Civilization 6: Ideas

[DoctorCruz]

I would like them to bring back the random "stories" from Civ 4. Those were so much fun, and they could really give you a nice boost if you had the gold.

 

[DoctorCruz]

I read a post with a good idea, I think it was in this same threat: The ability to create custom units. We could research the weapons and armors in a separete tech tree and combinate than to create several types of new units. Moreover, we can choose the material used in weapons and props that soldiers will use (tattoos, capes, masks ...), and each of than will generate some kind of bonus (Steel swords will do greater damage than bronze ones, and props will give moral). The civs will have unique research (Greek Sarissa, English Longbow, Chinese Chu-ko-nu...) that combined in the right manner will give bonuses to unit (Axes+Fur coat+no armor+ Danish Worship of Odin(?)= berserker + Amphibious bonus, if was trained by Denmark), and the other civs will can steal this unique research, like Rome, that actually defeated Carthage only after discovering how to build quinqueremes (anyway, the Carthagian ones was much better).

So somewhat like a mash-up between Borderlands and XCOM?

 

[Iklabain]

Another thing I thought of;
More tiles but with a smaller scale, but have more moves for units. (This would be good for more varied landscapes and drastic ones too.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

Even in ancient era cities very rarely would the government build a marketplace. People would just set up shacks in a convenient area to sell their wares.
[...] A market is just a place where trade happens, no different from a slum in any 3rd world city of today.

A bit offtopic sorry, but this statement is just plain wrong; I've been living in a so call "3rd world" country for a year, namely Cameroun, and been visiting a lot of small towns and villages.
Market are most of the time government or NGO's funded infrastructures. You can't pull2 tables together and call it a market. You actually need some space, a few shelters, roads, water access, some kind of regulation, etc...
So in term of CIV, it make a lot of sense to actually consider market a building.
Regards,
4N4

 

[phaethon16]

The happiness system should be reworked so that it's a combination of what civ 4 and civ 5 had. Basically, each city would still have it's own local happiness meter, but the total happiness or unhappiness from each city would add up to create a national happiness meter. Penalties for unhappiness would be different for each meter. At the local level, growth and production would be slowed, and the mechanics of revolutions and riots would be for extremes in unhappiness or just long term unhappiness. For the national level, unhappiness would result in a decrease in commerce/trade, a weakened military, and slower cultural growth. Also, there should be a greater value placed on how happy people are with their government, not just luxuries and entertainment. This aspect of happiness would start small, but grow as people become more politically minded throughout the ages.

To get a little more in depth about rebellions/revolutions, first I have to introduce the concept of regions, towns, and ethnicity. Basically, at the start of the game, there are only the major players and CS. Each of them has its own ethnicity, which you sort of see in civ 4, though this would be a little different. As the game develops though, ethnic groups, separate from the original ones, would develop in the shape of independent towns that are outside of anyone's control. If you build a city on independent towns, the cities come with some buildings already built and with some more population. But, the people remain of their original ethnic group. Long story short, regions are areas with the same ethnic groups. Rebellions come in two forms: rebellion and civil war. Rebellion= one city seceding and becoming a city state, civil war= an entire region secedes and becomes a new civ or minor civ (haven't figured out what I want to do with that.)

 

[Viregel]

To get a little more in depth about rebellions/revolutions, first I have to introduce the concept of regions, towns, and ethnicity. Basically, at the start of the game, there are only the major players and CS. Each of them has its own ethnicity, which you sort of see in civ 4, though this would be a little different. As the game develops though, ethnic groups, separate from the original ones, would develop in the shape of independent towns that are outside of anyone's control. If you build a city on independent towns, the cities come with some buildings already built and with some more population. But, the people remain of their original ethnic group. Long story short, regions are areas with the same ethnic groups. Rebellions come in two forms: rebellion and civil war. Rebellion= one city seceding and becoming a city state, civil war= an entire region secedes and becomes a new civ or minor civ (haven't figured out what I want to do with that.)

I totally back this. What could be more awesome would be civs picking their own culture (pretty much the same as Social Policies are now) and then that could spread throughout your cities, and they would be converted by stuff I haven't figured out yet. So, a city could (for example) be under Spanish rule, but culturally Dutch. I haven't gone into much detail, but this could be interesting to mess around with. I think that's pretty much what you're getting at, but regions each with their own cultures would be interesting.

