PeenHype
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2017
- Messages
- 2
Introduction: Hello 
My name is Peen and I've had the sudden urge to describe in detail my hopes and dreams for the future of this wonderful legacy of games i hold dear to me. It wont come as a surprise that I have spent a lot of time withering away, enjoying not only the casual, but competitive aspects of Civ and i hope and trust my view will be criticized. I am rather new to this forum but it wont stop me from believing someone out there, some god, is listening to my prayers for this game
I will try to section off my hopes into categories, in no particular order or fashion. This is based on my knowledge of Civ 6 with dlc, naturally.
True to life additions: The first & most important thing (to me) i have considered is how land is presented in Civilization, which i'd currently describe as an area of use for a city, restricted to the areas around it. There are cases in which perhaps a high
culture Civ, or Russia can expand to a point where its borders are met with no boundary, but never to the extent where the whole world (even by the modern age on a standard map) is completely in use by a civilization. It always occurs that a large Siberia-esc Tundra or a Sahara desert is simply forgotten about, left to rot with barbarians. It is simply inadequate to settle such poor cities in these lands, being so far away and without and strategy or use. To get to my point, these areas aren't to be forgotten about, Russia never left these areas of poor fertility behind and neither should we. My idea is to have Territorial disputes over land. A system where empires may expand their borders, perhaps at the start of the industrial era, up to and including zones where they exert loyalty (as an example of a range that would make sense). Or maybe even to areas beyond that where no loyalty is exerted. To include the aspect of competition, any Civs with higher culture output in cities get stronger claims to the land at the beginning of the industrial era. For example:
Notice how in this case, Russia's initial territory (the circle) is massively increased in areas that have little dispute, and actually curves round into the Cree's land due to them having less culture in that city. Cree land on other sides expands just as far as Russia's does, simply because there is no dispute who should own it.
Now... Why would we need all this land, we can only work 3 tiles out, which i wouldn't even change! What i would add is a strategy that seems very wide focused. I would like to see the addition of miniature cities, or more appropriately, towns. These would be placed within territory you already own, placed using either a unit or a city (who cares) and act as
puppets, building the occasional city center building and providing loyalty to cities, and gold to 
trade routes. I would equivocate them to trading post improvements from Civ 5, but more specialized and frankly cooler. More outlandish ideas include; industrial zone bonus to nearby cities,allowing cities to work beyond 3 tiles, or having them siphon food from nearby cities in exchange for production. (this could even balance the lack of production found in oh so many cities in grassland floodplain regions). I'd like to finalize the segment by calling them 'Autonomous regions' which i like quite a lot.
Wide & Tall: The age old question, the balancing act for the developers that is: wide or tall?
Primarily i think the issue i have with wide or tall is how vague it is, am i playing wide if i'm Rome with 15 cities around my capital in a perfect circle all a minimum distance apart? Maybe in an average game, but i'm sure many high level players argue that's just not wide enough. And I agree, size matters, but we need to differentiate the play-styles to better reflect the ways countries can become world players without being huge empires. A real world example is the economic potential of European nations after the age of empires. They remain diplomatic powers while maintaining populations rivaling large countries like Canada and Australia (2 huge nations).
Putting thought into this, I think the solution is to separate 2 ways of playing the game, making
domination and perhaps 
science impossible for tall nations, while 
religion, Culture and 
Diplomacy is increasingly more appropriate, meaning wide nations going for a diplo-victory cannot keep up. The current way of doing this see's dominating nations be punished for their warmongering, but i'd prefer a system that simply aids tall players instead. Furthermore, if this system is to work, as much as it pains me to say, we need to devalue science greatly. It is currently the main way to 'progress' unlocking things unavailable to a high faith player, who has no way of defending from the war machine, or even the economic machine created by a high science output.
