[GS] Do Governors need a rework?

[kaspergm]

I mostly dislike this feature of the game. Here's what I like and dislike:

Good parts:
- Loyalty support works fine
- Idea of leveling over time is fine

Bad parts:
- Heavy micromanagement for poor returns is a buzzkill. This is for me the biggest problem. I simply can't be bothered to move them around to have the local benefits at the right place at the right time. Particularly not when having to wait 5 turns before the action takes place.
- Poor promotions. Most of the promotions are very situational or downright useless. This makes planning for them a complete lottery. Ever tried to actively use Mokshas Grand Inquisitor promotion, for instance?
- Poor balance. Then there are a handful of promotions that are so blatantly overpowered that you want to use them every game. Pingalas level 1-1-2 for instance. I mean, seriously? Obviously also Magnus still has very strong promotions.
- Repetitive. Zero variation between civs with the single exception of Ottomans. Very boring.

So yes, bottomline I agree, the system needs a complete rework. I think we need more variation. I think we need better returns and MUCH LESS MICROMANAGEMENT on their effects. I think I would actually like to separate the moving-around-for-loyalty aspect from the city bonus aspect entirely. So let a governor be permanently stationed in a city once he is applied. Basically making them work a bit like national wonders of earlier civs, but more custamizable in their benefits. I also want them more specialized. Moksha for religion is fine, Reyna for gold also seems fine, but Pingala for both science and culture is too strong, this needs a split into two different governors. Liang as infrastructure needs better definition, Armani as diplomacy generally has very bad promotions (but obviously you want the level 3 one). Magnus seems fine-ish for production.

I think we need a different leveling system - let a governor level up over time similar to alliances and units, have them earn XP for certain actions, or find something else. This to prevent always going down the same promotion paths. Speaking of promotion paths, give each governor branched development trees, so you don't always end up the same place. Give them different specializations, so that choosing one branch will cut you off from the other, or let them have trees like the ideology system from Civ5, where you can only select a number from a greater pool, thus having to bypass some.

It would probably be confusing if you booted up a new game with a different civ and can't remember what the governors do because their genders and ethnicities are swapped even though they have the same promotions as the previous game.

Could be easily fixed. Go with different colour backgrounds for instance, to give the flavor: Blue for science, yellow for gold, white for religion, etc.

Also they still have their "handles": XXX the Educator, XXX the Financier etc.

 

[Caesar Augustus 27 BC]

I personally think they should be removed from the game entirely. The buffs they provide are either OP or just completely useless. So you end up using the same governors in the same kind of cities with the same kind of strategy...in almost every game. Not my idea of fun or strategic thinking. Think about it...if they removed the governor mechanic entirely would you miss it at all in your games?

They've had a lot of great hits in Civ VI, but it's time to cut losses on this miss. Either a COMPLETE reworking or a removal would be best at this point. Obviously this is just my opinion, but I'm interested to see others.

I would miss governors in my games if they were removed. We've all built strategies around using them, I'd miss Magnus, Pingala, Moksha and Victor quite a bit.

 

[Scaramanga]

That's my major gripe. You could have Isaac Newton as your science advisor, Napoleon as your general, Benjamin Franklin as your economic guy. The weird placeholder guys don't fit.

It might be weirder if there were multiple Isaac Newtons, one for every civ. As a great person he has one instance per game. If other great scientists of history were available as science governors it would be an unfortunate waste of their unique talents because they would have all the same promotions.

 

[acluewithout]

I guess thinking about governors more, I have two main issues.

One is the lack of immersion from having the same guys and gals every game for every civ. This could be fairly easily fixed. Just make them like spies, so you have a more generic face and then different names based on cultural group / civ. Maybe with a few historical names thrown in.

Second, I just don’t think they’re a very interesting way to buff cities because they are so rigid. There are some many ways this could have worked better. If you could chose each governor type more than once, and or who you got was more random. Or maybe you have a governor capacity like spies but then buy governors with gold (maybe even retiring governors of you can’t afford the maintenance). And so on.

I just hate that I can’t have more than one ambassador or castellion. What sort of empire am i running exactly?

Look, I get it. FXS went with the governor visuals they went with, because it made it easier to quickly see what governors were where visually. And they went with the one of each, set promotions, because that was easier to balance and less complicated overall (including for the player). But the result is a dull mechanic and something that kills roleplaying. They are just so out of place...

 

[shmily_dana]

It would probably be confusing if you booted up a new game with a different civ and can't remember what the governors do because their genders and ethnicities are swapped even though they have the same promotions as the previous game.

They could just have something with a name appended to the function : "Otto the diplomat", "Ivan the diplomat', "M'b'enga the diplomat", etc. And just hover over the portrait in the opponent city to see what type "the diplomat', etc is active.

 

[S1AL]

The obvious reason for them to be the same visually is that art takes time and money.

