Dev Diary #3: Managing Your Empire

[FXS_Sar]

Hot off the presses: a brand new developer diary! Our Economics Feature Lead Edward Zhang covers the ins and outs of Empire Management in Civilization VII. From balancing cities and towns to guiding your empire's growth, learn about how you can build an empire to stand the test of the time.

Check out the dev diary here.

Let me know what you think, and don't forget to catch these elements in action tomorrow, Nov 7, during our upcoming livestream!

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

What is a connected settlement? Does that mean connected by the roads that appear when you founded it, provided it is relatively close to your capital or other settlements?

I like that some town specializations are only available in certain Ages.

 

[bbbt]

Locally, Happiness is necessary to support Specialists and maintain Buildings within your Cities and Towns. Globally, it accumulates across your settlements to trigger Celebrations ... If local Happiness levels fall below zero, you will face penalties that reduce the output of all other yields

Honestly this doesn't clear up that much about happiness. You can't add specialists/buildings if you don't have enough local happiness? Is there a theoretical chance of rebellion like in 6 if happiness gets too low (not that this was likely to actually happen).

Additionally, there’s no theming bonus for grouping similar buildings together. We made this decision to avoid creating the illusion of choice and to ensure that players make meaningful, interesting decisions rather than being guided by artificially strong incentives.

Adjacency bonuses make their Adjacency bonuses make their return in Civ VII, now with a more streamlined design. Rather than being tied to specific Districts, these bonuses are granted to certain Buildings based on the natural features and player-made structures surrounding them.

Unique Quarters are formed when two civ-specific Unique Buildings share the same tile

So it basically sounds like there's no district theming bonus except for the unique quarters.

All adjacency is on the buildings now.

That sounds like it makes it more complex, rather than less. You basically will have two adjacency bonuses (with potentially very different variables) to consider per district hex versus just one in Civ 6. Not opposed to the idea tho.

If you have Advisor Warnings on, Civ VII will now notify you if a Wonder you're building is already being constructed by another player you’ve met, helping you plan accordingly and avoid those unpleasant surprises.

So instead of having a wonder 'screen' with this information, I have to pay attention to a pop-up notification, and have to consent to all notifications to receive this info? Hopefully Civ 7 has cut down on all the notification bloat of 6, but this isn't making optimistic from a UX pov.

 

[Siptah]

That‘s one meaty and well written dev diary. Can‘t wait do try out all these new toys. It also seems like there is quite a lot of micromanaging to be done for min-maxers with specialists and adjacencies vs more growth and happiness. I really like that districts can only be placed adjacent to the CC or other districts - so careful planning is still a thing.

One thing that I didn‘t catch: is the only downside to low global happiness no celebrations, i.e., stagnant policy slots? No revolts or anything like that?

 

[Evolena]

All adjacency is on the buildings now.

That sounds like it makes it more complex, rather than less. You basically will have two adjacency bonuses (with potentially very different variables) to consider per district hex versus just one in Civ 6. Not opposed to the idea tho.

We'll see, but a lot of these adjacencies seem to be rather generic and the same across multiple buildings (Mountain, Natural Wonder, Wonder, Resource, River, Coast).

 

[tedhebert]

I really really like those dev diaries ! So much information in them.

Three more months to go before playing, this is becoming insufferable

 

[Nikolai II]

Three more months to go before playing, this is becoming insufferable

Good thing is, contrary to testers, there is way less bugs and things not working for a regular CFCer.

 

[Potworny]

I loved placing down districts, and this mechanic of placing new improvements and buildings on the map seems right up my alley. It just seems like it will be very satisfying to do. I wonder how the adjacencies will work in practice, and what thought processes they will require.

The thing that worries me the most (and frankly, the only thing that worries me) is the look of the city banner. The ones in V and VI were so clean, and I get that it's work in progress, but aesthetically the pieces in VII just don't fit together. Though I guess quite a lot may change, as I don't expect things like the turn counters in the bottom right to stay the same.

 

[Scrabbler]

We have to wait for the final game but everything in this diary is making me feel very positive about Civ 7. They are clearly putting a lot of thought into delivering gameplay that is both streamlined and strategic.

 

[Leucarum]

So... If there are no production queues for towns, but you can get urban districts in them (there is a speciality for it... Urban Hub) I presume you buy buildings in towns with gold?

 

[tedhebert]

So... If there are no production queues for towns, but you can get urban districts in them (there is a speciality for it... Urban Hub) I presume you buy buildings in towns with gold?

Yes that's exactly how it has been described !

 

[Leucarum]

Yes that's exactly how it has been described !

Thanks. I think I missed that tidbit

 

[Krikkit1]

Honestly this doesn't clear up that much about happiness. You can't add specialists/buildings if you don't have enough local happiness? Is there a theoretical chance of rebellion like in 6 if happiness gets too low (not that this was likely to actually happen).