 

[phaethon16]

Thanks! It would be more than that too though. For example, let's just say that there are two civs and four CS in the game: America, Germany, Singapore, Florence, Quebec City, and Antananarivo. Even though there's only six main ethnic groups, there could be a region that develops into being Basque, another that's Australian, and a third that's Arab. You could settle in a region that's mostly Basque, treat them well, end up producing enough of your own culture to offset their influence, and end up totally absorbing them. On the other hand, you didn't deal with the Australians that well, they rebel, and form their own civ. It could be a new gameplay mechanic that would be interesting and realistic, considering how some countries were torn apart by ethnic divisions (like Austria and India) while others thrived off of it (like America and Argentina.)

 

[Viregel]

Thanks! It would be more than that too though. For example, let's just say that there are two civs and four CS in the game: America, Germany, Singapore, Florence, Quebec City, and Antananarivo. Even though there's only six main ethnic groups, there could be a region that develops into being Basque, another that's Australian, and a third that's Arab. You could settle in a region that's mostly Basque, treat them well, end up producing enough of your own culture to offset their influence, and end up totally absorbing them. On the other hand, you didn't deal with the Australians that well, they rebel, and form their own civ. It could be a new gameplay mechanic that would be interesting and realistic, considering how some countries were torn apart by ethnic divisions (like Austria and India) while others thrived off of it (like America and Argentina.)

This sounds fantastic. Perhaps add some sort of nomadic thing as well, so that you can settle cities, and eventually nomadic tribes that are native to the area are swallowed up into the cities? Giving tiles population as well as cities is another thing I'm keen on, I just don't quite know how it should work.

 

[forcedalt]

@Carlos77, just picking on an individual point here.

It shouldn't be 'easier' to be friends with civs. As it is now, early game you tend to make DoFs quite easily, and you can keep a friend for most of the game, but in the long run they're not trying to be realistic; they're trying to win.

Yup , that's the main thing i hope NOT to see in a new Civ : AI victory competitiveness trait. It seems most complaints about Civ 5 AI behavior can be traced to this. When any particular AI gets somewhat behind the other civ's ; that's it. All its actions turn really random , like it doesn't "care" what its doing anymore. An AI controlled Civ pretty much just stays "mad" and "confused" ,and , will only perk back to life if : you give it enough : cities,units,gold ,etc... that it can easily conquer you. I am trying to play pretend here ,and , i got an AI that just wants to : hurry up and finish the game , either by complete one sided massacre ,or , just , laying limp til i put it out of its misery. Whats up here? does the AI have to get home and turn in early? Does it have something planned tomorrow? Did it leave the oven on?

 

[phaethon16]

This sounds fantastic. Perhaps add some sort of nomadic thing as well, so that you can settle cities, and eventually nomadic tribes that are native to the area are swallowed up into the cities? Giving tiles population as well as cities is another thing I'm keen on, I just don't quite know how it should work.

That's a good idea. I think I know how it could work too. My plan for towns was that if you don't settle on them, just near them, they produce culture for their original ethnicity, so that even if the city you build is of your ethnicity, the original inhabitants of the region would have a strong influence. That culture would increase over time somehow (another thing I haven't quite figured out.) You could probably do the same thing with nomads though, just instead of having towns, you could have one special unit that would act as their main camp. They would be limited to a certain range of tiles, and their cultural influence would increase based on the number of units they had in your region.

 

[Palladium]

Hello Community,
My suggestions for Civ6 are:
1. To return train of building material - like in Civ3's caravans, which can be used to support building in other cities. Also the trains can be tradable.
2. To allow building train of food. When the train is being constructed -no growth in city like for settlers and workers. Also the trains can be tradable. Both types of trains can be build at higher cost than nominal. For example train of 40 production should cost 45prod. Train of 40food should cost 45 food+5 production.
3. Why it is impossible to build the same buildings 2 or more times? The next is at lower cost (because of learning effect) but benefits will be decreasing a bit.
4. Each Civs should be allowed to enter into current war joining particular party.
5. City reached for example 40 people should extend own diameter of influence by 1 hex.
6. Player should be allowed to opt the next hex of future cultural expanding of city.
7. Capturing of enemy city should temporarily boost happiness of the conquestor.

