Do you like the agenda system (poll)?

[Victoria]

Conduct and Negotiation so that ill will is avoided.

More like conduct and negotiations to smooth the path to the largest possible profit while not generating excessive ill will.

I doubt any government would admit to it but that's what it's there for... and profit is not always money

 

[Locke_Daemonfire]

You know people often misunderstand me when I say Civilization isn't a War Game. I'm not against War in Civ 6. I'm against War Bias. Civ 6 has a very pro-conflict stance that encourages war. I hope it reverts back to a neutral stance where we are free to choose our path without being handicapped for doing so.

Oh and, there are many players in this game who prefer to see their plans unfold with skill rather than adapt to uncontrollable events and circumstances. You are entitled to your stance on "adaptability" but so am I to my stance on "optimal play". You may choose to go around the mountain but I choose to drill through it. The game should facilitate both options, and damned is anyone against that possibility. In the end it's about there being a freedom of choice.

I agree that Civ 6 favors conflict too much, but I disagree that it is driven by the agendas. Conflict is favored simply because war is the fastest way to get ahead, and the penalties are relatively insignificant. If you are 'playing optimally', you should basically be conquering all the time. At which point warmongering will swamp out everything except a few specific agendas and maybe a joint war partner or two if you manage it well.

More on topic, I would say that if I have a gripe about agendas, it is that they are too binary. If you have 1 luxury the Aztec do not have for 1 turn, he is equally as unhappy as if you have 10 for 100 turns. It makes the agenda system too swingy, especially if you are on the border between fulfilling it or not. It would be nice, for instance, if Kongo started with a -1 modifier for not having your religion and gave you a polite reminder. If you ignore him for 50 turns, maybe it goes to -10.

 

[WillowBrook]

I like the system and a good bit of the implementation is good, but I'd like to see some tweaks. For example, for Brazil and China, hating everyone who has more than you is rather silly. I'd change that the negative shows up only if you both have more than them and if you're in the top, say, 25% of all civs in number of (great people or wonders). Or perhaps scale the magnitude of the effect to how many more you have compared with them.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

More on topic, I would say that if I have a gripe about agendas, it is that they are too binary. If you have 1 luxury the Aztec do not have for 1 turn, he is equally as unhappy as if you have 10 for 100 turns. It makes the agenda system too swingy, especially if you are on the border between fulfilling it or not. It would be nice, for instance, if Kongo started with a -1 modifier for not having your religion and gave you a polite reminder. If you ignore him for 50 turns, maybe it goes to -10.

Some of the arguments here are becoming Chamberlainesque. I quoted the above regarding "swingy." My favorite diplomatic screen *ever* is when I get immediately contacted by an AI stating that they love my large empire -- right after capturing one of their cities to create said "large" empire.

 

[bbbt]

Wow, that result surprised me... and pleased me.

I think a lot of the complaints have come before people had a really good look at it.

Yeah, this is much more positive than I was expecting, I thought there would be more of a spread.

The impression I'm getting is that people dislike specific agendas, more than the whole thing. Or that people's quarrel is with the denouncing system overall (the combo of it happening with seemingly little provocation to people, but then having little apparent gameplay effect), rather than agendas specifically.

 

[shaglio]

The one that irks me the most is when I build one measly wonder and Qin gets all bent out of shape about it because he hasn't built any yet. Well, then stop being lazy and start building some wonders of your own! Don't take your procrastination out on me!

 

[agonistes]

I like agendas. I want to see more of them.

A third agenda would be cool.

Some people don't like the +/- pairing. For me, I'd rather even primary agendas were random (or at least that as a setting option), and then the + and - were random, and not necessarily the same value, but falling between, say, |2| to |8|.

But... they need to adjust behavior to fall in line with relationships. Besties dow you out of the blue simply because the game decides you've had too many turns without someone dowing you.

Surprise wars are fine, but there are too many of them, and frequently they make no sense. How about a diplomatic package that shows that Philip is upset you are building the Oracle, and he warns you to stop or he will dow?

I've read that Ed is big on diplomacy, so I expect big changes in the future, probably with the first expansion, but I would not complain it if happened with a scenario.

At any rate, I'm quite fond of agendas and diplomacy overall. Just wish there was more of it.

Perhaps they wanted to see how it was accepted before investing more resources on it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The idea is good, but agendas shouldn't amount to "game throwing". Not all of them do, which suggests the system itself isn't the problem.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Leaders having personalities isn't a new thing. IV and V had personalities, but the downside is that you wouldn't know what they were without trial and error or reading a guide. Agendas offer more transparency so you know upfront what you'll be getting. The hidden agenda also gets slowly revealed over time, which is a nice touch. It also means you can't please everyone, which you often can't regardless of context. So this is a good idea.

The downside to agendas is that currently, they are too rigid. For example, they should not bother you in 2000 BC about things you can't even do yet. That's just noise. It also plays too large of a role and sometimes makes leaders suicidal and one note. (though it depends on how stupid the agenda is).

So agendas are fine; they need to be tweaked so they aren't as dominant. The hidden agendas should probably get a lower weight as well. And I also wouldn't mind the idea of each leader starting secondary or even tertiary agendas to round things out.

I'd also make their primary agenda displayed upfront instead of "unknown", since you're supposed to know what it is anyways.

 

[Victoria]

To me the agendas that have the problem are cultured and technophile both of these seem to have a strong bias toward not building units even early and even when attacked.