The way i would devaluescience involves tall civs catching up a lot faster through other methods of play. In essence, the wide science player is being held onto by the smaller players, who may even use the taller players to propel themselves further. My idea also solves the problem of diplomacy being useless in multiplayer, as clearing your mates barb camp means nothing to someone trying to win, they aren't going to want to manually hand you free techs. Elections would solve this issue, because as we all know, the public have the final say, even in dictatorships (eventually). So clearing a barb camp near your friend may not make him care so much about you, but his people love you, they give you free techs, free units, immunity from attack, gold and open borders, and there isn't even need for your 'friend' to get involved. It would almost feel like a spy system like in Civ 6. (which i would still include as a secondary method of catch-up). And if your friend demands his citizens not provide this wealth to a friendly
neighbor, then he may have some difficulty holding onto a few cities, or maybe he'll need more coffee and jeans to distract them from their isolationist dictator. I would make wide play primarily based on controlling
loyalty for a very profitable result, which i agree is very controversial, but would give tall play the edge it deserves.
In extension, i'd like to further my point on small nations. Would the Netherlands have an empire of 6 cities spread over a continent the size of Europe? No, it would have 2 cities, 5 tiles away, with a few colonies overseas. This leaves us with a big issue, it is not optimum in the slightest to play like this, so i'll get straight to my point about having Denser cities.
At around the classical era, we could get to choose between Dense cities, or as previously mentioned; 'autonomous regions' Dense cities would enable Tall play. There are many ways to do this so i'll keep it vague as its mostly obvious. Greatly increased yields, Districts and wonders don't remove yields (maybe they add to it!), perhaps the complexity of Dense play comes from the fact that you can have multiple improvements on one tile, maybe only on the inner most ring of a city though. How about a separate tall governors list. (similar to picking a culture tree in Civ 5). More bonuses to just the capital and surrounding cities, and more diplomatic over defensive bonuses, would suit a tall play-style better. Perhaps tall cities can only build 2 district each max! (this one seems extreme, but how many districts do your cities really have excluding your central bunch in a wide game).
Situational Diplomacy: There exists a gap in reality within Civ games that really bugs me, it lacks something i deem essential to any modern world. We have empires, but where are the countries? Not the city-states, the countries, the places filling in mountainous regions, unwanted deserts, even at least territories like a British Raj equivalent, or a Finland that pops out of a fully fledged empire one day. Not a 'free city'. A country. My ideas aim to allow these countries to exist without a) the player losing cities, and b) without them being gobbled up by the inevitable hive mind of empires. City states remain in the game, but just call them countries by the time the industrial era roles around. How many Singapore's and Monaco's do we really need? and why are they so big on a map?
Countries can inhibit wide or tall play like our empires do, so you could have a wide Finland, centered in Helsinki, or a Tall Monaco, maybe with 2 or 3 tiles, centered in well, Monaco.
At the beginning of the game, I want to replace barbarians with Hordes. The Horde would act the same as a barbarian, but could include the areas for future countries as well as filling in early game land. They would not have cities but were rather defined by a large cluster of barbarian camps with actual borders, they would not be as aggressive and would try to expand towards city-states, rarely attempting invasion. They would however grow into unclaimed territory, making it an obstacle for city placement early on. The players can even interact with the hordes, buying their land which would perhaps give them more units, or maybe tricking them into land (imagining a colonization of the Americas scenario). Each era the hordes could separate further and further into battling tribes, then more appropriately become countries by the renaissance, While the empires start at the ancient era. This I imagine is similar to how empires in history have usually had a head start due to their geography. China, a perfect example, Is on rich floodplains, survived attacks from hordes, is one of the oldest countries, and is still around today. Unfortunately we cannot simulate a late superpower like the USA as all empires must appear during the ancient era. Or maybe not, it would be hard to implement.
I envision a world with upwards of 30 countries, with limited a.i capabilities due to performance issues, which i completely understand, it just seems like a puppet system would work just as well.
As for player diplomacy with them, I would keep the current city state system, it works perfectly, maybe with some balance tweaks and more envoys available.
