Civilization VII Wishlist

[GIO888]

Keep Districts for deffo. Keep Armies and Corps as well, love the flexibility.

Improve the terrain eye-candy and AI - but that should be a given, what, 8 years on? Make World Congress less two-dimensional, likewise Trades/Treaties interactions.

And for goodness sake do something about Religious victory so we don't get endless spammed missionaries.

Doubtless there's allsorts I've not mentioned, these are the stand-outs for me!

 

[Villager720]

I want “ages” gameplay removed or reworked significantly. As it stands now it’s exceptionally “gamey” and incentivizes playing every game the same way : “ok and now I need to build a boat for those last 4 points”.

And it honestly bizarrely feels most punishing to get a “normal” age as you miss out on golden age powers and the powerful policies of a dark age.

The whole mechanic feels like it was tacked on soley to check a “add a new expansion mechanic box”.

Oh and better AI that can actually properly engage with mechanics such as loyalty.

 

[Futumch]

I hope that they have a custom civ where you can pick 4 choices from a list of options. For instance, if I want Sumeria’s Warcart, Frederick’s extra district, Percules Wildcard and Cleopatra’s extra gold per trade route. Something like that.

Couple that with full custom identifiers. Let's say I want to play as Jim the Flatulent, leader of Iceland. Just let me fill in the text boxes for the appropriate names. Pull my city names for the custom civ from the overflow city list, or (shock, horror!) let me have my own list. Go full custom civs, forcibly yank Civ 7 back towards "game" rather than "simulator".

Maybe I played too much Freeciv back in the day, I always liked playing as Iceland.

 

[Kayak06460]

Please make the AI better at war and increase the amount of units in the game. Also, give players the choice of what eras to play.

 

[Nikolai II]

Please make the AI better at war and increase the amount of units in the game. Also, give players the choice of what eras to play.

Like advanced starts?

 

[reddishrecue]

Idk how the AI is so poorly implemented. I am in Emperor AI and the AI is good. They attack and they even got my capital once. The AI is fine. I just dont know how the other players managed to get by it since it seems so simple on youtube.

 

[Xur]

Idk how the AI is so poorly implemented. I am in Emperor AI and the AI is good. They attack and they even got my capital once. The AI is fine. I just dont know how the other players managed to get by it since it seems so simple on youtube.

I doubt the civ6 AI has ever won a conquest victory on standard map - EVER. The AI is not good.

Your skill vs the AI doesnt really matter. If you just run bot games, they hardly ever attack or take over other civs. Sure, if you have no army they will declare war. But that’s vegetable level AI.

Not sure if it was a troll post, but I can assure you that the AI is bad. Civ1 AI was better at conquest.

 

[reddishrecue]

I doubt the civ6 AI has ever won a conquest victory on standard map - EVER. The AI is not good.

Your skill vs the AI doesnt really matter. If you just run bot games, they hardly ever attack or take over other civs. Sure, if you have no army they will declare war. But that’s vegetable level AI.

Not sure if it was a troll post, but I can assure you that the AI is bad. Civ1 AI was better at conquest.

Civ 1 did have good conquest at first, but once you conquered one AI, you could steal all their technologies like if you were Ashurbanipal of Assyria from civ 5 but you can only take 1 technology. I'm not sure if that's possible anymore where you conquer an AI fully and you take all their technologies like you could in civilization 1 because that's the only way I remember to figure out how to out tech AI in civ 1.

 

[Prester John 2]

IIRC the best AI (=capable of defeating you post the start of the game) was in CIV4. It had many flaws (naval invasion) but at least it invaded you with huge stacks and could capture some cities.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Idk how the AI is so poorly implemented. I am in Emperor AI and the AI is good. They attack and they even got my capital once. The AI is fine. I just dont know how the other players managed to get by it since it seems so simple on youtube.

Once you realize how the AI works in civ 6 for purposes of declaring war, its pretty easy to avoid wars with them except in somewhat niche cases.
This applies even on deity, and can be abused by players to stay safe early on whenthe players are at their weakest.