 

[forcedalt]

Some ideas for "brand new" things for Civ 6 , to really make it stand apart from V.

-Actual different government types. No matter what the skin ,or other unique factors of a civ you choose , it is going to be a true dictatorship , just you , calling all the shots unopposed. What if.....as time went on , and , you chose whatever version of policies this game would have to make a freedom/democratic civ. At this point you need approval of an internal parliament of some sort. Nothing too restricting , or resistant. I am thinking something that might only be a hindrance in extremes. If your under attack by strong Civs ,and ,barbs are popping up all over , and , your master plan doesn't you having a big army or making any units , they may pass an emergency bill of some sort to force you to buy , or , que a unit in one of your cities. If your going really wide really early they might ban settlers for a few turns , or , even request more settlers to "spur growth" Of course there would be ways to bypass the will of internal parliament , bribes perhaps , maybe you could propose a granted veto power to yourself when things are going well to have in your back pocket for when things "appear" to not be going well and the peoples parliament is in panic.

You wouldn't necessarily bypass this by : just choosing a dictatorship , or , monarchy ,because of risk reward, in the possibility of losing power in significant ways. Perhaps in dictatorship a city not garrisoned for a certain amount of turns will succeed , becoming a sort of ad-hock CS until you retake it. In monarchy , maybe , if the gold stays negative for a time , they turn "constitutional monarchy" and , you lose control until the AI balances the budget ,and the gold returns to positive. Deleting units , or buildings , or doing trade , to get the "economy back on track".

- Triangles instead of hexes or squares

- International property on the map. ,or , The world capital. Civ 5 BNW has the collective wonder builds , the worlds fair ,and , the international games. Lets take that a step further , and , have an "unowned" city of international wonders for the late game. When the "international territories" resolution passes, each player has the option of choosing a city on the edge of their boarders to be given for UN control ,and yes , only on the outer edge(s) of your territory , some type of metric to prevent you from having all its boarders centered in your own. Hopefully the VI AI is a little stronger to handle this ,and they don't just predictably auto vote for themselves , or , never offer a city. All Units could heal or upgrade in its boarders ,but , not be able to combat.
If a Civ is particularly restrictive to its citizens, or its citizens are "suffering" in some way. Low happiness/low food/underemployment (surrounding tiles aren't developed) /unemployment (many unemployed citizens without establishing and/or funding a social welfare system) The citizens will physically leave. Population units , a settler like civilian unit representing 1 pop point , will start spawning out of the city , and , head towards the world capital. So if you were in a harsh mood , you could kill them on their way out. Upon arriving at the world capital , they would transfer to the control of another civ depending on : room for new population , unfilled specialist/tile work positions , happiness, etc.... There new homes could also be affected by resolutions in effect. If the "anti-free movement" resolution was in affect , they would return to the control of their civ of origin. Other resolutions could cause only democratic civs to receive refugees , or , they have to join the population of the world capital ,even if its food can't support the population boost.

I am not sure if it should be possible to attack the world capital , or , if anyone would be motivated to....(*cough* Montezuma *cough*) Maybe , it could be raised ,and , the resolution to build another one could be chose. Or , you can hold it , and , all resolutions are on hold until its liberated. Big bonuses for liberating to motivate the AI to try liberation.

No matter how war/tactics would work for the world capital. I have an idea that simplifies the world capitals AI unit management. only one unit. A single unit for land , naval , and , improvement building. It would be the equivalency of a roughly tame land unit /naval unit , slightly less mighty than an infantry/destroyer. If they keep embarking in the game they may as well take it further and introduce dual purpose units. Besides , this would be something only the AI would have anyway.
I kind of see them escorting the refugee units when they move. (barb protection/genocide prevention.