Mechanically, governors suffer from the following issues:

1) A broad disparity in power level of first ability
2) A broad disparity in power level of second ability
3) The game's mechanics are generally backwards with rewarding number of promotions (I'll expand on this below)
4) Governors have few interactions with other mechanics overall
5) Abilities are excessively narrow, sometimes to the point of only being useful for a single civ - see: Reyna

Now, point 3 deserves a lot of discussion. The obvious example is Audience Chamber. The effect itself tells you to use as many governors as possible (or at least as many as you have cities), but governors mechanically tell you to concentrate promotions to reach the higher-power abilities (Reyna) or simply for concentration of effects in tall cities (Pingala). This could easily be resolved by making the ability scale.

Same goes for policy cards. Most of them function on "has a governor", rather than on "per promotion". Off the top of my head, only one policy cares about promotion quantity, and that requires 2 to kick in and also doesn't scale. Indeed, the only ability which I can recall scaling with promotion count is Seondeok. There might be another, but it's nothing obvious.

(Note: all of this falls into my general criticism of civ6 - "great ideas, terrible implementation")

Now, there have been steps in the right direction (Pingala gaining extremely good promotions, Reyna being more than a Free Inquiry facilitator), but generally the balance is atrocious and the abilities are far too niche.

Movement time not scaling with game speed is another issue, but primarily relevant to MP.

To vent about a pet peeve, Moksha is extremely frustrating. His first ability doesn't actually gain you much of anything because passive spread is already awful, but beyond that it's a self-negating ability. Additionally, his "wow" ability is locked into tier 4, and the promotions along the way don't interact well with each other and don't have the overall power level needed to justify using him (unlike Amani, who has a great first and great last ability that interact; or Magnus, who packs so much power into base ability that it's still amazing after a major nerf).

And, again, the frustration of move time is extreme. Given that most of the available governor bonuses require established governors, any governor ability that works in the short term is going to be much weaker than it should. So faith-purchasing districts is great (especially since it's base cost )... But usually you want to do it and move him immediately, which negates the other 3 abilities required to get there.

Also, fisheries should be in the tech/civics tree and Liang should gant a flat +1 production for all improved tiles instead of the current ability.

 

[pokiehl]

I think governors are great as-is. I don't see the need to further complicate things for the sake of complexity.

 

[Scaramanga]

They could just have something with a name appended to the function : "Otto the diplomat", "Ivan the diplomat', "M'b'enga the diplomat", etc. And just hover over the portrait in the opponent city to see what type "the diplomat', etc is active.

If the common class is diplomat there should be just one icon for Diplomat like there is for civic or technology. If they had ethnicity it could help determine governor type and civilization type but maybe that is secondary information and not worth the effort.

 

[Naktis]

I think just like Ottomans , every civ should have they're own unique governor.

 

[Gloompy]

"Having the same seven faces every game, for every player, is awful."

So .... what would you rather want? You want a random selection of a greater pool of characters?

I think just like Ottomans , every civ should have they're own unique governor.

This I like! But how many novel things can you think of for all the Civ's that we have without getting redundant?

edit: Also, I have to wait over 2 minutes to post a new reply? WTH? Are you that inundated with spam bots? And it's not like this forums traffic is especially high. It's drastic and kills the flow of the forum when you just wanna chime in.

 

[TomeTraveler]

Yes, governors can require you to make some tough decisions. I don't consider that to be a flaw. The same seven faces, I'll give you that, but I can live with it. Having to compete for governors ala great people, I'm not sure that I would care for. At any rate, it would totally change the governor dynamic. And there are a lot more great people available to split among the civs than there are governors.

On the other hand, an interesting idea might be a rework of governor points combined with an increasing cost to hire a governor based on how many of the same "model" have already been hired by other Civs. For example, say that each currently-awarded governor point, were to be replaced by three. The first Civ to hire a Magnus, pays two, the second Civ pays three, and so on, adding another factor in deciding which governors to hire: "Do I hire Liang cheaply at 2 points, or pay 4 points to get Pingala?"

I'm sure there are many other ways the governor system could be changed to provide a different experience--you could give bonuses that grow on a slow scale depending on how long they have been in the same city, for example--and some of the differences may seem better to some players, less so to others. All in all I'm not unhappy with the system as it currently stands but I can see room for improvements.

 

[Elhoim]

About the aesthetic, they could have gone with symbols and colors to recognize them on the cities, and non-descript faces and civ specific names.

Magnus - Orange.
Victor - Red.
Reyna - Yellow.
Lyang - Green.
Pingala - Blue.
Amani - Purple.
Moskha - White.

 

[Stilgar08]

Overall I'm completely fine with the governors. Especially after the latest revamp the decision which of the governors to take first (no more Magnus as a nobrainer first pick anymore for me). There are other aspects that needs to be addressed with much higher priority IMO...
Having said that...

...Viktor is basically useless and I just use him as a loyalty bomb or to get the golden age point for hiring all governors. Moksha's pressure ability, from being hired (not a promotion) is useful, and his top level "buy districts with faith" is useful, but everything else is almost useless. Meanwhile I find myself taking Magnus + settlers are free as my first two governor titles in almost every game, and then pingala + two or three promotions as my next couple almost every game (occaisonally liang is in there for more builders).

