To be honest we have already plenty of ways to gain different bonus to specialize your civ, like policies, religions/pantheons, resources, districts, citystates, great people, wonders, etc. Even eurekas and inspirations are pretty much short cuts for the preferred focus. Also get bonus just by pick or use something that you will do anyway, could produce some annoying effects like:
-
Redundancy, if these bonus are as common and easy to get like use some X unit or take Y resource pretty much those would be like their passive bonus/status that they already have.
-
Exacerbation, the accumulation of bonus could scale at the point that civs that did not developed the same aspect would end into an unsalvageable disadvantage. So now every civ that didnt move to the see since start would end being "rubber duckies" anyway.
-
Triviality, meanwhile the bonuses that could be achieved by anyone would be "balanced" but pretty much that equals to "pointless" since most of the others civs would going to have it also.
Now I myself propose some new bonus that would add to the specialization methods list, but in a different way that is limited and force you to choose between mutually exclusive options:
-
IDEOLOGIES, equivalent to civics+policies but they come from a more organic based on an action>event>decision system (similar to Beyond Earth missions and CIVs inspiration). They are also related to a
Denizen centered model with three identitarian parameters
Heritage (ethno-cultural),
Belief (religion) and
Class (social caste). One example of these decision events:
When you defeat an enemy faction (either BC/CS/Civ) for the first time instead of get a militar oriented "Honor" branch you get a decision event like this:
"My leader our heroic warriors have emerged victorious, bringing glory to all our nation. Now only remains the question of how to retribute our troops"
a) "The blood of our heroes was shed for this land, the less we can do is to honor their legacy with titles and riches" > HONOR
b) "This victory is without question a divine blessing. Call the warriors and all the people to reverence at the shrines." > DEVOTION
c) "They have served well their leader. Organize some celebrations and then redistribute the troops wherever are needed." > AUTHORITY
So from an easy way to trigger this event (a militar victory) you can select the decision that customize your society in the way you want. Still with some pros and cons, for example more privileges for Warrior class in a) and Clergics in b) and temporal global happinest boost from c). Of course is important to note that these events are mostly one time per match for every civ.
Like we can see the decision dont just add a bonus to an endless list of bonus, it is exclusive to the others options so the player would gain but also lose in others areas, even to themes that were not so obvious from the very triggering action (win a battle is not just about military it could turn to be about social control or religion). They give you a clear narrative background to understand your own civ bonuses and flavor.
-
TRADITIONS, these are exclusive bonuses and uniques (resources, units, buildings, etc.) that come from specific denizen's
Heritages. In other words, each
Heritage (culture) for both "main" (playable) and "minor" (non playable) civs have a tradition (bonus/unique), but there is also the option to gain more from others civs when population of some of those others civs are
integrated into your empire.
This need you to manage population that by conquest, diplomacy or immigration ended being part of your cities until is not only quite conformable with your rule, but also they represent at least X% percentage of your total population. Also another limiting factor is that there would be a limited number of slots for these integrated heritages (say for example 3 by last era), so this way you can gain some nice bonus/uniques but not too many or too easy, all in a different way that the other already on game ways to gain specializations.
