After having read most of the wishes regarding the future of the game, the overwhelming part is about adding a certain civilization or civilizations. I have got a composite idea that would include a whole new level of gameplay and the possibility to involve many, mostly small in size or scope, new civilizations in the game.
The idea is based on civ5's Venice. I always thought about what it would be like to play a city-state, not just a one city game, but one with entirely different rules and goals. With civ6's incoming features, mainly unstacking cities, every city is going to have a unique look and feel to it, rather than the copypastes of the previous entries - with the exception of some degree of specialization.
There could be a game mode where you control a city state effectively, the focus of the game would be diplomacy to the extreme, along with pursuing smaler oppurtunity goals like quests. I have split the main differences between this and a whole civilization into subgroups for better visibility. The whole idea is a collection of vague concepts, with nothing really worked out, I am curious what others think.
1. General effectivity
There could be a special approval system that kept track of your diplomatic stances with individual civilizations, and grant you various bonuses based on such values, much like the current system of civ5 and civ6 reversed. This could be used to keep up the pace in areas where you would otherwise be lacking due to the lack of size - possibly science, culture, wealth or faith. Both science and culture would use a different set of tech trees, imperialism is for example a shaky concept when you want to control a single city.
2. Expansion
It would be very different from Venice in civ 5, that could expand to the same level as others, just the means were specific. Essentially what you could have is your base city, and in order to get resources you could create so called outposts, named mini-cities, that would have a very small area, have an own set of buildings, and have a low maximum number tied to cultural or scientific advancement, and serve the goal of resource acquisition.
Expansion through conquest would not be possible, every time you capture a city, you would gain a large amount of ransom, much like pillaging, and after a short time, the city would be returned to the owner.
3. Science and scientific victory
Since you could not keep up with the science output of a whole empire, research agreements tied to certain conditions would be an obvious solution, also practiced inn real life between smaller and larger countries. Attainable scientific victory conditions could be entering different eras before major civilizations do, or completing a smaller project, not a mars colony, like cure for cancer from previous entries.
4. Culture and cultural victory
If we assume that cultural victory is similar to civ5, then a cultural victory measured in tourism would require many cities with tourism bonus. City states could instead work towards an utopian state project, tourism acting as an influence tool over major civilizations in the aforementioned approval system.
5. Military and domination victory
This one is tricky because you would need obvious bonuses to defend yourself if needed, but also keeping you under the level of major civilizations. An easy solution is to limit the number of military units but give them bonuses inside your own territory. As for a domination type victory, it could be feasible to have to ransom (see expansion) a city from each civilization or to take a capital city by siege.
6. Religion and religious victory
Basically, founding an own religion would be probably off the table, but it could be merged with culture, for example spreading the first acquired religion to a percentage of world population and beat the original holy city in terms of -for example- tourism output.
7. Trade
Trading as well could have its unique features, for example anything you can build and produce is limited because of size, but you could sell units to major civilizations, reverting the levy system in a way.
8. Victory by type
It could be feasible to attach a special victory unique to a special type of city state, for example attain every luxury as a mercantile state, build a number of wonders as a cultural one. Or even specify a historical victory similar to Rhye's mod for civ4, for example when playing as Vatican, you would have to beat the holy city of your religion in population, tourism and faith output.
9. Unique features
City states would not have different possible leaders -no extra work with leader scenes-, just a civilization ability, a unique building, improvement or district, and possibly a unit. Since the gameplay would be very unique and adaptive in each game, I think it would be best to limit it to human players. Whenever you play a major civilization, they would simply revert to their original state and form.
Just considering city states from civ5, the number of civilizations that could be included this way is limitless. Buenos Aires with Argentina, Budapest with Hungary, Kabul with Afghanistan, Hanoi with Vietnam, the list is pretty long. Also, the colonies (see expansion) could bear actual city names from that civilization, going with the same examples, Veszprém, Esztergom, Székesfehérvár for Hungary, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong or Da Nang for Vietnam. Or true city-state could be added as mini- civilizations with rich history such as Vatican, Singapore or Zanzibar.
The reason why I think this would be ideal for a possible expansion because on one hand the congress is missing, so an expansion with a focus on diplomacy is logical, on the other hand the amount of features would easily add up to a size of an expansion, and on the third hand (biology was never my cup of tea) it could help a lot with including civilizations, and we can agree that it is the most common wish among players. This way major civilizations could also really be different, for example Persia is not the same scope in any way as the Shoshone, no offense meant to anyone.