Part 2 may be coming soon, please discuss ~Peen
My name is Peen and I've had the sudden urge to describe in detail my hopes and dreams for the future of this wonderful legacy of games i hold dear to me. It wont come as a surprise that I have spent a lot of time withering away, enjoying not only the casual, but competitive aspects of Civ and i hope and trust my view will be criticized. I am rather new to this forum but it wont stop me from believing someone out there, some god, is listening to my prayers for this game I will try to section off my hopes into categories, in no particular order or fashion. This is based on my knowledge of Civ 6 with dlc, naturally.
True to life additions: The first & most important thing (to me) i have considered is how land is presented in Civilization, which i'd currently describe as an area of use for a city, restricted to the areas around it. There are cases in which perhaps a high
culture Civ, or Russia can expand to a point where its borders are met with no boundary, but never to the extent where the whole world (even by the modern age on a standard map) is completely in use by a civilization. It always occurs that a large Siberia-esc Tundra or a Sahara desert is simply forgotten about, left to rot with barbarians. It is simply inadequate to settle such poor cities in these lands, being so far away and without and strategy or use. To get to my point, these areas aren't to be forgotten about, Russia never left these areas of poor fertility behind and neither should we. My idea is to have Territorial disputes over land. A system where empires may expand their borders, perhaps at the start of the industrial era, up to and including zones where they exert loyalty (as an example of a range that would make sense). Or maybe even to areas beyond that where no loyalty is exerted. To include the aspect of competition, any Civs with higher culture output in cities get stronger claims to the land at the beginning of the industrial era. For example:
Notice how in this case, Russia's initial territory (the circle) is massively increased in areas that have little dispute, and actually curves round into the Cree's land due to them having less
culture in that city. Cree land on other sides expands just as far as Russia's does, simply because there is no dispute who should own it.Now... Why would we need all this land, we can only work 3 tiles out, which i wouldn't even change! What i would add is a strategy that seems very wide focused. I would like to see the addition of miniature cities, or more appropriately, towns. These would be placed within territory you already own, placed using either a unit or a city (who cares) and act as
puppets, building the occasional city center building and providing loyalty to cities, and gold to trade routes. I would equivocate them to trading post improvements from Civ 5, but more specialized and frankly cooler. More outlandish ideas include; industrial zone bonus to nearby cities,allowing cities to work beyond 3 tiles, or having them siphon food from nearby cities in exchange for production. (this could even balance the lack of production found in oh so many cities in grassland floodplain regions). I'd like to finalize the segment by calling them 'Autonomous regions' which i like quite a lot.Wide & Tall: The age old question, the balancing act for the developers that is: wide or tall?
Primarily i think the issue i have with wide or tall is how vague it is, am i playing wide if i'm Rome with 15 cities around my capital in a perfect circle all a minimum distance apart? Maybe in an average game, but i'm sure many high level players argue that's just not wide enough. And I agree, size matters, but we need to differentiate the play-styles to better reflect the ways countries can become world players without being huge empires. A real world example is the economic potential of European nations after the age of empires. They remain diplomatic powers while maintaining populations rivaling large countries like Canada and Australia (2 huge nations).
