Conclusions on playing Civ5-6 back & forth.

[nzcamel]

I listed the ones that are located outside the city centre, sorry I could have made that clearer.

The AI being potatoe is probably a function of laziness, 1 UPT and possibly casual easy mode. Not sure which is predominant.

What I do know is that with Real AI, No Districts ++, and ARS Improved Movement (which also allows limited stacking) plus some other tweaks I know have a Civ6 game that is more challenging at Prince than stock Civ6 is at Diety

And this is where the AI is NOT turbocharged with stupid bonuses remember.

I don't follow. All districts are outside of the city center.

I'll have a look at some of the AI mods you suggest. I've tried at least one of those and found the results to be mixed at best

 

[nzcamel]

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.

You have got me a bit excited thinking about the posibilities for more nuanced loyalty aieeegrunt. Assuming that they keep the rivers working in 7 like they do in 6; which are great for making city placements matter, both for potential size but also defense, I could see that being expanded to include loyalty not flowing across a river or lake/sea as well as it does where there isn't these features. As you allude to Rome's borders with German tribes was famous for mostly following the Danube. This reduction in loyalty should be watered down by some later game tech or civic though.

And I think that the thematic nature of bodies of water breaking up loyalty is so strong that it could be put in all difficulty levels of the game.