 

[craney1987]

I dislike agendas that you cant avoid. Like as has been mentioned so many times already, Harald. Or Germany. The game gives me envoys to use. It shouldn't then punish me for doing so. But I think these can be fixed as minor tweaks, not a full overhaul of the system which in general I favour.

I would like for civs to be able to pivot after say a war or an era, where it can reevaluate it situation, for instance if I've just crushed Montezuma's army but not pillaged any districts' (why? For the sake of the example. Because I would definitely be pillaging that horsehocky) the game could reevaluate and make their agenda now one that is science based since the cities I left him all have campuses. Or alternatively if he's just trounced me and is heading towards snowballing, his agenda should switch to one of a more warlike nature

 

[Victoria]

If I start next to Germany and also next to a more difficult early one like Trajan or Cleo I will not use my envoys and 30 turns later I have +12 with Fred.... a joint war before then with the difficult civ and an envoy and you are pretty much guaranteed a DOF unless he has a paranoid second agenda.

Some civs are early friend makers and Fred often will get humpy later when I do a bit of warmongering combined with envoys but by that stage I am happy to be at war with Fred and by then Cleo or Trajan loves me....
each civ has a primary agenda that is useable earlier or later and you often should try to take advantage at the right times. Of course this is thrown out by secondary agendas a bit which is why Catherine is handy early but equally with the cancelling trade routes ability so kindly pointed out you can just send a trade route to Fred for a turn, combined with an envoy this will show the secondary agendas and sadly weakens Catherine's usefulness.

 

[kaspergm]

As it is currently, I think it's a bad addition to the game. Viccy hates me because I start on another continent, Monty hates me because I improve a lux, Xin hates me because I built a wonder, Saladin hates me because I found a religion, Freddy hates me for sending envoys to city states, Teddy ... well, I don't quite understand Teddy, he always compliments me for keeping the peace on the continent and then declares a surprise war on me five turns later.

I guess I could vote 'I like it with major modifications', but since that would essentially include scraping the entire system and start over again, I'm just going to cast my vote with 'not liking it'.

If I should offer a thought for an alternative, it could be a more dynamic system that was linked to the government and policy card system. I a civ adopts the Theocracy government, they should get modifiers when I have another religion. If a civ adopts a policy for bonus production to navies or land units, they could get negative modifier when I have a small navy or army, etc. Of course that would require a whole rethinking of the government system in order to not have schizophrenic civs that change their view of you every time a card is switched in or out (a rethinking I would approve of for other reasons also, but that's for a different topic). Civs could have certain flavors that could enhance these modifiers - for instance, Saladin could have a modifier to enhance religiously based modifiers, etc.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

In the current mod that I am working on, I have added a 2nd minor agenda for each Civ (it's a single entry to change). So far it seems to make the game even better than just the 1 major 1 minor.

Okay, so so far the relationships have seemed more consistent, *including* between the AI. And the AI don't all hate each other -- I also toned down warmonger points to 50% so that helps as well.

That being said, the game has had some dynamic wars as well. Relationships seem to make more "sense" -- well other than when Rome also likes the "smaller civilizations."

This is still just observation bias until I get more games in. But this change, along with slowing down the tech/civics/gp pace has helped considerably to make a very playable (even cool?) game.

 

[Acken]

Leader specific agenda are okayish as it gives them personality but its often poorly done and the rest is really poor in my opinion. Not so much in the idea but on what ground the leaders are pissed or pleased. If Firaxis ever release the dll that would be among the first thing to mod.

Only your action toward them or other civs should have an effect on diplomacy. Having someone that likes you because of your amount of gpt makes 0 sense. If you want to give a leader the greedy trait then a better way to do it is to give him a bonus when you gift him something. Thats personality based on a diplomatic action rather than arbitrary stuff based on your internal metrics

The way its implemented now makes diplomacy backward because a huge chunk of it is influenced by agendas where a lot of them have nothing to do with civ to civ relationship.

 

[stinkubus]

The leaders of the colonial powers had utter contempt for the (relatively) backwards and impoverished peoples they conquered. Leaders disliking you because your behind in the tech race or cash poor seems realistic to me.

 

[Morningcalm]

Agendas are too black-and-white. On a map with few areas of water and/or no seas, Hardrada shouldn't hate everyone for lacking ships, *especially* if he has none himself. Same goes for Qin hating people for building wonders, when he has built none himself.

Don't get me started on Alexander's bonkers agenda, which requires you be at war constantly.

 

[stinkubus]

If there are no agendas which are difficult or impossible to meet then allying every civ on the map would be trivial. Being forced to make some choices and getting into conflicts (whether you want it or not) makes for a better game.

 

[agonistes]

If there are no agendas which are difficult or impossible to meet then allying every civ on the map would be trivial. Being forced to make some choices and getting into conflicts (whether you want it or not) makes for a better game.

Still, even leader agendas should be random.

Tendencies would be okay, but it would be cool if a leader's agenda changed per game (and even maybe shifted during a game).

How about each leader having 3 or 4 agendas specific to them? And which you get is random each game. Maybe Teddy is feeling more imperialistic one game.

 

[stinkubus]

I voted for some minor tweaking, and I could get behind that. The only aspect of the currently system that I absolutely hate is when Catherine denounces me for being weak in espionage when I don't have the ability to build a spy. Maybe leaders could add agendas as eras pass to circumvent this?