Conclusions on playing Civ5-6 back & forth.

[nzcamel]

The way Loyalty is implemented in Civ6 is a hilariously terrible mechanic, both in terms of gameplay and history

If you are getting fragment settled by the AI, it means YOU forward settled and left porous borders. You shouldn’t get to have your cake and eat it too

Live by it. Die by it.

You can be forward settled without being fragmented in your choice of settling in the first place. And all the moreso at higher levels where the AI starts with multiple settlers.

 

[kaspergm]

The whole technology tree has to go. Seriously, it's a relic from the past, that's so narrow-minded, but it's traditionnal, so why change it?

I'd prefer a system ala Stellaris way more. You choose which techs you want to research from a pool of three proposed available techs (renewed each time you researched a tech). Each tech has some weight of appearing in this specific pool, and some elements might influence it (like, previously researched techs, your own ethics, some resources discovered...). It is a much satisfying blend of the random nature of scientific research and some control for the player to not be at the mercy of the RNG gods.

I wouldn’t remove the tech tree completely, and from what you descripe, it sounds like even Stellaris has a (hidden) tech tree (I.e. need to research certain techs for others to appear), but I support the idea of a random subset. Old World has this also, and it works ok.

 

[ezzlar]

When it comes to religion being spread to me I would like two things. 1, having an option of clearly "accepting" the new religion as my own (which may of course cause tension if several others/stronger religions are in place). 2, seeing clear benefits of accepting religious bonuses developed by someone else which would be far harder to develop on my own.

In Civ 6 founding your own religion with minimal investment is always more beneficial than to accept another religion. That´s even if I just leave it at vanilla level development.

 

[Moriarte]

Well, civilization series is famed for simulating progression, history of the human species from the dawn of time into the modern age. How do you see that without a technological progression by medium of a tech tree? Just curious.

I’ve been playing 5-6 back and forth too, so let me chip in.

1. The psychedelic colour trip of civ 6 needs to be dialled back. Maybe I’m an outlier, do tell me if that’s the case, but I never got used to extreme colours and their combinations. At later stages of the game I have trouble focusing on what’s going on, everything drowns in the soup of vividness. I get it that lightweight, low detail, primitive graphics enables Firaxis to access weak-power devices, like phones and tablets, but I’m sure there is a way to keep That while achieving more harmonious, easier on the eye colour combinations. Polytopia would be a good reference game, as it also follows primitive graphic, gameplay design, but presents itself much better visually.

2. The culture tree is an interesting idea in that it simulates progression towards more advanced government types by accumulating enough policies of a certain kind. I appreciate realistic feel of it. And yet I miss more nuanced specialisation that civ 5 provides, where whole branches can be avoided altogether if they don’t serve strategic goals. I am sure middle ground is there to be found by civ 7 creators. Civ 5 doesn’t force us to unlock ALL policies, but rather offers us to cherry pick permanent traits to make up unique cultural flavour. Picking policy cards can be engaging, but somehow it feels a more fragmented, gamey… simplistic experience, when certain traits can be stopped and swapped on a whim without serious repercussions for various elements of the state.

3. Unit movement is more challenging, I can appreciate that. And yet there exist glaring design issues, where user has to make an extra input to communicate to the unit that the turn is over. The testament to that failed design is a scout, who made it’s turn, has moves left, can’t move, but still asks you to move, even though there’s obviously no way to make a move, so you have to press ‘skip turn’. Two inputs, where 1 would be ample. Civ 5 is more streamlined design, as it requires less user input, when moving units and armies.

4. UI in civ 6 is so legacy it makes me ache at times. Constant full screen foreign leader interruptions, who come every other turn to make threats, demands and such. I think it would be more streamlined to make leaders pop up in the corner of the screen without interrupting appraisal of the map situation by the user. In other areas, far to many clicks & browsing menus are needed in order to perform simple things. In short, UI system doesn’t respect player's time in various areas. Minimap isn’t very clear, which gets exacerbated by insane colour combinations I spoke of in the first paragraph. Civ 5’s UI was also cluttered, but civ 6 is on a whole new level of tedious. UI is an area, which begs innovation.

