Future Update - Speculation Thread

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

While I grant that creating a religion is kind of fun, I'd like to see religion made something completely out of the player's control. Religion has traditionally been something states react to, not control, and most new religions have found a warmer welcome outside their place of origin than in it (e.g., Buddhism is a minor religion in India but a major one in Southeast Asia). Civ's take on religion feels more like ideology than religion.

So something like Great Prophets choosing a religion and founders belief while apostles choose a random belief when evangelizing one? That would be interesting but at the same time more frustrating for the player, especially when it doesn't suit their particular playstyle.

 

[Zaarin]

So something like Great Prophets choosing a religion and founders belief while apostles choose a random belief when evangelizing one? That would be interesting but at the same time more frustrating for the player, especially when it doesn't suit their particular playstyle.

Like I said, these are more thoughts for Civ7 than Civ6. Keep the pantheon system as it is--that works fine. Founding a religion, however, is something that happens outside the player's control, perhaps dynamically as a result of in-game events; make its ability an upgraded version of your pantheon belief. You have a choice whether to make it a state religion or not. Later you might have the option to reform the religion and alter/add to its beliefs. (These are all off-the-cuff ideas, not ones I've thought out. It could definitely use more polish. General idea: remove player control from the development and spread of religion but make it something the player reacts to instead; later in the game give some control in reformation. Again, by the High Middle Ages four religions were the dominant religions of the better part of Afroeurasia, and only two of them were dominant in their place of origin. I'd love to see religion as something where more civs will share a common religion and where there will be a strong diplomatic tendency for coreligionists to form loose alliances, while non-coreligionists will tend to have a degree of diplomatic tension.)

 

[bene_legionary]

There are mods that allow for more than one pantheon belief as part of your religion growing and also JNR made a "Great Theologian" Great Person that gives you bonuses. Perhaps you can use the Apostle mechanics, and in compensation for the apostle losing that ability make it a bit stronger than missionaries and with more spreads, or something.

 

[Gedemon]

I'm afraid these endless comparisons of features from Civ4 and Civ5 that people to reappear (or NEVER to reappear, depending) in Civ6 and Civ7 is hard for me relate to and respond to appropriately, and I find the "such-and-such leader and/or civilization appeared in well enough of a form in Civ4 and/or Civ5, they don't need to appear in Civ6," viewpoints that are so ubiquitous on these forums a bit irritating. I played Civ1, Civ2 (plus ToT), and Civ3, and then did return to a new iteration of Civ until Civ6. I am highly unfamiliar with Civ4 and Civ5, which are constantly used as bars and standards that everyone's kind of expected to fully understand and be up-and-up on.

I don't really understand what you mean, people compare to what they like best, that's natural.

I've played all iteration, from 1 to 6, and CTP.

My favorite is civ4.

If I hadn't played it, maybe I would have used civ3 for direct reference but I did play it, and I can't forgot the feeling.

But we were talking about AI coding, and one may prefer one behavior over the other, but the change between civ4 and civ5 AI behavior is a fact, its code is available for both game.

For civ6 it was mentioned by the AI programmer in an article posted a while back.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I can't speak for others, but it's not a question of accomplishments for me. It's not that America/Brazil/Canada/Australia shouldn't be civs because they haven't stood the test of time yet (there are some relatively short-lived pre-modern civs like the Timurids I'd love to have), but that they shouldn't be in because "being on top of the current meta" is by definition not historical.

I'm not speaking exclusively about accomplishments, though. What I'm saying is that, as the world develops, time itself has been effectively compressing on itself. Things are developing faster than they did in previous eras. And, in turn, states and cultures have had to move and adapt faster than in previous centuries. It simply isn't fair to say that a civ that has only lasted the past century in a global technological arms race (amidst, I might add, increasingly short-lived political unions and breakups) is on the same level as a civ that lasted a century with a few militant neighbors.

