I don't think that would make Civ7 good (better than Civ VI), Governors are just an addition and not even included in the base Game, and as @
The_goggles_do_nothing said, they are there for a reason (their main use is granting Loyalty). I also don't agree with the conception (general opinion by many Players) of Governors being too micromanagement at all. Apart from Amani and Victor I rarely move my Governors around, and I don't have to, the City they are in still get the bonuses they provide. They are not like Units that you
need to move around or manage, and they don't even give penalties, they're basically bonuses that you get from spending a Governor Point. Moving them is a decision, not a necessity. It's actually very similar to City-State Envoys (and Policy Cards to a certain degree), which you spend for a Bonus and also Suzerainty that you constantly need to fight over (micro), except for this latter you always have the possibility of an AI conquering/razing that City. Though I agree that many of the Governor Promotions
encourage micromanagement.
I personally see Governors as a great Potential to make Cities more interesting and also help them to specialize. So I would rather have them back in Civ7 but improved upon: more balanced, with less situational/temporary abilities but more unique abilities that help reduce micromanagemnt rather than the opposite (like automatically repair pillaged infrastructure...), with more regional Bonuses...etc. Actually, making Governors regional (affecting all cities in radius of the city they are established in) would make their abilities much more beneficial.
I agree with @
criZp in that Policy Cards should be more consistent and not easy to swap. Slotting/Removing Policy Cards should be something that doesn't just affect the bonuses you get from them, but also have some other side effects, like instability in your cities if you quickly change many policies in a short amount of Time, or slotting a policy that doesn't go well with your current Government/Ideology. Currently they feel like free bonuses that you can easily change whenever you want, and not as government decisions that can have serious implications for your empire.
So for civ 7 the ideal is no governors, civ 6 policy system _without_ the option to constantly switch stuff, and policies that aren't primarily made to fill in some barebones civics tree. Get rid of the civics tree, revert to one single progress tree. Culture as a yield can be removed, policies can unlock in the progress tree and cities can have their borders grow when their population grows.
Apart from the part with Policies, I woldn't like Civ7 if they included those changes. My opinion on Governors I have already stated above, and I think now that the devs already introduced the Civics Tree that works just fine (neigher good/great nor bad, just fine enough IMHO) they just need to improve it a little bit more. The Cuture accumulation works pretty well in Civ6, I would personally just make the yield accumulate just like Gold and Faith, so you can use them to unlock instead of research Civics (and have a more dynamic civics tree), use them to claim Wonders, get Great Works...etc. maybe a portion of a City's Culture should always go to Border Expansion.
Completely agree. There needs to be another way to make Golden/Dark Ages to work, the way they are now is too gamey and immersion breaking.
#3 Remove the aids in Loyalty
I don't know what you mean by that. You mean completely removing Loyalty or just changing what affects Loyalty?
#5 Replace the World Congress with an actually-good-World-Congress-system (the one from Civ 5 or better)
Either a
better version of the one in Civ 5 or nothing at all.
#6 Make Wonders more competitive between players
Also make wonders worthy of building. Half of the wonders in Civ6 are useless or with very situational bonuses.
Yep, Wonders need to be more worth it.
#7 Simplistic understandable Civ bonuses, not 30 essays
I partially agree with this, and also to a certain degree also with Xandinho. My main Issue with Civ Abilities is rather that they encourage you to go for a certain Victory Type and/or Playstyle, otherwise not using those abilities feels like self-punishment, and I don't like Abilities that practically force me to play in a specific way. I want to play as Greece and go for a Science Victory without neglecting its Culture Bonuses. So I would rather see Civ Abilities help the Player with any Victory Approach, not necessary all but most of the Victory Types.
There are many ways that could achieve the same thing without taking away the uniqueness of a Civ ability, I myself would go with this way, as suggested by
@Boris Gudenuf:
I'd rather say that playing in different in-game situations should result in very different experiences.
You should not be able to play the same game with the same decisions starting in a central continental desert start as on a coastal river delta start.
And related to your statement, Egypt The Civ should not play the same way in its 'historical' desert-bordered riverine start as it might in an ahistorical deep forest edge-of-tundra start and surrounding terrain to expand into.
The in-game situation, surroundings and events should have a profound influence in how you play and the way in which you play each Civilization.
That means each designed Civilization in the game has to have options for dealing with a wide-ranging selection of potential in-game situations. The simple 'one-note' designs the game has presented too often in the past should not be viable except in a game with Historical Start Locations on a Historical Map.
I think I will follow your example and also give my 7 steps for Civ7 to be good:
1) Allow Different Unit Classes per tile, faster Units, and unlimited stacks for civilian Units, and make AI use Naval and Air Units more and in a better way.
2) Improve Governments and the Policy System; make empire management an important and interesting part of the Game
3) make the 2 Trees dynamic but also distinct from each other, there needs to be paths that you need to chose from (only get techs/civics from other paths through trade, espionage and diplomacy), in the Tech Tree it should be a decision, but in the Civics Tree it should be more tied to your environment and your Society, so you unlock civics (maybe with events) rather than research them whever you want.
4) Give Leaders better personalities and improve the diplomacy in the Game. Each Leader should have different aggressiveness no matter the difficulty. And Diplomatic Relationships should be important.
5) Trade and Trade Routes should be very important, for both diplomacy and economy, and Resources are the main factor for this. Trade Routes should be more automated and only stopped by embargoes and Wars. River and Sea Routes are more profitable and land routes more important.
6) Better Balance of Wide vs Tall. No Features that make the game heavily lean towards one playstyle or the other as the optimal gameplay style.
7) Better Game Pacing, as in you get to use all the features and stuff from an Era before the next Era hits. Production shouldn't scale linear between difficulties, I should be able to build and use more things in slower paced speeds than in faster paced ones.