5. I do enjoy the tree of unit rank progression. (Also, why does everything needs to hang on a tree in civ 6?) Anyway, less is more and the devs should re-apply the same civ 6 school of thought when designing unit military/civilian progression system for civ 7. Since the unit movement system is much more challenging, specifically for a player new to civ, I feel one of the first unit promotions must be the one granting movement bonuses. On hills, flat lands, near rivers, you name it.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

When it comes to religion being spread to me I would like two things. 1, having an option of clearly "accepting" the new religion as my own (which may of course cause tension if several others/stronger religions are in place). 2, seeing clear benefits of accepting religious bonuses developed by someone else which would be far harder to develop on my own.

In Civ 6 founding your own religion with minimal investment is always more beneficial than to accept another religion. That´s even if I just leave it at vanilla level development.

I miss Civ 4 and the way you had to choose your State Religion (or even go No Religion at all and stop Isabella for being enraged towards me ^^)

Well, civilization series is famed for simulating progression, history of the human species from the dawn of time into the modern age. How do you see that without a technological progression by medium of a tech tree? Just curious.

It's a very narrow way of seeing human development, and some relationships are utterly arbitrary.

Like, why do we absolutely need to Archery before inventing Horseback Riding? Couldn't a civilization be able to ride horses without inventing a way to sling stakes at a far distance? Discovering horses should be enough to invent Horseback Riding, gatekeeping it behind Archery is nonsensical and utterly eurocentric. Or why should we wait until we invented Currency to be able to do Maths? A bartering economy would need advanced maths as much as a monetary one, especially if they're doing sciences like astronomy. Or you need Horseback Riding to invent Construction? What, people didn't thought about this if they aren't on the back of the horse? But on the other hand, being able to construct something is not necessary to build Buttress, apparently. But Buttress are apparently necessary to draw a map, because... of reasons?

And that's just the flagrant arbitrary decisions, but you could go even further: why do you need Scientific Theory in order to discover Sanitation? Romans had sewers, and Mesopotamians too, and countless ancient people had very strict hygiene standards. But, in Europe, we learnt to bath only after discovering the Scientific Method, so here we go.

And here the problems lies not solely in the architecture of the Tech Tree, but in its very design, its very core philosophy. Progress is a slow and erratic path that was terribly different from culture to culture. China discovered Gun Power in what we call the Classical Era, and yet here you cannot discover it before the Renaissance. The Incas never really used the wheel (or except in very specific instances) but noone than them knew how to build bridges over cliffs, but in this game you're forced to discover it no later than the Classical Era. Why would the Malians, lost in their desert with no coast to see, would need to have discovered Sailing, Celestial Navigation and Shipbuilding in order to build Buttress? I understand that being able to build ships might give you insight about how to build buttress, but making it a hard prerequisite is nonsense!

Progress should reflect the environmental and geopolitical hardships that the civilization had to go by. In what we call the Middle-Ages and beginning of the modern era, the Holy Roman Empire, China and the Incans had developed in ways that aren't comparable. In the Ancient times, how could one compare the Mayans, the Celts or the Horn of Africa. Here, every civ looks kind of the same because they all went through exactly the same technological challenges.

