Future tech and future civ

[Abaxial]

One thing I think needs fixing is the absence of high end stuff at the end of the tech tree. No stratosphere paratroops or giant robots. It means that once you have researched all the tech you need for your space programme, there's nothing new to get, and in the turns while you put the Mars mission together (a) the other civs catch up with you in tech, and (b) you just spam a lot of future tech. Science and culture become effectively useless commodities.

I don't see why future tech has to be so useless. A few extra points on your score isn't going to make much difference. Future tech is not going to be as dull as, to steal a joke from Rowan Atkinson, inventing an Opal Fruit that tastes of fruit. It should have some tangible effect! I would suggest something like this: for each batch of future tech, all friendly combat units gain +5 combat strength. For each batch of future civ, all friendly cities gain 1 amenity.

Maybe this would be an easy mod to make?

 

[Uberfrog]

It'd be fine as a mod, but I actually like that the Science Victory is grounded in the near future rather than giant robots and the like. It makes sense for the tech tree to cap out with the mission to Mars, as the game should be over by then. Extra late game additions are just a bit superfluous, since most games will be over before Metal Gear and XCOM take the field.

A mod that expands the Future Era (and Science Victory) beyond what we have now would be nice, but I think Civ is right to keep its designs limited to the Space Age.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Am I the only person who kind of misses Giant Death Robots?

 

[Tech Osen]

Am I the only person who kind of misses Giant Death Robots?

Nope. By that time you would have usually won anyway. Don't think I ever saw an AI GDR.

 

[Katakanja]

Am I the only person who kind of misses Giant Death Robots?

I miss them as an endgame novelty, but like @Tech Osen says, they were pretty much irrelevant as an actual unit you would ever make use of.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I miss them as an endgame novelty, but like @Tech Osen says, they were pretty much irrelevant as an actual unit you would ever make use of.

Agreed. They were completely silly. But fun.

 

[Tech Osen]

I miss them as an endgame novelty, but like @Tech Osen says, they were pretty much irrelevant as an actual unit you would ever make use of.

Oh, I used them plenty... same for the xcom squads.

 

[Metecury]

Am I the only person who kind of misses Giant Death Robots?

You and me both.

 

[Siptah]

Future civics at least give governor titles in R&F, so you‘ll benefit from advancing fast and getting multiple of those. Maybe future techs could get something similar. 5% on all yields?

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Am I the only person who kind of misses Giant Death Robots?

No, you're not.
They were entirely useless because the game was won long before you got them but at least they brought some fun to the end game if you somehow messed up your maxi-super-hyper-<missing suparlative>-optimization and had to wait a little longer to get the victory screen.
Giant flying fortresses would be nice too. As would CTP style underwater/space cities or behemoth-like tanks.

Bring back the fun late game units

 

[dagriggstar]

Honestly I think the game would be better if landing on the moon was the space race victory.....Do you try rush a space race win before getting nuked ? Or do you develop nukes first ?

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Future civ will grant governor titles in R&F. I think.

 

[zhivik]

Future civ will grant governor titles in R&F. I think.

I think they said so in the first live stream, something along the line that if you play long enough, you could fully upgrade all of your governors this way. I guess it is better than nothing.

 

[Olleus]

Honestly, I think that 90% of the information era is there for the purpose the OP mentions; there to keep you busy while you finish your victory. If you add some near future technologies, then it makes sense to have the science victory require those. Therefore you've pushed back the science victory (nothing wrong with that in itself), but you haven't solved the problem of having nothing to do while finishing your victory.

I think it's a difficult balancing act. You don't want anything to unlock around the same time/just after victory, because nobody would use them and it's slightly frustrating to have some goodies in the game that you never get to use. I'm not sure I've even *ever* used an information era unit in Civ6, and I've only done so a couple of times in Civ5 and Civ4. Buildings/Wonders right in the end game are even more pointless because they'll never recover their investment cost. If you just want something to do with your science, then isn't getting some minor bonus (to Amenity or housing or something similar) from future techs enough?

 

[Vrenir]

I also like the inclusion of near-future tech and units in the base game. That said, I do think that it should be a toggle in the Game Setup menu. As far as content goes, they should have a lot of units, buildings, improvements, and tech names that they could lift from Beyond Earth. They could even bring over concepts like aquatic cities and the satellite layer.

Similarly, I'd be a fan of an optional magic-based component to the base game, possibly branching off from the Pantheon system.

Again, any extra-historical content should be optional under Game Settings.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Well, I personally would prefer technological progress to end in the Renaissance Era since I've always found later eras more and more tedious in Civs 3-6 (for some reason I actually enjoy the later eras in Civ 2).

If they're going to do future era science fiction stuff, I'd much rather they go all in, which is why I actually thoroughly enjoyed Beyond Earth. For some reason it just doesn't jive with me in a mainline game though.

 

[God of Kings]

How about arcologies?

 

[UWHabs]

It's weird to be able to build a mars launch vehicle which we still can't do right now in real life, yet not have any units that aren't currently real. Would certainly make a lot of sense to have a "future era" where most of the later space race would exist, along with some new units.

But I do think if they did extend it, they definitely need more late buildings. The new pier and neighbourhood buildings add something at least, but there's still very few late-game buildings, and it always feels weird still having to build a lighthouse, for example, in the information era.

 

[Katakanja]

How about arcologies?

They would be an interesting element to add to Neighbourhoods in some way.

 

[agonistes]

One thing I think needs fixing is the absence of high end stuff at the end of the tech tree. No stratosphere paratroops or giant robots. It means that once you have researched all the tech you need for your space programme, there's nothing new to get, and in the turns while you put the Mars mission together (a) the other civs catch up with you in tech, and (b) you just spam a lot of future tech. Science and culture become effectively useless commodities.

I don't see why future tech has to be so useless. A few extra points on your score isn't going to make much difference. Future tech is not going to be as dull as, to steal a joke from Rowan Atkinson, inventing an Opal Fruit that tastes of fruit. It should have some tangible effect! I would suggest something like this: for each batch of future tech, all friendly combat units gain +5 combat strength. For each batch of future civ, all friendly cities gain 1 amenity.

Maybe this would be an easy mod to make?

Do you realize how OP that is? You could have 50 future techs, and some poor ai bastard doesn't even have one. Do you really want the game to become MORE lopsided in favor of the player?