 

[andreafin]

bearing in mind i have only got civ v vanilla so far...though the complete will be taken in battle by my forces soon!...uh so based on playing civ v so far this is my wishlist for next game (assuming no more patches).

ability to upgrade all units at once, or all garrisoned units first if u dont have the necessary funds for all of that type

since we have paratroopers pillaging behind the lines now, why not have them also exert a small zone of control effect? if they destroy roads or rails or even just drop on them and fortify, and there is no road or rail link to a friendly city, count that as having interrupted or halted lines of supply to units. i see 2 possible ways - if there is a link through squares with no roads make the units heal time double until they have captured an enemy city, or pillaged (but this might then make them have the same problem unless they capture the city next turn!). if there is no link (say for example the only route goes through a mountain pass someone just dropped paratroops onto) then not only cant the unit heal at all until some supply is restored if it gets down to red health zone it cant attack (if its mechanised it cant move away either!) this might cause units to be detached from a city assault to reopen lines of supply and maybe relieve pressure. makes paratroops and maybe also helicopters a more tactical unit (or maybe even strategic!). you could also make the slower healing if supply to nearest city is interrupted and the next nearest is more than a certain number of tiles away, or maybe is supplying too many units now (bottleneck?).
the alternate maybe is to allow healing as normal but reduce its combat efficiency until supplies restored ?

thats all i can think of so far apart from i REALLY miss the privateer unit and its hidden nationality (and its coastal pillaging)

oh and make sure if we have units that can be stacked we can have a move stack option so i dont leave my general behind intending him to join the unit i just moved only for the game to pick a settler or worker half the world away and not come back to the general at all so i need to go search...

 

[daft]

Some more, perhaps nonsensical ideas.
Could add Medic units to heal armies in the field faster after battles.
Supply Wagons to supply food\resources to your armies in foreign land. Without them invasions of foreign land would be almost impossible. Later on they could be upgraded to supply trains, both would have to be escorted cause they'd be a favourite target for barbarians, fast moving enemy units and partisans.
Pirates-barbarian ships with units aboard bent on attacking and capturing coastal cities-like in civ2.
I think roads should double movement of units, rails quadruple movement and highways\freeways 8x all movement.
All barbarians should try and capture cities, build barracks in them and then mass produce the best offensive unit available. A few of the most dangerous barbarian tribes (like frankly, the Huns) could have their own very dangerous unique unit available for production as well.
Barbarians should still be able to build their own camps\settlements which you could conquer and turn into your own towns.

 

[daft]

Maps are too small for me. Like building large nations, with at least 100 cities. There were no major empires in real world consisting of 9 or less cities. I'd recommend enlarging of maps sizes, especially huge. Decrease the number of playable nations, 10-12 opponents for me is more than enough. Decrease tile size, need more room to expand! And don't punish my empire with irrational corruption, especially for far away colonies.
Those wishing to play against 20-30 other tribes should be able to do so on Earth maps.

 

[Naokaukodem]

To get a little more in depth about rebellions/revolutions, first I have to introduce the concept of regions, towns, and ethnicity. Basically, at the start of the game, there are only the major players and CS. Each of them has its own ethnicity, which you sort of see in civ 4, though this would be a little different. As the game develops though, ethnic groups, separate from the original ones, would develop in the shape of independent towns that are outside of anyone's control. If you build a city on independent towns, the cities come with some buildings already built and with some more population. But, the people remain of their original ethnic group. Long story short, regions are areas with the same ethnic groups. Rebellions come in two forms: rebellion and civil war. Rebellion= one city seceding and becoming a city state, civil war= an entire region secedes and becomes a new civ or minor civ (haven't figured out what I want to do with that.)

I totally back this. What could be more awesome would be civs picking their own culture (pretty much the same as Social Policies are now) and then that could spread throughout your cities, and they would be converted by stuff I haven't figured out yet. So, a city could (for example) be under Spanish rule, but culturally Dutch. I haven't gone into much detail, but this could be interesting to mess around with. I think that's pretty much what you're getting at, but regions each with their own cultures would be interesting.

Thanks! It would be more than that too though. For example, let's just say that there are two civs and four CS in the game: America, Germany, Singapore, Florence, Quebec City, and Antananarivo. Even though there's only six main ethnic groups, there could be a region that develops into being Basque, another that's Australian, and a third that's Arab. You could settle in a region that's mostly Basque, treat them well, end up producing enough of your own culture to offset their influence, and end up totally absorbing them. On the other hand, you didn't deal with the Australians that well, they rebel, and form their own civ. It could be a new gameplay mechanic that would be interesting and realistic, considering how some countries were torn apart by ethnic divisions (like Austria and India) while others thrived off of it (like America and Argentina.)