Describing an entire revamp would be too long here, but I had thought about it intensively and those are the major points:

1. No more tech tree, as in no more techs that are hard-locked behind some other techs that you have to discover before researching the following one. Instead, all techs would have a certain percentage of chance to be discovered each unit of time (month, turn, whatever). "Complex" techs would be less lucky to be discovered of course, but, after all, Steam Power was discovered in Ptolemaic Egypt. But an empire discovering in the Classical Era would completely ruin the gameplay! Not if we...
2. Interconnect techs waaaay more. Like, you might discover Steam Power, but without metallurgy, coal and economic incentives, it would just give you some culture, prestige, influence or fame (as in it's nice when the doors of a temple open like magic, but no real economic benefits). For another example, Harbors could be build as soon as you discover either Sailing, Shipbuilding, Navigation of Fishing, but each techs would give differents benefits to it: Fishing would make habors produce more food, Navigation more science, Sailing more money, Shipbuilding more production, etc.
3. The interconnection will also serve to decide the probability of each tech being discovered. For example, let's say you have 1% to discover Shipbuilding each turn (rooky numbers). If, in the meantime, your discover Fishing, it goes up by 5%. With Sailing, 25%. With Navigation, 100% (because once you sail, fish and navigate, all you lack is just the arts of building ships).
4. But it won't be necessary. Like, for example, if we follow Civ 6 tech tree, Scientific Method would give a +25% discovery chance for Sanitation, but nothing would prevent you to discover it before and built sewers.
5. Cost should not scale, though, in this case. Like, you discover Sanitation in the Classical Era, the cost to build sewers should be the same as discovering it in the Modern Era. This way, you'd need to really be an empire as powerful as the Roman Empire to sacrifice the high costs of building sewers, but if you're weaker, perhaps wait a few centuries before doing it.
6. In order to prevent too many completely impossible scenarios, some techs would have a probability of 0% is a previous tech hasn't be discovered. Like, submarines shouldn't appear if you have not at least Shipbuilding or Sailing.
7. But many, many other sources of increasing the research of a technology should exist: a neighboring civ has it? And you trade with it? Endless possibilities.
8. In order to not take away every agency from the player, the player will be able to nudge the scientific research in some directions, through actions or how they build their empire. Like, deciding to have a lots of merchants will greatly enhance the probability of discovering things like Money, Mathematics or Banking. We could even think about a "Pursue Research" action where the player decide to focus some efforts on a specific technology. All other techs would have a lesser probability to be discovered, but the one pursued would be greatly enhanced. Maybe lock it behind some other technology (like Scientific Method?) or specific infrastructures, like an academy or a museum of some sort?
   1. However, it shoudl need some "protection" to prevent players to directly research "Nuclear Power" right of the beginning. What I had in mind, is that each tech would exist in three "states": Unknown, Known, Discovered. An Unknown tech would be a tech that you empire doesn't even know that exist. You cannot focus on Nuclear Power if you don't even believe in atoms. A Known tech would be a tech you know exist but haven't researched yet. And a Discovered tech would be simply researched and you rip the rewards.
   2. For a tech to go from Unknown to Known, several ways could happens, and the "Random Tech and Civic Trees" could be a good inspiration. Environment could give you information about it (near the coast? Oh, if only there was a way to go over it and get all the fish an trade with far away land...), previous techs too (atoms exist? And could they break? Could we call it Nuclear Power?), a neighboring civ discovering it (or, what is this thing? They call it Paper? Perhaps we could reproduce something similar...).

It's already long enough, but I'm sure you get the idea. There is surely several ways it is clunky right now (I'm not a game designer), but it would give more emphasis on how each empire evolves rather than simply filling up beckers.

 

[Moriarte]

Thanks for explanation! At first I read you want the tech tree to go, but then I understood that’s a hyperbole and you want it to stay, but restructured to better represent uneven development demonstrated by various real world civilisations.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

As it exists now, it's completely irrelevant

Err what??!!

Settle your capital, build a Settler, walk him across the map and settle him between two AI cities and tell me how you get on .....

It's not perfect but it's a great mechanic and very impactful.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It's already long enough, but I'm sure you get the idea. There is surely several ways it is clunky right now (I'm not a game designer), but it would give more emphasis on how each empire evolves rather than simply filling up beckers.

I get what you are saying but your proposal seems incredibly complex to me.

