sTAPler27
Prince
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2018
- Messages
- 456
1. Infastructure that extends beyond very basic yields and adjacencies
- We already have full tile buildings like Rail Stations and Aeorodromes I would like to see a return of some of 6's purpose oriented districts such as the Aquaduct, Canal or Dam. Given how much navigable rivers were hyped up I think it would be interesting to see more constructables tied to them. They've already made a step in the right direction by giving us river specific buildings, even a proper bridge stlye building so why not throw in some of the old with some of the new.
When it comes to buildings never before seen I think perhaps a proper coastal bridge would be interesting. It would be incredibly situational but fun to build, helping players with larger ammounts of land troops to mobilize at the expense of naval mobility.
2. More buildings outside of the 2 or so options we get per category
- We do have some options here and there, whether that be the Altar in antiquity, the 3 gold options in Exploration or the 3 Happiness options in the Modern Age. However I think every building type should at base have at least 3 options. JNR's Urban Complexity mod in Civ 6 does something a lot like this and it works wonderfully there.
For example if you build an aquaduct district do you choose to build a Sewer to increase the housing provided or an Orchard to give nearby improvements increased gold? Even in base Civ 6 with the District system I often had to debate what districts were worth building because even if building all of them was theoretically possible it required a substantial resource investment and meant crushing potentially useful tiles or forgoing another option. I think if 7 had some of this choice involved it would make planning cities far more unique allowing for players to tailor decisions to their civ, desired victory and enviornment.
3. Speculative Elements of the Future Era
- My ideal 4th era is one that extends from the dawn of the information age to the couple of decades beyond our own. While I understand how a lot of people want something inbetween the first 3, which I can understand, I am curious to see with this new age system how they can do a future age justice.
One of my least favorite parts of the 4X games i've played is how the last age usually boils down to their research trees fizzeling out of useful new additions. No units, no wonders, no buildings, mostly just numbers tweaks. In most of these games it feels like the game ends turns before it actually does and you're simply stacking boring "win more" modifiers to end the endless slogg of clicking. I would much rather prefer it instead of something such as "Advanced Power Cells: 50% Reduction on Emisions" if instead you got to build a new type of Power Plant. A good example of a more creative design of future techs is with Seasteads in Civ 6, instead of something like "+2 Housing on Coastal Cities" you instead got to build a new type of improvement with its own adjacencies on a part of the map you usually don't have access to.
4. Continuing to make Gathering Storm Elements a Core Part of the Civ Identity
- This might be controversial but I love the power management aspect of Civ 6. I don't like City Builder games all that much but I can't help but love how they work in Civ's globe spanning scale.
I like the added layer of strategy of planning out here to build industrial districts to connect the most cities to a power grid, or the shock of seeing a power resource trickle in numbers so needing to change out some power plants. I love the clean energy options too. Sometimes you simply can't connect every settlement to one grid or maybe you weren't lucky enough to have the resources in your empire to power it. And what's great about them is their trade offs. They often come well after your power plants so you have to think about how you're going to play out this era. Will you forgo powering your cities until you can get clean energy on line? Will you try to buy your neighbor's resources at least for the time being? Or will you wage wars to secure a right to your own sources? Even once you unlock green energy there's still the issue of space. I think with Civ 7's take on population management there's yet another layer of complexity for combining 6 and 7's mechanics as you have to consider if it's worth taking down one of your City's few mines for a Wind Turbine?
And that's not even mentioning the climate mechanics. I was so happy to see 7 make disasters base game but I would like to see the return of things such as coastal flooding, wild fires or droughts. Droughts and Flooding were interesting because not only did they target specific terrains, meaning different players had different challenges but they also had their own forms of mitigation and prevention which ties into my wish of more engaging infastructure.
5. More ways to Tie Yourself to Your Enviornment
- While most civs have an improvement or building that ties into the way their people lived IRL whether that be Terrace Farms or Kampungs I would like to see a host of buildings and improvements accessible to all players that allow them to tailor their gameplay to the cards they were dealt.
Like I mentioned earlier the Seastead is a good example of this but even things such as the Seaside Resort, Coastal Resort, Geothermal Plant, National Park, Fishery, etc are fun an engaging because they not only add another layer of strategy but make each game tell a different story of overcoming unique obstacles. While I don't mind too much how the terrain has default improvements now I do think the Devs should take advantage of the system of building over them with secondary improvements.
