Civvi will have half the amount of techs compared to Civ 5

[Jon Shafer]

The problem I see with optional techs in Civ is that the game is based on history. This would be acceptable for fantasy and science fiction.

I have myself been tempted to create a mod with a tech line, a culture line, an economic line, etc. but this would be so historically inaccurate. It seems like the new system that they came up with is sort of a compromise.

Very true, and the main reason why I didn't go in that direction with Civ 5.

- Jon

 

[m15a]

The problem I see with optional techs in Civ is that the game is based on history. This would be acceptable for fantasy and science fiction.

I have myself been tempted to create a mod with a tech line, a culture line, an economic line, etc. but this would be so historically inaccurate. It seems like the new system that they came up with is sort of a compromise.

There have been optional techs in past Civs (I think), and there are examples that make historical sense. As a simple example off the top of my head, Writing could be a required tech while Alphabet could be an optional "leaf" tech. Not every Civ has to make every military advancement either. Like, certain Civs might not develop nuclear weapon tech while having nuclear tech and other more contemporary tech, too.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Yeah, there's a little bit of fudging you can do, but it's VERY limited compared to a fantasy game, where literally anything is possible.

- Jon

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

There have been optional techs in past Civs (I think), and there are examples that make historical sense. As a simple example off the top of my head, Writing could be a required tech while Alphabet could be an optional "leaf" tech. Not every Civ has to make every military advancement either. Like, certain Civs might not develop nuclear weapon tech while having nuclear tech and other more contemporary tech, too.

I agree. But the Civ V tech tree has very broad techs that were mostly all known by civilizations that were world leaders in technology. If the tech tree had optional techs that were of lesser importance like Porcelain working for example, the tech tree could maintain a sense of realism.

 

[Acken]

The more concerning part would be having half the amount of techs with half the amount of unlocks.

If we get as much content with a trimmed down tree I'm okay with it. Civ5 had a good amount of techs no one really cared about. If in a sense some of them get merged that's fine.

 

[Matthew.]

On the one hand, I'm concerned about the cut techs, just because I don't want things to get cut. On the other hand, using Civ 5 as a reference, it is possible to combine/remove a lot of the techs without impacting the overall game.

I'm just worried because leading up to BE there were a lot of potential "concerns" about the game, and while a lot of folk tried to stay positive with a "let's wait and see" attitude, the ultimate result was those concerns were justified and the game was lackluster.

 

[nokmirt]

I am sure there will be plenty of techs.

 

[m15a]

On the one hand, I'm concerned about the cut techs, just because I don't want things to get cut. On the other hand, using Civ 5 as a reference, it is possible to combine/remove a lot of the techs without impacting the overall game.

I'm just worried because leading up to BE there were a lot of potential "concerns" about the game, and while a lot of folk tried to stay positive with a "let's wait and see" attitude, the ultimate result was those concerns were justified and the game was lackluster.

You're concerned about people being concerned since in the past people have been concerned about things that warranted concern. But people have also been concerned about things that didn't warrant concern. So I wouldn't be concerned about people being concerned. [emoji14]

Seriously, though, people were concerned about BE based on the information they had. There are some valid concerns now about information we have about Civ 6, like 1upt is a deal breaker for some. But this tech number topic is basically concern about information we don't have. Not the same.

 

[Redaxe]

I don't mind the number of techs - the issue I had in Civ 5 was the the game always moves too fast too really get immersed in an era.

Civilization runs along a simulated technology tree where everything accumulates. It doesn't factor in the loss of knowledge from the collapse of large empires etc...

Personally I'd favor faster expansion in the first 50 turns. The ancient era in Civ 5 is basically trying to get some cities down and unlock all the land for improvement.
Its very hard to be able to have a large classical era civ and be able to expand militarily and get some wonders down - you can only ever really do just one of those things.

Thus its mostly impossible to actually achieve a civilization like ancient Rome or China in the space of 100 turns... Considering it can take nearly 10 turns just to build a settler and nearly the same amount to build your first monument.

Not sure how the tech tree could solve this though. Maybe earlier techs and expansion is cheaper but it gets much harder to keep expanding later on. So early rewards and later punishment?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The problem I see with optional techs in Civ is that the game is based on history. This would be acceptable for fantasy and science fiction.