 

[Zaarin]

The psychedelic colour trip of civ 6 needs to be dialled back. Maybe I’m an outlier, do tell me if that’s the case, but I never got used to extreme colours and their combinations. At later stages of the game I have trouble focusing on what’s going on, everything drowns in the soup of vividness. I get it that lightweight, low detail, primitive graphics enables Firaxis to access weak-power devices, like phones and tablets, but I’m sure there is a way to keep That while achieving more harmonious, easier on the eye colour combinations.

Civ6 looks fine in vanilla, which the graphics were designed for, but is definitely oversaturated in Golden Ages. With Golden Ages so easy to achieve, one consequently spends most of the game staring at the oversaturated colors. That being said, don't mistake bright colors for "primitive graphics." Look closer; there's nothing low detail about Civ6.

Err what??!!

Settle your capital, build a Settler, walk him across the map and settle him between two AI cities and tell me how you get on .....

It's not perfect but it's a great mechanic and very impactful.

Perhaps it's just my playstyle as I've always built tight-knit empires anyway, but never once in hundreds of hours of play since R&F have I had a city at lower than 100 loyalty. In only one game do I recall loyalty even significantly affecting the AI, where poor Wilhelmina couldn't keep her empire together lodged between me and Russia. As I understand it, loyalty was implemented as a check against warmongers, but since I never go to war it's not really a mechanic that affects me.

 

[Moriarte]

That being said, don't mistake bright colors for "primitive graphics." Look closer; there's nothing low detail about Civ6.

There’s no mistake: bright colors are one problem, and the primitive graphics is a separate manifestation of developer’s wish to capture bigger audience. I don’t think I can go much closer sitting length of a hand away from a 37 inch 4k monitor and that’s not even the point. Game looks pretty dated and specifically made primitive to capture mobile audience without the need to keep two sets of assets. Ironically, it doesn’t scale properly on my ipad. Civ 6 already looked dated when it came out. Listen, on occasion I play games from 30 years ago, I don’t mind primitive graphics. Objectively, gotta call a spade a spade - graphics isn’t civ 6’s strong suit.

 

[Zaarin]

There’s no mistake: bright colors are one problem, and the primitive graphics is a separate manifestation of developer’s wish to capture bigger audience. I don’t think I can go much closer sitting length of a hand away from a 37 inch 4k monitor and that’s not even the point. Game looks pretty dated and specifically made primitive to capture mobile audience without the need to keep two sets of assets. Ironically, it doesn’t scale properly on my ipad. Civ 6 already looked dated when it came out. Listen, on occasion I play games from 30 years ago, I don’t mind primitive graphics. Objectively, gotta call a spade a spade - graphics isn’t civ 6’s strong suit.

I'm going to take a guess that you're male and over 40. I've noticed that particular demographic tends to confuse "brown" with "realistic," "realism" with "good," and "bright colors" with "unmasculine." Civ6's graphics look great. The attention to detail is fantastic, and the idea that the models are low-poly because they don't follow Renaissance ideal proportions is nonsense. (Some of the animation isn't great. There's more clipping than there ought to be on prerendered graphics. But that's a separate issue and one that you'll even find in multimillion dollar animated films from time to time.) Maybe the models were decimated and the textures downscaled for iPad, but Civ6's graphics on PC are good. That's objective; whether you like the art direction is, of course, subjective and down to your individual taste.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I sidestepped the whole graphics problem by only playing in Strategic View

Look Upon My Works And Despair

You can be forward settled without being fragmented in your choice of settling in the first place. And all the moreso at higher levels where the AI starts with multiple settlers.

Continuous borders
Closed borders
Military blockers

The way Loyalty is implemented in Civ6 is terrible. If population blob was really the key to cohesion and influence India and China would never have civil strife and the world would be dominated by Bollywood and Xi cola

Empire fragmentation was often driven by communication and travel limits dictated by technology, not by pop blobs. It’s why it’s a good shortcut metric as to why the Roman Empire had extreme difficulty projecting power and influence beyond “one oxen load further than a navigable river or ocean” and why the real frontiers tended to settle along those lines.