And while we're on the subject of Liang, I HATE HATE HATE shuffling her around to make fisheries and parks lategame. It's the most boring kind of micromanagement. Just have their promotion allow them to be built empire-wide, and just give the small bonus extra yield to the city where she resides

Well, first of all Viktor used to be useless before the revamp, nowadays I find myself using him quite regularly. Very rarely, but sometimes even as first choice. And that you mainly play the governors more or less the same all the time - well who's to blame for that? My first choice for governors is often if I go "wide or tall" with them, maxing one or two out and neglect the rest of them or using them all across the board...
If you hate shuffling Liang around, just don't do it. Works for me, even on high difficulties...

I think governors are a great concept. A ‘good’ governor could make a hell of a difference historically. Not so comfy on the approach but not as opposed as others, after all, you do not have to move them....
You could implement them in another way like giving each governor of a city random stats and they are stuck with that city and you can spend gold to get rid of them, even to get them in the first place, so +3 science -1 culture type stats.
Less management but still utilising the functionality and different civs could get positive bonuses for different stats.

I like that other approach, too. It could even be another layer for the next xp that in addition to governors could work. Like a city mayor, you know.

Governors are fine as a gameplay element. I'd like a mod that makes them more appropriate for your civilization though. Why is an Incan handling my Phoenician economy?

This is a gripe I have about the governors, too. How I'd love to have a "real great people mod" for governors or a civ related character system. It seems to be difficult to implement though because otherwise it would be out there wouldn't it? (I don't know nothing about how to mod)...
Visualization on the city banner with respective colours would work well I say. I strongly disagree that they should be played just like GP. Speaking of repitivity!
Maybe it would be a good idea to introduce a downside to them to make the decision where to locate them more difficult. Having Moksha in a city lowers science output for that city, having Magnus lowers culture, having Reyna lowers faith... You get the idea - this way you would further promote specialisation of cities and discourage moving the governors around permanently (or at the least enforce more thinking about it...)
A higher diversity on the governors front would be a welcome addition for me. Pingala could be 2 governors, one for science, one for culture... And so forth...

 

[Scaramanga]

Could be easily fixed. Go with different colour backgrounds for instance, to give the flavor: Blue for science, yellow for gold, white for religion, etc.

Also they still have their "handles": XXX the Educator, XXX the Financier etc.

I'm guessing what they were thinking but it's much easier to just have one icon for one concept - Financier, Educator, Castellan. The primary information is type of governor and which civilization doesn't matter. If it's in a Russian city it's a Russian Castellan. If it's in a City State it's a Diplomat belonging to one of the civilizations in the current game, probably one close by. Also Pingala is both science and culture so he would have to be a very blue purple?

 

[rockhpi]

I would imagine that always having the governors with the same faces is so that you easily know what governor does what. You don't have to constantly look up what Governor Joe Schmoe's powers are and if you see a governor in another city, you'll know what their governor does.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

For me, Governors are an additional and unnecessary game mechanic.

I'd prefer to see Great Governors as another type of great person, competed for and claimed using the existing great person point systems.

Or alternatively fold the governor's promotions and city state envoy points into a common currency which you can use to promote your state externally or internally.

Or let cities above a certain size gain their own municipal policy cards that builds on the existing empire-wide policy card mechanic.

Anything other than a completely new system with own set of rules for how they move around on the map, what they do, etc.

 

[UWHabs]

For me, Governors are an additional and unnecessary game mechanic.

I'd prefer to see Great Governors as another type of great person, competed for and claimed using the existing great person point systems.

Or alternatively fold the governor's promotions and city state envoy points into a common currency which you can use to promote your state externally or internally.

Or let cities above a certain size gain their own municipal policy cards that builds on the existing empire-wide policy card mechanic.

Anything other than a completely new system with own set of rules for how they move around on the map, what they do, etc.

I liked the suggestion at one point I saw where you mixed in a lot of the smaller "currencies" together. Basically, free envoy points, governor titles, spies, etc... maybe should all come from the same bucket, and then you can allocate them as you see fit. Maybe you want to heavily focus internally, in which case you spend them all on governor promos. Maybe you want to focus on city-states, in which case you invest there. Or maybe you focus externally, and have a large spy network.

But in the end, they basically need to decide for governors what exactly their purpose is and should be. Are they a roving band to give temporary boost to certain cities, or are they a way to specialize your empire by having a permanent bonus/focus on certain cities? I think the big flaw with them is that they kind of act both ways at different times, which makes it a challenge to balance, and leads people to complain about them.

 

[Ziad]

For all intents and purposes Governors are just additional effects or yields you can transfer between cities. They afford a civilization some degree of flexibility.

They're basically local policies.

 

[djvandyke]

The generic non-entities representing governors spoil the immersion more than anything else in the game for me.
Give us proper governor names for each civ.

 

[Reckoner]

I think governers are well implemented, and not half as immersion-breaking as recruiting real historical figures from other nations, or having the same dude/tte lead my empire for several millenia.

I see them as my own personal assistants, they work for me. One may also consider them as the natural human diversity in your civ, just like any empire in history. (schwarzenegger?)