This sounds fantastic. Perhaps add some sort of nomadic thing as well, so that you can settle cities, and eventually nomadic tribes that are native to the area are swallowed up into the cities? Giving tiles population as well as cities is another thing I'm keen on, I just don't quite know how it should work.

That's a good idea. I think I know how it could work too. My plan for towns was that if you don't settle on them, just near them, they produce culture for their original ethnicity, so that even if the city you build is of your ethnicity, the original inhabitants of the region would have a strong influence. That culture would increase over time somehow (another thing I haven't quite figured out.) You could probably do the same thing with nomads though, just instead of having towns, you could have one special unit that would act as their main camp. They would be limited to a certain range of tiles, and their cultural influence would increase based on the number of units they had in your region.

That's exactly my idea. More or less. See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=521326 (read until the end)

There's something I can't decide about though : should we make the land totally populated from the start, as it should more or less be the case (at least with nomads and small sedentary tribes) ? What's your opinion about that ? you supposed that we start a la old fashion, in your example with 2 civs and 4 city states : but should we influence people existing in the land, or should we exclusively have people that migrates from those 6 homes of population ?

Another thing I would like to say, is that cultural owning SHOULD determine rebellions : if you conquer cities of another culture, it SHOULD late or soon rebel. Soon if you don't make roads ASAP / move populations (in either way)/ build assimilation buildings, later if you do all that. It triggers two things : the periodical resizing of great conquest empires, and the need to convert people to your culture ASAP for a greater + stable empire.

The second thing depends greatly of my first question : if you populate the land since the start, the game should determine at the generation of the map who is already of your culture around you (need civilization characteristics like "culture spreading" rated from 1 to 5 or to 10), and thereafter you could start to convert/assimilate/mix people with your overall culture strenght and way of communication (mainly horse/camel/elephant/back riding/wheel/roads early and trade).
If you consider the land empty, something should determine your rate of natural civilians expansion and their "cultural loyalty", like settlers. To put it simple, new planted cities would start to differ culturally the farer they are from the capital, AND the less accessible they are from it (no road, mountains/jungle/water between them, etc.) To improve the "cultural loyalty" of your cities, you could move your capital (build a palace in the city of your choice), or build different buildings/wonders, or declaring war to a civ that your people don't like. (national/cultural cohesion)

Note that in both examples, some problem rises in my head : what if you change yourself your culture ? Like mixing cultures. You would be considered the ruler of another culture, but what's "another culture" ? Is this a mix of different existing and distinct cultures, like 20% egyptian 80 % american (in that case you would keep 20% egyptian and 80% american culture cities), or is it a brand new culture on its own ? How a culture forms ? I think we need some isolated place, and countries frontiers (countries with their laws, History and customs) and languages are good hints, as well as communications. So by definition, cultures would rise from isolation and would be purely local and circonstancial. So you couldn't change your culture as you want (for example like in making your country's culture dependant on your capital one, and you change your capital location), culture should be totally dependent on frontiers (we have them already), communications (tile acquisition through culture obeys to land accessibility already in Civ5, except that it doesn't take into account roads, water with or without sailing, things like that - a little tweak to bring), languages (totally new in Civ) and historical events (seen in Civ4, I think a little shisms/fusions science should be injected in Civ6).

Some ideas for "brand new" things for Civ 6 , to really make it stand apart from V.

-Actual different government types. No matter what the skin ,or other unique factors of a civ you choose , it is going to be a true dictatorship , just you , calling all the shots unopposed. What if.....as time went on , and , you chose whatever version of policies this game would have to make a freedom/democratic civ. At this point you need approval of an internal parliament of some sort. Nothing too restricting , or resistant. I am thinking something that might only be a hindrance in extremes. If your under attack by strong Civs ,and ,barbs are popping up all over , and , your master plan doesn't you having a big army or making any units , they may pass an emergency bill of some sort to force you to buy , or , que a unit in one of your cities. If your going really wide really early they might ban settlers for a few turns , or , even request more settlers to "spur growth" Of course there would be ways to bypass the will of internal parliament , bribes perhaps , maybe you could propose a granted veto power to yourself when things are going well to have in your back pocket for when things "appear" to not be going well and the peoples parliament is in panic.

It means nothing and I fear I forgot exactly my idea, but it would be cool to be able to influence people if we are not a dictatorship.