I dont know how the AI is coded in civ 5, but its definitely noticeably different.
Played a game recently on prince level (multiplayer) to introduce it to a friend, and was surprised to see two AIs team up on me with a mutual DOW.
It was surprising since I had an army of about 3 archers, a warrior and a spearman, which is usually enough to discourage the AI in the ancient/classical era in civ 6, as the civ 6 AI DOWs based on relative military scores.
The AI also presented a real danger by having numerous forces, and their mass pillaging set me back pretty hard.
It's a real contrast from civ 6, which is way too easy once you figure out the AI.

 

[reddishrecue]

Once you realize how the AI works in civ 6 for purposes of declaring war, its pretty easy to avoid wars with them except in somewhat niche cases.
This applies even on deity, and can be abused by players to stay safe early on whenthe players are at their weakest.

I dont know how the AI is coded in civ 5, but its definitely noticeably different.
Played a game recently on prince level (multiplayer) to introduce it to a friend, and was surprised to see two AIs team up on me with a mutual DOW.
It was surprising since I had an army of about 3 archers, a warrior and a spearman, which is usually enough to discourage the AI in the ancient/classical era in civ 6, as the civ 6 AI DOWs based on relative military scores.
The AI also presented a real danger by having numerous forces, and their mass pillaging set me back pretty hard.
It's a real contrast from civ 6, which is way too easy once you figure out the AI.

I used to get really dominant in civ 5 and even got to Immortal domination victory and close to domination in deity. The whole point was to kill their units and rank up yours without losing them to capture cities.
In civ 6 however its different.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I used to get really dominant in civ 5 and even got to Immortal domination victory and close to domination in deity. The whole point was to kill their units and rank up yours without losing them to capture cities.
In civ 6 however its different.

Yeah I used to play a lot of civ 5, and had forgotten how the AI is very different there.
I especially like how playing peacefully vs aggressive has some real tradeoffs, unlike in civ 6 that I feel just missed the mark.
Play peacefully and you will generally have a strong economy and be leading in tech or causing happiness issues to enemies with high culture.
The drawback is that you are at risk of getting steamrolled by a strong aggressive neighbour, whereas the opposite is true for the aggressor.
Whereas in civ 6, taking as many cities with force is pretty much a nobrainer with few if any drawbacks, as you just get better economy and tech/culture out of it at the same time.
And the AI unfortunately sucks at it, so it (kind of) sucks at the game in general because of how strong domination benefits are.

 

[Kayak06460]

Like advanced starts?

I’d like the option to play Ancient to Renaissance or Industrial and not have to to play modern or future.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I wish units will be more mobile than in Civ 6. If they keep the current movement system, each unit needs one more movement point. That would fix quite a few things: from unit shuffling and traffic jams to the AI being more challenging in war. Every time you get an effect that gives your unit an extra movement point, unit movement feels so much better that it should have been the default to begin with.

I would add one movement point, and allow one unit of each “class” to stack in a hex

So one melee, one ranged, one cav etc

I play with a mod that does this and it improves the game so much, especially the AI’s ability to fight

Good one. Yeah, combat in 6 is more like solving a Rubik's cube than battlefield maneuver.

Bwa ha ha ya it’s both incredibly unfun as well as being terrible history

I want “ages” gameplay removed or reworked significantly. As it stands now it’s exceptionally “gamey” and incentivizes playing every game the same way : “ok and now I need to build a boat for those last 4 points”.

And it honestly bizarrely feels most punishing to get a “normal” age as you miss out on golden age powers and the powerful policies of a dark age.

The whole mechanic feels like it was tacked on soley to check a “add a new expansion mechanic box”.

Oh and better AI that can actually properly engage with mechanics such as loyalty.

I love the idea, but the implementation is so…board gamey.

 

[James_Champagne]

I don't know, most Civ VI games I play there are usually at least a few cases where the AI will take out another AI civ. Though I usually play with a mod that makes capitals always loyal, so if the AI wants to defeat another civ totally, they need to get that last city by force rather than just wait for it to rebel.

 

[UWHabs]

I would add one movement point, and allow one unit of each “class” to stack in a hex

So one melee, one ranged, one cav etc

I play with a mod that does this and it improves the game so much, especially the AI’s ability to fight



Bwa ha ha ya it’s both incredibly unfun as well as being terrible history


I love the idea, but the implementation is so…board gamey.

