Others have already discussed how Ideology could work in Civ VI. You can also see my signature for ideas.
I think introducing essentially “Civ V Social Policies and Ideological Tenets” into Civ VI would be wrong headed. Instead, I think it’s more about Civ VI T3 and T4 Governments and Governors having more expanded late game mechanics, plus the addition of some sort of “Ideological Pressure” based on tourism that impacts loyalty and or happiness.
Frankly, I find it really frustrating FXS haven’t gone down this route. The end game doesn’t work, and something around Ideology and related mechanics would help. Moreover, the game seems designed to have expanded roles for late game governments and governors.
e.g.
- Governments are already themed around Freedom, Autocracy and Facism, but nothing seems to turn on that at the moment.
- T3 and T4 Governments each have Unique Policy cards only they can access, but the T3/4 Governments don’t let you access any unique units, wonders, buildings, all of which seem like “low hanging fruit” in terms of design.
- The existing Governors are all themed around Civ’s Social Policies (eg Magus=Liberty, Amani=Patronage etc), and basically seem like a soft reboot of the Social Policy system (abilities purchased with culture (via gov titles), permanent abilities arranged in trees. But we don’t see to have a similar implementation of the “advanced” Social Policies, ie Ideological Tenets, e.g. via more advanced ideological themed governors unlocking in the late game.
- Civ VI has all the underlying game systems that would let FXS implement ideological pressure, e.g. ideological themed governments, tourism, loyalty, a happiness / amenities system, haven’t implemented anything like that.
Anyway.
TL;DR There’s plenty of room for an expanded role for Ideology, and I think some mechanics like that would massively improve governors, the importance of T3 and 4 governments and make the late game interesting. It also wouldn’t bloat the game or otherwise adversely impact the game, because the game is basically set up for something like that. Will FXS do something like that? Well, I wish they would, but who knows...