 

[Zaarin]

I sidestepped the whole graphics problem by only playing in Strategic View

For reasons I can't quantify, Strategic View gives me vertigo.

 

[aieeegrunt]

For reasons I can't quantify, Strategic View gives me vertigo.

I can see that. It feels like you are looking down from the window of a plane

 

[nzcamel]

Continuous borders
Closed borders
Military blockers

The way Loyalty is implemented in Civ6 is terrible. If population blob was really the key to cohesion and influence India and China would never have civil strife and the world would be dominated by Bollywood and Xi cola

Empire fragmentation was often driven by communication and travel limits dictated by technology, not by pop blobs. It’s why it’s a good shortcut metric as to why the Roman Empire had extreme difficulty projecting power and influence beyond “one oxen load further than a navigable river or ocean” and why the real frontiers tended to settle along those lines.

Like so many things in this thread, I have no problem with the greater nuance you are pointing out in terms of historical reality, and I'd welcome their implementation in game. But it is a layer of complexity that might be a bit too deep for your casual civ players. I'm all for some "rules" changing at higher levels, and this could be one.

It's very drastic to write off loyalty as terrible though because it isn't implemented in this very nuanced way. The game is better with it than without even in a form that's a bit abstract and hit 'n miss in terms of historical accuracy.

 

[nzcamel]

I'm going to take a guess that you're male and over 40. I've noticed that particular demographic tends to confuse "brown" with "realistic," "realism" with "good," and "bright colors" with "unmasculine." Civ6's graphics look great. The attention to detail is fantastic, and the idea that the models are low-poly because they don't follow Renaissance ideal proportions is nonsense. (Some of the animation isn't great. There's more clipping than there ought to be on prerendered graphics. But that's a separate issue and one that you'll even find in multimillion dollar animated films from time to time.) Maybe the models were decimated and the textures downscaled for iPad, but Civ6's graphics on PC are good. That's objective; whether you like the art direction is, of course, subjective and down to your individual taste.

Tbf Zaarin, some youngsters were pretty fond of the Civ 5 aesthetic 😜
It's not really an age divided thing.

 

[Zaarin]

Tbf Zaarin, some youngsters were pretty fond of the Civ 5 aesthetic 😜
It's not really an age divided thing.

Just a trend I've observed in sequels to games that existed in the 90s and 00s: older men throw fits about bright colors. See also: AoE4. These are particularly amusing to me as both Civ and AoE have always been highly stylized and brightly colored. That being said, I disagree with your assessment. There absolutely is an age divide in aesthetic sensibilities. Millennials overall are going to regard animated aesthetics and brighter colors more favorably than older audiences (we were raised on the Disney Renaissance, after all, and we've also seen the explosion of anime and adult-oriented animation). GenZ seems to really like minimalism, primary colors, and pastels. That doesn't mean there aren't individual exceptions; these are just trends I've noticed.

Personally I've been celebrating the move away from realistic art styles since the mid 2010s; I found it boring and have been enjoying that AAA games have been more prone to embrace various stylizations (some better than others--e.g., I'm not necessarily a fan of the lofi look embodied by games like Paralives). As I said before, I'm hoping for a more painterly style for Civ7; indeed, I'm expecting it as I look at what other video games are doing, such as AoE4. 2D animated leaders in the fashion of Pentiment (best game I've played in years, BTW) or The Banner Saga or stop-motion animated leaders would make my decade, but I know that's a pipe dream that will never, ever happen.

 

[Moriarte]

I am in millenials league, sorry to disappoint. I like realistic graphics, cartoon graphics and a great deal of other things, provided they are done with great attention to detail, quality and artistic flair. Don’t much care for anime. Yet. I enjoy bright colours, but only when they co-exist in harmony with other colours.

