like in Civ V.

8. Bring back corruption! If you don't have rule of law or at least some national cohesion watch your civ splinter (like the Roman empire), this can be achieved with a freedom/order slider in each city with -ve and +ve aspects for each. The limits for the freedom/order balance can be dependent on what buildings you have in place and the influence other civs have on that city.

9. Bring back slavery for pre-industrial civs, this was too widespread throughout all parts of the world to ignore.

10. Have significant leader traits/bonuses that do effect how we play.

11. Get rid of Civ V's social policies and go back to Civ IV's take on them or have sliders with bonuses/negatives that increase/decrease with the more technologies you have researched.

12. Get some decent AI.

13. Colonies and successor states, these should exist if your starting civ ends up being smaller than the colony or the starting civ gets torn a new one. Imagine starting as Rome but ending up as the Byzantine's due to half your empire being torn away from you?

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

11. Get rid of Civ V's social policies and go back to Civ IV's take on them or have sliders with bonuses/negatives that increase/decrease with the more technologies you have researched.

Nope, biggest improvement in the series was getting rid of these garbage piles

 

[Viregel]

Does anyone have any ideas for making Science less important? While it is an important part of civilization, it's probably no less important than having an effective government, or having a culture of the nation (At least, it should be pretty important). I'd love to have a less linear tech tree, as mentioned above, but does anyone have any idea of how to implement it?