I think even the Warehouse buildings are good examples of this because they make you reconsider what tiles you will want to crush in the future and which you don't. I do think certain improvements how ever should act similar to Urban Tiles however, it feels a bit unfair that a ceremonial mound can still act as a woodcutter when all the trees appear to have been bulldozed to make way for it.
6. Return Some of the Diplomatic Flair from the Previous Games and building Upon Them
- I don't hate 7's diplomacy sytem I don't see how changing the name of your diplomacy currency and stripping back its features are a fix.
While it wasn't the most engaging system in 6 It did feel like you had the engage much more with the international community whether that be with international games, crises or by engaging with City States. While I like how much more useful Influence feels over Favor most of it comes down to "Throw it at Endeavors" "Throw it at War Support" or "Throw it at City States". In 6 even if these systems felt a bit disjointed from one another they did feel more unique. Thing's such as picking a good cassus beli or going after specific City States for their specific bonus felt like it had a bit more strategy to it.
And while I think the majority of people are not too fond of either game's diplomacy systems I think 6 truly did perfect the Espionage game. With 7's unique take on promotions I feel like not expanding upon how 6 gave Spies promotions and isntead making them basically an extension of Santions was a huge missed oportunity. Intelligence HQ's functioning as espionage's Aerodromes would have been a stellar mechanic. I made a concept for it here
docs.google.com
This is still a Work In Progress so feedback is appreciated.
And while difficult to get the AI to think long term I would like to see a return of international policy that wasn't just "If this makes the player win vote down". I think the key to doing this is by not tying voting directly to victory. Regardless of whatever victory metric Firaxis picks international diplomacy should serve two purposes, uplifiting you and your allies and diminishing the role of your opposition. If you have a player who for example is going for an economic victory you could propose a boycott that makes players lose 1 Influence for every imported resource from them. If a player is going for a military victory you could lauch a nuclear disarmament campaign which makes players lose influence for each one in their possession. Now I do think these need more requirements to be used as they well just result in dog piling and will make it feel like it's impossible for players to mitigate pushback. I think we need to also see the return of players proposing movements. Each time world congress meets each player should propose one resolution to codify and the top 2 or so would end up getting chosen so even players without a lot of influence can still engage with the system to some extent.
I think a lot of minor resolutions could be added to pad out the game and add some flair. Some examples Incluce
- "Declare [Wonder] a Protected Landmark": This settlement cannot be razed without aquiring a large influence penalty for many turns and the wonder provides its owner +4 Influence and a gold modifier for trade routes sent here. All trade routes sent to this settlement grant happiness
- "Restricted Airspace" : Aerial Units must go around the borders of this Settlement.
- "Extraction Restrictions" : The effects of this resource are halved.
- "War on [Ideology]" : Requires more Influence on membes from this ideology to gather war support
- "Decolonization" : Increased unhappiness on occupied settlements, 5% decrease on gaining war support for every occupied settlement owned by the opposition (There should also be a liberation mechanic or a way to cede cities outside of war deals)
- "Embargo [Civ]" : -1 Influence per resources traded by this player
- "Scientific Ethics Committee" : Decreased Science when a tech is researched for the first time globaly but the first Civ to research a tech is granted 3 Influence per turn. (The Scientifc Endevor bonus recieves increased influence and decreases the research penalty)
- "War Crimes Court": Increased influence when a population is raised or building is pillaged.
- "Relief Program" : You can choose a certain ammount of your Gold income to donate which is split between all that qualify for it granting you an aqual ammount of influence.
- "Nuclear Disarmament": Decreased Production towards the Manhattan Project and decreased Science Towards its associated tech. All nuclear weapons accure -2 Influence.
- "[Continent] Free Trade Agreement": Decreases the cost of establishing trade routes between members of a continent by 90%. (Could also effect the expansionist or economic civ's bonus for some uniue flair"
- "Designated Mediator": This player can support conflicts they're not involved in an additional time.
- "Land Recognition of the [Independent People]": Players that clear this Independent People will start a war with all those that agreed to it with them gaining reduced war support.