Some more, perhaps nonsensical ideas.
Could add Medic units to heal armies in the field faster after battles.
Supply Wagons to supply food\resources to your armies in foreign land. Without them invasions of foreign land would be almost impossible. Later on they could be upgraded to supply trains, both would have to be escorted cause they'd be a favourite target for barbarians, fast moving enemy units and partisans.
Pirates-barbarian ships with units aboard bent on attacking and capturing coastal cities-like in civ2.
I think roads should double movement of units, rails quadruple movement and highways\freeways 8x all movement.
All barbarians should try and capture cities, build barracks in them and then mass produce the best offensive unit available. A few of the most dangerous barbarian tribes (like frankly, the Huns) could have their own very dangerous unique unit available for production as well.
Barbarians should still be able to build their own camps\settlements which you could conquer and turn into your own towns.

It makes me think that ships should definitely have a crew that can explore the land while the ship can't move.

 

[andreafin]

yes i also want huge maps. i have said in civ rev discussion forum that i would have settled for basic graphics if i had had huuuuuuuge maps and many civs to play against in civ rev on xbox.
i dont know if its possible to make the kind of maps we want that would still leave civ vi (or whatever the next one is called) playable on a large number of different pc configs, not just the few thousand in the world with the highest top speed and massive memory gaming pcs. however, i have been toying with the idea of suggesting a workaround, based on something i saw in a different game entirely.

i had a game on xbox. it was set in the sengoku period, and the idea was you had to be a lord and unify japan, but it was a fighting game, you have to actually take control of a character in a battle and fight. but while you could play on the whole japan map, you could also start in a region which started you in one of the areas of japan, which you had to unify. you could then just win that; or you could go on to start the whole japan map controlling that area!
the reason they did it that way i think, was they only had a set number of different battlefields (those were taken from the story based version where you played one character but it didnt involve maps and choosing battles). mostly the region wasnt very much expanded...where on the big map of japan an area would have 4 regions maybe on the region map version there were 6 regions. but the concept is good.

so what i am thinking is, you could pick an area, say a continent, to start out in. it would start in a big map of that area, with an option to set it up with all the civs that would normally start in that area (with a random generated map it would just be random civs, and you would have options to setup as now). but when you had achieved victory conditions, or when you had researched certain techs, the game would give the option of putting you on the leaderboard right there...or zoom out to take on the world. the AI will then have to flesh out how the rest of the continents etc had been developing while you gained superiority in your local area. of course, the game could also be doing this in the background anyways, and one condition to trigger the zoom out could be the game has decided another civ on another continent has conquered their area and a ship has gone exploring and found your area. this could mean you choose to go to world map, after this event and have to get used to the idea you went from being the dominant civ to playing catchup.
obviously tho, when you zoom out its going to probably have to drop part of your military forces and many of your cities...most likely keeping the large ones and moving the great works as appropriate, keeping the most modern units, and scrapping the low tech ones. thats what happened in the xbox game, you lost some units if you had garrisons in 6 or 8 regions when it shrank down to 4 on the japan map.
i suppose you could even do multiple zoom outs. imagine starting in britain as a tribe and conquering that, and then conquering europe then zoom to world map
i know you could probably do a region map then use some editor to edit the cities and so on onto the world map, my idea is have the game do that, and generate the other civs and how advanced they are each time. and exploring and revealing the map in such a version might need tweaking (if you get zoom out because a more advanced civ in another continent found your continent through exploring, you might have your spies steal or copy their map!). anyways thats the idea. its either that or we have a civ 1 or 2 makeover with no graphics improvements just massively large maps, lots of techs and civs and concepts added and added new graphics for the new units. but at same graphics level as the old game, so all the extra speed and ram on modern computers isnt bogged down by new flashy graphics and can handle large numbers of cities and units instead. it might even be better in that form for making a phone app... version.

 

[phaethon16]

I was thinking that ethnic groups would totally replace barbarians, and as such would grow organically like they did. Instead of having units who are always hostile to you, they would be entities whose loyalties would be much harder to control than CS, and nomadic ethnic groups would be more prickly than their settled counterparts. The way I envisioned their growth would work is that like barbarians in civ 4, their towns would just sprout up more and more as the game when on, though never in already settled territory, and usually they would develop in regions with resources and food rich land more.