Putting thought into this, I think the solution is to separate 2 ways of playing the game, making
domination and perhaps science impossible for tall nations, while religion, Culture and Diplomacy is increasingly more appropriate, meaning wide nations going for a diplo-victory cannot keep up. The current way of doing this see's dominating nations be punished for their warmongering, but i'd prefer a system that simply aids tall players instead. Furthermore, if this system is to work, as much as it pains me to say, we need to devalue science greatly. It is currently the main way to 'progress' unlocking things unavailable to a high faith player, who has no way of defending from the war machine, or even the economic machine created by a high science output. The way i would devalue
science involves tall civs catching up a lot faster through other methods of play. In essence, the wide science player is being held onto by the smaller players, who may even use the taller players to propel themselves further. My idea also solves the problem of diplomacy being useless in multiplayer, as clearing your mates barb camp means nothing to someone trying to win, they aren't going to want to manually hand you free techs. Elections would solve this issue, because as we all know, the public have the final say, even in dictatorships (eventually). So clearing a barb camp near your friend may not make him care so much about you, but his people love you, they give you free techs, free units, immunity from attack, gold and open borders, and there isn't even need for your 'friend' to get involved. It would almost feel like a spy system like in Civ 6. (which i would still include as a secondary method of catch-up). And if your friend demands his citizens not provide this wealth to a friendly neighbor, then he may have some difficulty holding onto a few cities, or maybe he'll need more coffee and jeans to distract them from their isolationist dictator. I would make wide play primarily based on controlling
loyalty for a very profitable result, which i agree is very controversial, but would give tall play the edge it deserves.In extension, i'd like to further my point on small nations. Would the Netherlands have an empire of 6 cities spread over a continent the size of Europe? No, it would have 2 cities, 5 tiles away, with a few colonies overseas. This leaves us with a big issue, it is not optimum in the slightest to play like this, so i'll get straight to my point about having Denser cities.
At around the classical era, we could get to choose between Dense cities, or as previously mentioned; 'autonomous regions' Dense cities would enable Tall play. There are many ways to do this so i'll keep it vague as its mostly obvious. Greatly increased yields, Districts and wonders don't remove yields (maybe they add to it!), perhaps the complexity of Dense play comes from the fact that you can have multiple improvements on one tile, maybe only on the inner most ring of a city though. How about a separate tall governors list. (similar to picking a culture tree in Civ 5). More bonuses to just the capital and surrounding cities, and more diplomatic over defensive bonuses, would suit a tall play-style better. Perhaps tall cities can only build 2 district each max! (this one seems extreme, but how many districts do your cities really have excluding your central bunch in a wide game).
Situational Diplomacy: There exists a gap in reality within Civ games that really bugs me, it lacks something i deem essential to any modern world. We have empires, but where are the countries? Not the city-states, the countries, the places filling in mountainous regions, unwanted deserts, even at least territories like a British Raj equivalent, or a Finland that pops out of a fully fledged empire one day. Not a 'free city'. A country. My ideas aim to allow these countries to exist without a) the player losing cities, and b) without them being gobbled up by the inevitable hive mind of empires. City states remain in the game, but just call them countries by the time the industrial era roles around. How many Singapore's and Monaco's do we really need? and why are they so big on a map?
Countries can inhibit wide or tall play like our empires do, so you could have a wide Finland, centered in Helsinki, or a Tall Monaco, maybe with 2 or 3 tiles, centered in well, Monaco.
At the beginning of the game, I want to replace barbarians with Hordes. The Horde would act the same as a barbarian, but could include the areas for future countries as well as filling in early game land. They would not have cities but were rather defined by a large cluster of barbarian camps with actual borders, they would not be as aggressive and would try to expand towards city-states, rarely attempting invasion. They would however grow into unclaimed territory, making it an obstacle for city placement early on. The players can even interact with the hordes, buying their land which would perhaps give them more units, or maybe tricking them into land (imagining a colonization of the Americas scenario). Each era the hordes could separate further and further into battling tribes, then more appropriately become countries by the renaissance, While the empires start at the ancient era. This I imagine is similar to how empires in history have usually had a head start due to their geography. China, a perfect example, Is on rich floodplains, survived attacks from hordes, is one of the oldest countries, and is still around today. Unfortunately we cannot simulate a late superpower like the USA as all empires must appear during the ancient era. Or maybe not, it would be hard to implement.
I envision a world with upwards of 30 countries, with limited a.i capabilities due to performance issues, which i completely understand, it just seems like a puppet system would work just as well.
As for player diplomacy with them, I would keep the current city state system, it works perfectly, maybe with some balance tweaks and more envoys available.
Part 2 may be coming soon, please discuss
~Peen