- "Military Size Restriction": Player can only maintain 2 units per settlement, any unit over grants them -1 influence per turn. (Can only be done if a player end a war without gaining more settlements than they lost and under 3 war support)
7. Some more Civs from under Tapped Parts of the World
-While I personally would like to see more Mesoamerican civs i'd in general like to see more civs that simply flesh out the lesser covered age paths. Like if you're playing as Aksum you really don't have a lot of variety in choices if you want to keep things to one region.
Civs like Hawaii or the Inca have no other civs from their continent that go into them or evolve from them. Humankind despite its flaws understood this by adding packs dedicated to Latin America and Africa. And while those are very broad categories given how Civ only has the 3 ages as opposed to the 6 or so in humankind I think like it seems reasonable to throw in something like the Nazca to lead into the Inca. In general I expect more civs in general once the kinks get buffed out. I'm talking about one full progression tree for a new civ or enough to give an orphaned civ its own tree.
8. A More Complex Religion Mechanic
-While i've never cared about religion much it's mostly because the civs games really boil down all religions to being mostly the same thing.
Religions can be Monotheistic, Polytheistic or even Nontheistic. They can seek to prostheletize across the world or simply keep their beliefs to a faithful few. Religions aren't born in a vacuum and are often born from schism and split from those that come before, a bit of the old and a bit of the new. Instead we got the kind of barebones system from 5 but even more simple and gamified.
9. More Depth to Ideologies Beyond the Final Age
-One of my favorite mechanics from Humankind was the ideology system. This idea that the politics of your nation were made up from cultural pressure, landmark cases and policy put in place. I enjoyed how the game acknowleged the multiple axes ideologies can lean into. The idea that if you develop more free market policies you'll lose out on raw production and stability is a fun trade off that adds a bit of storytelling beyond trying too hard to replicate the very basic WWII to Cold War narrative.
I even worked out a concept for something like this ages ago https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ideology-system-concept.694327/#post-16757839
These are my main wishes for the game. While I'm still playing this over 6 at the moment I'm hoping for the point where the complexity of this game over takes Modded Civ 6. Because with the age system and the beautiful graphics 7 has the potential to be the ultimate civ game in time.
- We already have full tile buildings like Rail Stations and Aeorodromes I would like to see a return of some of 6's purpose oriented districts such as the Aquaduct, Canal or Dam. Given how much navigable rivers were hyped up I think it would be interesting to see more constructables tied to them. They've already made a step in the right direction by giving us river specific buildings, even a proper bridge stlye building so why not throw in some of the old with some of the new.
When it comes to buildings never before seen I think perhaps a proper coastal bridge would be interesting. It would be incredibly situational but fun to build, helping players with larger ammounts of land troops to mobilize at the expense of naval mobility.
2. More buildings outside of the 2 or so options we get per category
- We do have some options here and there, whether that be the Altar in antiquity, the 3 gold options in Exploration or the 3 Happiness options in the Modern Age. However I think every building type should at base have at least 3 options. JNR's Urban Complexity mod in Civ 6 does something a lot like this and it works wonderfully there.
For example if you build an aquaduct district do you choose to build a Sewer to increase the housing provided or an Orchard to give nearby improvements increased gold? Even in base Civ 6 with the District system I often had to debate what districts were worth building because even if building all of them was theoretically possible it required a substantial resource investment and meant crushing potentially useful tiles or forgoing another option. I think if 7 had some of this choice involved it would make planning cities far more unique allowing for players to tailor decisions to their civ, desired victory and enviornment.
3. Speculative Elements of the Future Era
- My ideal 4th era is one that extends from the dawn of the information age to the couple of decades beyond our own. While I understand how a lot of people want something inbetween the first 3, which I can understand, I am curious to see with this new age system how they can do a future age justice.
One of my least favorite parts of the 4X games i've played is how the last age usually boils down to their research trees fizzeling out of useful new additions. No units, no wonders, no buildings, mostly just numbers tweaks. In most of these games it feels like the game ends turns before it actually does and you're simply stacking boring "win more" modifiers to end the endless slogg of clicking. I would much rather prefer it instead of something such as "Advanced Power Cells: 50% Reduction on Emisions" if instead you got to build a new type of Power Plant. A good example of a more creative design of future techs is with Seasteads in Civ 6, instead of something like "+2 Housing on Coastal Cities" you instead got to build a new type of improvement with its own adjacencies on a part of the map you usually don't have access to.