Local happiness = Happiness from settlement - (unhappiness of specialists and buildings and)
if Local Happiness <0, penalties to output

Global Happiness=happiness from all settlements (and other sources) - unhappiness of specialists and buildings from all settlements (and other sources)
Accumulates to get celebrations (allowing more policies to be used)

No evidence of rebellions so far.....but I would hope it would happen if both Global and Local happiness is <0
but hopefully it can also be triggered in other ways (conquered settlements more likely, distant settlements more likely, etc.)

 

[Atlas627]

So it basically sounds like there's no district theming bonus except for the unique quarters.

All adjacency is on the buildings now.

That sounds like it makes it more complex, rather than less. You basically will have two adjacency bonuses (with potentially very different variables) to consider per district hex versus just one in Civ 6. Not opposed to the idea tho.

Well you're just going to place each building where it is appropriate, and only have to consider if that spot is also more critically appropriate to another building. You don't HAVE to put any particular buildings together into a specific district, so you don't have to plan them in advance (which was most of the difficulty for the average player and AI: planning ahead). More choices, but each is more straightforward.

So instead of having a wonder 'screen' with this information, I have to pay attention to a pop-up notification, and have to consent to all notifications to receive this info? Hopefully Civ 7 has cut down on all the notification bloat of 6, but this isn't making optimistic from a UX pov.

So instead of having to remember to go check a screen every few turns because I'm paranoid about losing a wonder, I can keep playing normally and be helpfully told "hey someone's building this wonder"?

Different strokes for different folks. I think the way they're doing it is good for your average player, and for good UX they should give the option to look at the screen if you want all the info.

We'll see, but a lot of these adjacencies seem to be rather generic and the same across multiple buildings (Mountain, Natural Wonder, Wonder, Resource, River, Coast).

So far we've really only been looking at buildings from Antiquity, where the terrain is the only thing you really have to plan around so far. I suspect Modern will ask for a lot more adjacencies to types of buildings, and Exploration to resource types.

So... If there are no production queues for towns, but you can get urban districts in them (there is a speciality for it... Urban Hub) I presume you buy buildings in towns with gold?

Yes, though only certain ones. Augustus allows you to buy culture buildings in towns, so we know that's normally disallowed.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Feel like I'm one of the few people who actually doesn't mind the micromanagement, it can be fun when done well.

 

[Atlas627]

Feel like I'm one of the few people who actually doesn't mind the micromanagement, it can be fun when done well.

Sure, but micromanagement in this case was required in past titles. You had to keep picking things for your build queues. You had to move your builders/workers to the tiles.

If I want to min-max, I can still micromanage. And if I am in the mood to enjoy it, I can always go play a management/simulation game. I don't think Civ is the place to require micromanagement.

 

[bbbt]

Well you're just going to place each building where it is appropriate, and only have to consider if that spot is also more critically appropriate to another building. You don't HAVE to put any particular buildings together into a specific district, so you don't have to plan them in advance (which was most of the difficulty for the average player and AI: planning ahead). More choices, but each is more straightforward.

I get why they made that choice. I was thinking it was more complicated in comparison to Civ 6's system, as you now have more considerations for adjacency per tile (two instead of one). However, thinking about it more, given that you can only expand a district from existing districts (and not place anywhere), and they seem to have a lot more limited choice for 'rural districts' (one or two choices per tile instead of many), I think it likely balances out.

So instead of having to remember to go check a screen every few turns because I'm paranoid about losing a wonder, I can keep playing normally and be helpfully told "hey someone's building this wonder"?

Fair. My ideal would be a screen that put a little red notification on the button on the main screen if it has information like that to share. Civ 6 has so much useless notification spam that it all becomes noise and I end up missing notifications I might want to see. I'm worried about that in Civ 7, compounded with it now having an 'events' pop-up function, will all lead to the feeling to a "get these pop-ups out of my way and let me play the game" experience.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I'm a little uneasy about Happiness, purely because of how it worked in V, which always frustrated me, but otherwise it all sounds ruddy marvellous to me. So many little comments that indicate they really understand where VI didn't get things quite right:

"Every Civ player should feel like the ruler of an empire making important choices, not a servant tied down to micromanagement duties"

"We made this decision to avoid creating the illusion of choice"

"No need to worry about crunching numbers - we've integrated all the calculations directly into the UI"

 

[AlexByrde]

Fair. My ideal would be a screen that put a little red notification on the button on the main screen if it has information like that to share. Civ 6 has so much useless notification spam that it all becomes noise and I end up missing notifications I might want to see. I'm worried about that in Civ 7, compounded with it now having an 'events' pop-up function, will all lead to the feeling to a "get these pop-ups out of my way and let me play the game" experience.

When I read the dev diary I imagined this to be like a tool tip or icon in the production menu that just says "Another player is building this Wonder" when you go to select it, rather than the intel spam from VI. How it's actually implemented obviously remains to be seen.

 

[AriochIV]

Also, I'd just like to point out... that a lightning bolt is not going to strike you down if you happen to place something that's mathematically suboptimal.