The idea is based on civ5's Venice. I always thought about what it would be like to play a city-state, not just a one city game, but one with entirely different rules and goals. With civ6's incoming features, mainly unstacking cities, every city is going to have a unique look and feel to it, rather than the copypastes of the previous entries - with the exception of some degree of specialization.
There could be a game mode where you control a city state effectively, the focus of the game would be diplomacy to the extreme, along with pursuing smaler oppurtunity goals like quests. I have split the main differences between this and a whole civilization into subgroups for better visibility. The whole idea is a collection of vague concepts, with nothing really worked out, I am curious what others think.
1. General effectivity
There could be a special approval system that kept track of your diplomatic stances with individual civilizations, and grant you various bonuses based on such values, much like the current system of civ5 and civ6 reversed. This could be used to keep up the pace in areas where you would otherwise be lacking due to the lack of size - possibly science, culture, wealth or faith. Both science and culture would use a different set of tech trees, imperialism is for example a shaky concept when you want to control a single city.
2. Expansion
It would be very different from Venice in civ 5, that could expand to the same level as others, just the means were specific. Essentially what you could have is your base city, and in order to get resources you could create so called outposts, named mini-cities, that would have a very small area, have an own set of buildings, and have a low maximum number tied to cultural or scientific advancement, and serve the goal of resource acquisition.
Expansion through conquest would not be possible, every time you capture a city, you would gain a large amount of ransom, much like pillaging, and after a short time, the city would be returned to the owner.
3. Science and scientific victory
Since you could not keep up with the science output of a whole empire, research agreements tied to certain conditions would be an obvious solution, also practiced inn real life between smaller and larger countries. Attainable scientific victory conditions could be entering different eras before major civilizations do, or completing a smaller project, not a mars colony, like cure for cancer from previous entries.
4. Culture and cultural victory
If we assume that cultural victory is similar to civ5, then a cultural victory measured in tourism would require many cities with tourism bonus. City states could instead work towards an utopian state project, tourism acting as an influence tool over major civilizations in the aforementioned approval system.
5. Military and domination victory
This one is tricky because you would need obvious bonuses to defend yourself if needed, but also keeping you under the level of major civilizations. An easy solution is to limit the number of military units but give them bonuses inside your own territory. As for a domination type victory, it could be feasible to have to ransom (see expansion) a city from each civilization or to take a capital city by siege.
6. Religion and religious victory
Basically, founding an own religion would be probably off the table, but it could be merged with culture, for example spreading the first acquired religion to a percentage of world population and beat the original holy city in terms of -for example- tourism output.
7. Trade
Trading as well could have its unique features, for example anything you can build and produce is limited because of size, but you could sell units to major civilizations, reverting the levy system in a way.
8. Victory by type
It could be feasible to attach a special victory unique to a special type of city state, for example attain every luxury as a mercantile state, build a number of wonders as a cultural one. Or even specify a historical victory similar to Rhye's mod for civ4, for example when playing as Vatican, you would have to beat the holy city of your religion in population, tourism and faith output.
9. Unique features
City states would not have different possible leaders -no extra work with leader scenes-, just a civilization ability, a unique building, improvement or district, and possibly a unit. Since the gameplay would be very unique and adaptive in each game, I think it would be best to limit it to human players. Whenever you play a major civilization, they would simply revert to their original state and form.
Just considering city states from civ5, the number of civilizations that could be included this way is limitless. Buenos Aires with Argentina, Budapest with Hungary, Kabul with Afghanistan, Hanoi with Vietnam, the list is pretty long. Also, the colonies (see expansion) could bear actual city names from that civilization, going with the same examples, Veszprém, Esztergom, Székesfehérvár for Hungary, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong or Da Nang for Vietnam. Or true city-state could be added as mini- civilizations with rich history such as Vatican, Singapore or Zanzibar.
The reason why I think this would be ideal for a possible expansion because on one hand the congress is missing, so an expansion with a focus on diplomacy is logical, on the other hand the amount of features would easily add up to a size of an expansion, and on the third hand (biology was never my cup of tea) it could help a lot with including civilizations, and we can agree that it is the most common wish among players. This way major civilizations could also really be different, for example Persia is not the same scope in any way as the Shoshone, no offense meant to anyone.