As for how to assimilate different ethnic groups, I thought an extension of the policy tree that would be more interactive would be good. It would be separate from most policies, though some ordinary policies would affect assimilation, but it would be very different because you would have to approach each group differently. Basically, it's a type of diplomacy that would continue to exist even after they've been conquered/absorbed into your empire.

As an example, let's say that you're France and you come across an area with a settled community of Nepalis. Their units are peaceful to you at first, but as you send scouts into their area tensions rise. You have a few options: pay a tribute that appeases them, do nothing and let them get pissed, supply them with weapons and ally with them, or attack their units and start a mini-war. Each choice has its pros and cons, but to make this shorter lets say that you ally with them. This leads to them becoming friendly with you, but they either become more independent and start consolidating to become a CS or you extend your influence into the region. If you build a city near them, if they're friendly to you the city is more likely to have your culture be more dominant and the ethnic group assimilates into you civ more easily. The last step is how to deal with this new group in your empire, and you can either grant them autonomy, resulting in a puppet-like city, work to build culture buildings and other tactics of assimilation, deprive them of rights and gain full control with little effort but risk rebellion, or lastly do nothing and see how things develop.

That's how I envisioned it. What do you think?

 

[Lachlan]

I think that Civ 6 should take the basis of Civ 5 Complete and tweaking it a bit more...

Like Civ 5 but more...

 

[Naokaukodem]

I was thinking that ethnic groups would totally replace barbarians, and as such would grow organically like they did. Instead of having units who are always hostile to you, they would be entities whose loyalties would be much harder to control than CS, and nomadic ethnic groups would be more prickly than their settled counterparts. The way I envisioned their growth would work is that like barbarians in civ 4, their towns would just sprout up more and more as the game when on, though never in already settled territory, and usually they would develop in regions with resources and food rich land more.

As for how to assimilate different ethnic groups, I thought an extension of the policy tree that would be more interactive would be good. It would be separate from most policies, though some ordinary policies would affect assimilation, but it would be very different because you would have to approach each group differently. Basically, it's a type of diplomacy that would continue to exist even after they've been conquered/absorbed into your empire.

As an example, let's say that you're France and you come across an area with a settled community of Nepalis. Their units are peaceful to you at first, but as you send scouts into their area tensions rise. You have a few options: pay a tribute that appeases them, do nothing and let them get pissed, supply them with weapons and ally with them, or attack their units and start a mini-war. Each choice has its pros and cons, but to make this shorter lets say that you ally with them. This leads to them becoming friendly with you, but they either become more independent and start consolidating to become a CS or you extend your influence into the region. If you build a city near them, if they're friendly to you the city is more likely to have your culture be more dominant and the ethnic group assimilates into you civ more easily. The last step is how to deal with this new group in your empire, and you can either grant them autonomy, resulting in a puppet-like city, work to build culture buildings and other tactics of assimilation, deprive them of rights and gain full control with little effort but risk rebellion, or lastly do nothing and see how things develop.

That's how I envisioned it. What do you think?

I don't think barbarians should be replaced, so to speak at least. I think you should be able to make peace with some of them, depending on their character, that's all. Maybe they are at war with everybody to begin, but you could make peace with them occasionnally ? Ideally barbarians would still be special entities, and you could incarnate them. (playing differently a little like Zergs in Starcraft)

And also, would your ethnic groups form more or less slower, since the start, or have a past and a past presence so they would be here since the start ? As you put it, it's like they would spawn randomly and occasionnally like barbarians do in Civ5 and Civ4. I think they should be here from the start or at least spawn according to a logical simulation of cultural shining of regular civs. I wondered once if we couldn't have other cultural homes made of nothing but culture, your ethnic groups could rise from them. But I think that cultural mixing should be something synthetized rather than something completely random.

That's why I wonder if tribes should be here from the start. Probably yes. They could replace both barbarians and goody huts, being aggressive towards you or making you gifts. (first to encounter them have a big gift, or a big aggressive reaction, while the other ones smaller ones) You could trade with them, give them agriculture for them to prosper, or attract them to your cities what would free some space while giving you in the same time some more population. Etc. I will not repeat myself endlessly, you can see all that in the link I posted before, and in some others of the threads that I created.

As to your last parts, I feel them too mechanical. Social policies and puppetting cities...