4. Continuing to make Gathering Storm Elements a Core Part of the Civ Identity
- This might be controversial but I love the power management aspect of Civ 6. I don't like City Builder games all that much but I can't help but love how they work in Civ's globe spanning scale.
I like the added layer of strategy of planning out here to build industrial districts to connect the most cities to a power grid, or the shock of seeing a power resource trickle in numbers so needing to change out some power plants. I love the clean energy options too. Sometimes you simply can't connect every settlement to one grid or maybe you weren't lucky enough to have the resources in your empire to power it. And what's great about them is their trade offs. They often come well after your power plants so you have to think about how you're going to play out this era. Will you forgo powering your cities until you can get clean energy on line? Will you try to buy your neighbor's resources at least for the time being? Or will you wage wars to secure a right to your own sources? Even once you unlock green energy there's still the issue of space. I think with Civ 7's take on population management there's yet another layer of complexity for combining 6 and 7's mechanics as you have to consider if it's worth taking down one of your City's few mines for a Wind Turbine?
And that's not even mentioning the climate mechanics. I was so happy to see 7 make disasters base game but I would like to see the return of things such as coastal flooding, wild fires or droughts. Droughts and Flooding were interesting because not only did they target specific terrains, meaning different players had different challenges but they also had their own forms of mitigation and prevention which ties into my wish of more engaging infastructure.
5. More ways to Tie Yourself to Your Enviornment
- While most civs have an improvement or building that ties into the way their people lived IRL whether that be Terrace Farms or Kampungs I would like to see a host of buildings and improvements accessible to all players that allow them to tailor their gameplay to the cards they were dealt.
Like I mentioned earlier the Seastead is a good example of this but even things such as the Seaside Resort, Coastal Resort, Geothermal Plant, National Park, Fishery, etc are fun an engaging because they not only add another layer of strategy but make each game tell a different story of overcoming unique obstacles. While I don't mind too much how the terrain has default improvements now I do think the Devs should take advantage of the system of building over them with secondary improvements.
I think even the Warehouse buildings are good examples of this because they make you reconsider what tiles you will want to crush in the future and which you don't. I do think certain improvements how ever should act similar to Urban Tiles however, it feels a bit unfair that a ceremonial mound can still act as a woodcutter when all the trees appear to have been bulldozed to make way for it.
6. Return Some of the Diplomatic Flair from the Previous Games and building Upon Them
- I don't hate 7's diplomacy sytem I don't see how changing the name of your diplomacy currency and stripping back its features are a fix.
While it wasn't the most engaging system in 6 It did feel like you had the engage much more with the international community whether that be with international games, crises or by engaging with City States. While I like how much more useful Influence feels over Favor most of it comes down to "Throw it at Endeavors" "Throw it at War Support" or "Throw it at City States". In 6 even if these systems felt a bit disjointed from one another they did feel more unique. Thing's such as picking a good cassus beli or going after specific City States for their specific bonus felt like it had a bit more strategy to it.
And while I think the majority of people are not too fond of either game's diplomacy systems I think 6 truly did perfect the Espionage game. With 7's unique take on promotions I feel like not expanding upon how 6 gave Spies promotions and isntead making them basically an extension of Santions was a huge missed oportunity. Intelligence HQ's functioning as espionage's Aerodromes would have been a stellar mechanic. I made a concept for it here
CIV VII Quartermaster Concept
Civ VII Espionage Overhaul New Building: The Intelligence Agency The intelligence Agency is unlocked through civics and much like the Aerodrome takes up a full tile and houses a new Commander type, the Quartermaster. This building holds up to 4 slots for either Spies or Diplomats. Provides Scie...
docs.google.com
This is still a Work In Progress so feedback is appreciated.
And while difficult to get the AI to think long term I would like to see a return of international policy that wasn't just "If this makes the player win vote down". I think the key to doing this is by not tying voting directly to victory. Regardless of whatever victory metric Firaxis picks international diplomacy should serve two purposes, uplifiting you and your allies and diminishing the role of your opposition. If you have a player who for example is going for an economic victory you could propose a boycott that makes players lose 1 Influence for every imported resource from them. If a player is going for a military victory you could lauch a nuclear disarmament campaign which makes players lose influence for each one in their possession. Now I do think these need more requirements to be used as they well just result in dog piling and will make it feel like it's impossible for players to mitigate pushback. I think we need to also see the return of players proposing movements. Each time world congress meets each player should propose one resolution to codify and the top 2 or so would end up getting chosen so even players without a lot of influence can still engage with the system to some extent.