The real problem in that context is the heavy pre-reqs in Civ series so far. For example you need machinery + guilds for gunpowder in Civ IV, or alternatively education. You need math or alphabet for currency.

V is no better, needing stuff like chivalry for banking, pottery for calendar, economics for military science in earlier version etc.

There is also not much natural spread of innovation, because previous designs wanted to emphasize the importance of research. Tech stealing is late/weak in V, niche in IV and overpowered in BE, and already-discovered discount is limited.

Those are all intentional design choices, and many of them aren't strictly historical. Civ has long put science as king, to the point where it isn't historical. Prior to the industrial revolution the science-dominates model doesn't make a ton of historical sense when compared to the game.

The active research model has a lot of potential, so long as it doesn't devolve into players always following the same patterns.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The active research model has a lot of potential, so long as it doesn't devolve into players always following the same patterns.

The problem I forsee is players determining the strongest tech path strategy and restarting the game until they get the ideal starting environment for that tech path.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The problem I forsee is players determining the strongest tech path strategy and restarting the game until they get the ideal starting environment for that tech path.

I don't see an issue with that so long as you can get balanced starts with scripts for MP.

In SP, people have been doing that for ages, be it 2x corn/gems start, salt starts, people rerolling maps until getting great bonuses from ruins/huts. HoF is littered with games doing that kind of thing, and yet the most skillful players still come out in front most cases.

I'm more worried about some starts being comparatively trash, similar to getting plains cow as only food resource in Civ IV with lots of plains being your only surrounding territory. V had less map screw; even relatively bad tundra starts were playable in SP and the otherwise unfortunate dominance of archers/CB/XB made it not-game-over to spawn near someone who had strategic resources when you didn't (as opposed to IV where someone with copper could trivially pillage you to death if you had no copper/horse with only minimal resource investment). Start scumming is going to be a thing so long as you have variant starts, but I want starts to at least be relatively viable.

 

[lrdscorpio]

No way Civ6 will have 30 techs o_o

Considering how much of the tree is filler, I could see how they get down to that number. I also think that posters above are right in their guess that main techs will have their own path. A bit more like how the SP work now I think but on a grander scale

 

[Hail]

Agree

I have read that less techs will be compensated by other areas.

art & intricate animations?

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Fewer techs could mean that the devs want quality over quantity. With fewer techs, you can make each one more meaningful and special when the player gets it. You can also have more time in between techs so that the player has more turns to use the new stuff they got. If that is the case, that would be a good thing. When I get gunpowder, I want to be able to use my new musketman unit and fight some wars before getting something better.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Fewer techs also means more that can be added in the inevitable expansions.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Another things that has to be conidered is that era advancement gave some bonuses too for example for city states etc which did matter for the number of techs per era and in the end also for the total number. If this mechanic is not present anymore in Civ VI then less techs will be less of a problem assuming the amount of unlocks is approximately the same.

 

[dexters]

@EaglePursuit Right, Civ expansions rarely shake up the tech tree in a major way. Sometimes a tech or two are added, sometimes a tech is removed and buildings/features/moved around but the tech tree remains the same.

If Civ6 is as feature rich out of the box as they promise, there could be a lot of room to move in new directions in expansions.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

@EaglePursuit Right, Civ expansions rarely shake up the tech tree in a major way. Sometimes a tech or two are added, sometimes a tech is removed and buildings/features/moved around but the tech tree remains the same.

If Civ6 is as feature rich out of the box as they promise, there could be a lot of room to move in new directions in expansions.

I wonder if Firaxis would do an expansion for civ6 that takes the game well into the future.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

From what little I've read, your civ will learn by doing things out in the "real world," instead of because someone in an ivory tower decrees that "we're going to research iron working now."

That's been a staple of Civ since the beginning, but if you stop to think about it for even a second it makes no sense--especially from people that pine for "depth" and "complexity" and yadda yadda yadda. Working with what you see on your planet instead of by preordained script would seem much deeper, and not "dumbed down" like people who like to think they're smarter than everyone else would have you believe.

The series has made some strides in this in the last few iterations (esp with religions in CivV), but I would much prefer building a civ that feels like it comes about organically.