The attention to detail is fantastic, and the idea that the models are low-poly because they don't follow Renaissance ideal proportions is nonsense.

The main reason models have low polygon counts, is that high polygon counts require high computational power, which would overload an iphone. It has nothing to do with renaissance, art, or a new direction in graphics. Pure economics. If you want to sell to mobile demographic you’ll have to use lower quality assets compared to those you could use for a pure PC-oriented product. That confines developer to a limited number of stylistics. I don’t have any hope this trend changes in civ 7, as PC share of games market is shrinking every year (20% now), when compared to mobile+console (80%). Therefore, it is becoming less and less economical to pay special consideration to PC crowd.

Civ is a very suitable game for mobile, btw you can shut it down anytime and continue at own leisure. Eventually, this “art style”, presented in 6, will suppress most other styles. Assuredly, the stylistic will branch out into sub-styles. The dynamic, again, will have little to do with art specificities and a lot to do with proliferation of iphones and other mobile devices.

Maybe the models were decimated and the textures downscaled for iPad, but Civ6's graphics on PC are good. That's objective

The “good” part is Your subjective perception, influenced by your (very specific) upbringing, where, as you mention, you witnessed an explosion of light weight graphics oriented towards console and mobile markets. You’ve taken some of those games and styles to your heart. That’s understandable. I was (probably) interested in a slightly different subset of games and styles. Or not, we don’t know. Our collective perceptions are neither here nor there. Economics behind the process of making light weight games is, however, objective. It will remain the central driver dictating artistic style in games.

 

[Zaarin]

I am in millenials league, sorry to disappoint. I like realistic graphics, cartoon graphics and a great deal of other things, provided they are done with great attention to detail, quality and artistic flair. Don’t much care for anime. Yet. I enjoy bright colours, but only when they co-exist in harmony with other colours.

Then we're on the same page.

The main reason models have low polygon counts, is that high polygon counts require high computational power, which would overload an iphone. It has nothing to do with renaissance, art, or a new direction in graphics. Pure economics. If you want to sell to mobile demographic you’ll have to use lower quality assets compared to those you could use for a pure PC-oriented product. That confines developer to a limited number of stylistics.

Again, I'm talking specifically about the PC version. How the graphics were translated to iPhone or any other device isn't something I could speak to because I don't play on mobile devices and can't imagine wanting to. That they're not the same as those used on the PC should be obvious. In some cases the end goal of stylized graphics was indeed to make a lighter weight game. The Sims 4 is a prime example where this was a stated goal from day one. However, this is simply an assumption people have made about Civ6, one not very well supported when you consider that low-end settings on Civ6 actually disable Civ6's graphics.

The “good” part is Your subjective perception, influenced by your (very specific) upbringing, where, as you mention, you witnessed an explosion of light weight graphics oriented towards console and mobile markets. You’ve taken some of those games and styles to your heart.

Hate to disappoint you, but I've never played a mobile game in my life. My phone collects dust on my nightstand; I don't even take it with me when I leave the house. I use it to talk once or twice a month and occasionally to text. My most portable computing device is a desktop that is heavy enough to be difficult for me to lift and a 27" monitor. That Civ6's graphics are good--though perhaps a definition of "good" is useful here because I'm not talking about "has raytracing, HDR, and enough polygons on screen to set my RTX 3070 on fire" (something that actually describes no RTX game I've played--Control runs at ten degrees above my idling temp--but does describe KCD ); what I mean is consisting of well-made models, hi-res detailed textures, and an effective lighting engine--is objective; whether you like them or not is subjective. Personally I think the style is inconsistent and that the next game needs stronger art direction. The map looks great, though.

 

[seancolorado]

It's a relatively minor thing but it makes a big difference to players like me, but I want the more realistic art style and I want full background art, not partially shadowy darkness behind the leader