I think a lot of minor resolutions could be added to pad out the game and add some flair. Some examples Incluce
- "Declare [Wonder] a Protected Landmark": This settlement cannot be razed without aquiring a large influence penalty for many turns and the wonder provides its owner +4 Influence and a gold modifier for trade routes sent here. All trade routes sent to this settlement grant happiness
- "Restricted Airspace" : Aerial Units must go around the borders of this Settlement.
- "Extraction Restrictions" : The effects of this resource are halved.
- "War on [Ideology]" : Requires more Influence on membes from this ideology to gather war support
- "Decolonization" : Increased unhappiness on occupied settlements, 5% decrease on gaining war support for every occupied settlement owned by the opposition (There should also be a liberation mechanic or a way to cede cities outside of war deals)
- "Embargo [Civ]" : -1 Influence per resources traded by this player
- "Scientific Ethics Committee" : Decreased Science when a tech is researched for the first time globaly but the first Civ to research a tech is granted 3 Influence per turn. (The Scientifc Endevor bonus recieves increased influence and decreases the research penalty)
- "War Crimes Court": Increased influence when a population is raised or building is pillaged.
- "Relief Program" : You can choose a certain ammount of your Gold income to donate which is split between all that qualify for it granting you an aqual ammount of influence.
- "Nuclear Disarmament": Decreased Production towards the Manhattan Project and decreased Science Towards its associated tech. All nuclear weapons accure -2 Influence.
- "[Continent] Free Trade Agreement": Decreases the cost of establishing trade routes between members of a continent by 90%. (Could also effect the expansionist or economic civ's bonus for some uniue flair"
- "Designated Mediator": This player can support conflicts they're not involved in an additional time.
- "Land Recognition of the [Independent People]": Players that clear this Independent People will start a war with all those that agreed to it with them gaining reduced war support.
- "Military Size Restriction": Player can only maintain 2 units per settlement, any unit over grants them -1 influence per turn. (Can only be done if a player end a war without gaining more settlements than they lost and under 3 war support)
7. Some more Civs from under Tapped Parts of the World
-While I personally would like to see more Mesoamerican civs i'd in general like to see more civs that simply flesh out the lesser covered age paths. Like if you're playing as Aksum you really don't have a lot of variety in choices if you want to keep things to one region.
Civs like Hawaii or the Inca have no other civs from their continent that go into them or evolve from them. Humankind despite its flaws understood this by adding packs dedicated to Latin America and Africa. And while those are very broad categories given how Civ only has the 3 ages as opposed to the 6 or so in humankind I think like it seems reasonable to throw in something like the Nazca to lead into the Inca. In general I expect more civs in general once the kinks get buffed out. I'm talking about one full progression tree for a new civ or enough to give an orphaned civ its own tree.
8. A More Complex Religion Mechanic
-While i've never cared about religion much it's mostly because the civs games really boil down all religions to being mostly the same thing.
Religions can be Monotheistic, Polytheistic or even Nontheistic. They can seek to prostheletize across the world or simply keep their beliefs to a faithful few. Religions aren't born in a vacuum and are often born from schism and split from those that come before, a bit of the old and a bit of the new. Instead we got the kind of barebones system from 5 but even more simple and gamified.
9. More Depth to Ideologies Beyond the Final Age
-One of my favorite mechanics from Humankind was the ideology system. This idea that the politics of your nation were made up from cultural pressure, landmark cases and policy put in place. I enjoyed how the game acknowleged the multiple axes ideologies can lean into. The idea that if you develop more free market policies you'll lose out on raw production and stability is a fun trade off that adds a bit of storytelling beyond trying too hard to replicate the very basic WWII to Cold War narrative.
I even worked out a concept for something like this ages ago https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ideology-system-concept.694327/#post-16757839
These are my main wishes for the game. While I'm still playing this over 6 at the moment I'm hoping for the point where the complexity of this game over takes Modded Civ 6. Because with the age system and the beautiful graphics 7 has the potential to be the ultimate civ game in time.