I don't necessarily think you need more movement points unless if the map gets significantly bigger. But I do think allowing a limited amount of stacking on a tile, or re-working the unit classes, would help a lot. Like maybe if they change range units to be more like support units, where you can basically hide ranged units on a tile, would go a long way. Right now I think it's very much too easy for a city with like one crossbow in it to destroy any siege units coming to a city. If they made that harder, so maybe you need to have some melee units around to clean up the battlefield, that would probably help the offense out.

I'd also love it if the game gave you more decisions on how to customize your empire. I like when you get the early pantheon choice and you choose between stuff like culture on plantations, or faith on resource mines, or production from fishing boats, etc... Give me more decisions like that in how to build my empire. Let me regret my decision to not take God of Craftsmanship for the next 3000 years...

 

[pokiehl]

I'd also love it if the game gave you more decisions on how to customize your empire. I like when you get the early pantheon choice and you choose between stuff like culture on plantations, or faith on resource mines, or production from fishing boats, etc... Give me more decisions like that in how to build my empire. Let me regret my decision to not take God of Craftsmanship for the next 3000 years...

I agree with you in sentiment.

However, Civ 6 has, I think, more ways to customize our empire than any prior civ game.* The problem is it doesn't really FEEL that great because a lot of these bonuses lack permanence or weight. We change policy cards and government types practically without any consequence, and with these bonuses so transient and easily undoable, our choices lack weight and permanence. Likewise, city-state suzerain bonuses can be quite good, but they are hardly immutable. Whether I'm slotting a policy or sending an envoy, I never get the sense that I'm making a crucial, permanent decision--because I'm not!

In contrast, the Civ 5 policy tree choices were completely permanent and the bonuses were impactful all game. Investing your Culture into those bonuses was a weighty decision. I really like the way that felt. There was also an element of planning that policy cards and governments in Civ 6 lack. If a policy you want was gated behind two others you didn't necessarily want, you had to really consider your investment. I like those tough decisions.

*(As an aside, this is why I always get confused when people ask for stuff like "let us choose our own civ abilities, we should be able to adapt to our maps." We already have that - all these bonuses we pick, from pantheons to governors to religious beliefs to policies to governments are literally customizing our empire as we go along, based on our emergent gameplay conditions).

 

[InsidiousMage]

As an aside, this is why I always get confused when people ask for stuff like "let us choose our own civ abilities, we should be able to adapt to our maps." We already have that - all these bonuses we pick, from pantheons to governors to religious beliefs to policies to governments are literally customizing our empire as we go along, based on our emergent gameplay conditions

I think when people talk about stuff like this they are talking about things like district discounts and terrain bonuses. For example, settling a lot of coast cities as the Cree could grant harbor discounts, like lower production cost, or bonus tile yields to a specific type of terrain similar to Russia's ability if settle a lot of cities in particular type of terrain.

 

[pokiehl]

I think when people talk about stuff like this they are talking about things like district discounts and terrain bonuses. For example, settling a lot of coast cities as the Cree could grant harbor discounts, like lower production cost, or bonus tile yields to a specific type of terrain similar to Russia's ability if settle a lot of cities in particular type of terrain.

But I think you can get all of that with the existing systems we have.

Let's take your Cree example. Off the top of my head, if you are Cree on the coast, you can "customize" your civ to suit that terrain better by (1) picking the God of the Sea pantheon (or City Patron Goddess so you can build Harbors as your first district efficiently), (2) building the Colossus or Great Lighthouse, (3) slotting in policies like Maritime Industries, (4) getting suzerainty of city-states like Auckland, and (5) prioritizing Liang as a Governor for Fisheries. Bam. You've customized the Cree to focus on coast.

I think this feels a lot more organic and less contrived than a pop-up message telling you '+25% Production to Harbors' after you arbitrarily settle 3 cities on the coast.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Just a competent AI. That's it.
I haven't played 6 in about a year, despite having all the content. Still play 4 and 5 frequently. Honestly I hated 6 the more I played it.