Also, I might add, there are many "empires" which are included or under consideration that only lasted about a century or less, including Austria-Hungary, the Italian Empire, Mexican, Brazilian, Zulu, Tibetan, Aztec, Incan, Akkadian, Swedish, Kalmar Union, as well as token representation of the North Sea Empire, French Empires, German Empire, Angevin, etc. The only difference is that many of those have had the time to leave legacies afterward while Canada and Australia are still fairly new and still synthesizing their identity, but in many cases culture is all these has-beens have left. You don't see Peru or Tibet in the G7 or even the G20 because they haven't been globally relevant well....ever.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

i still dont really care about what new civs or wonders have already been selected by Firaxis to still come ( soon™ ) .
My personal opinion is that the game starts losing steam once the middle ages come around and changes from "one more turn" ( enthusiastically ) to "i already won but have to click xyz amount of times endturn" ( better to start a new game ) . The devs should focus more on this issue . Reasons have already been discussed to death and there have been a lot of suggestions to make the late game also interesting . I just hope that 2020 will bring at least some of those suggestions to the game .
My personal favourites include
ideological wars-world wars between alliances
heresy-reformation wars for religion
colonization-revolts
some kind of economical victory and of course make the game at least a little bit challeging around upkeep , at the moment i never even have the appearnce of trouble with money with late game buying buildings and units left and right all the time every turn.

 

[acluewithout]

My personal opinion is that the game starts losing steam once the middle ages

Standing back, the issue is that the Civ has a really strong game loop in the early game, but can’t continue the loop into the mid / late game and doesn’t provide any new loop. That lack of a strong loop, not snowballing or absence of this or that particular Mechanic, is the biggest challenge to the end game.

Civ’s “loop” is “build City, use City to build stuff to get even more Cities (rinse, repeat), and do that while competing with other players seeking to do the same thing within a finite and asymmetrical territory”. There’s also some incremental player rewards, e.g. rewarding exploration (overt rewards like goody huts, but also visibility and those little wonder videos) and rewards from filling buckets; but “competitive territorial expansion” is the heart of the game.

I mean, people call this genre “4X”, but I really think these games are all about that second “x” (expansion) with the rest really just being extra spice. As an illustration, think of a game like Catan which (to me at least) feels very similar to Civ albeit on a much smaller scale but lacks any exploration or war (extermination) and very little developing beyond grabbing territory (ie exploitation). The reason Catan nevertheless feels like Civ is that it’s also a “competitive territorial expansion” game at its core.

If you look at Civ’s mid-game onwards, there’s actually a lot of good stuff that’s been added since GS but you can also see there are a bunch of persistent problems - some mechanics are bland (eg World Congress), some mechanics are a bit bare (eg no ideology), and lots of stuff doesn’t seem to matter. But forget all that - the more fundamental problem is that Civ can’t extend that initial competitive territorial expansion game loop into the late game and doesn’t provide any alternative game loop to replace it. If FXS can’t fix the game loop problem, then any other solution will just end up as “add more stuff” without actually making the game any better.

I think something around trade, commerce, colonial cities could be a way to extend the initial game loop if it has you actively competing with the AI again to expand your empire in the late game. I think Ideology, and the conflicts it might create, could create room for a new game loop (something more around military conflict, although the AI would have to get a lot more tactically smart for that).

I’m reasonably excited about more content, but I don’t actually have high hopes for improving the relevance or excitement of the mid to end game. It seems hard to get the mid and end game right in a 4X. More likely is that Civ 6 keeps its really tight early game loop, maybe makes that early loop last a bit longer (I feel like GS did at least extend it to the Medieval era), and then the mid to late game is basically still either a sandbox or an exercise in cutting turn times through careful micro.

 

[Loerwyn]

I keep the Australia DLC disabled. I have a visceral, physical reaction to the didgeridoos.

Huzzah! Welcome to the Disabled-Aus-DLC Club

 

[Atlas627]

Like I said, these are more thoughts for Civ7 than Civ6. Keep the pantheon system as it is--that works fine. Founding a religion, however, is something that happens outside the player's control, perhaps dynamically as a result of in-game events; make its ability an upgraded version of your pantheon belief. You have a choice whether to make it a state religion or not. Later you might have the option to reform the religion and alter/add to its beliefs. (These are all off-the-cuff ideas, not ones I've thought out. It could definitely use more polish. General idea: remove player control from the development and spread of religion but make it something the player reacts to instead; later in the game give some control in reformation. Again, by the High Middle Ages four religions were the dominant religions of the better part of Afroeurasia, and only two of them were dominant in their place of origin. I'd love to see religion as something where more civs will share a common religion and where there will be a strong diplomatic tendency for coreligionists to form loose alliances, while non-coreligionists will tend to have a degree of diplomatic tension.)

I've been thinking something along these lines, and have implemented some of my ideas as a fan-expansion for the Sid Meier's Civilization: A New Dawn board game. Obviously it has to be much simpler as a board game, but I think it is still relevant because board games do a great job at taking advantage of interactivity, and I think that is what the Religious system is missing most.

My big suggestion is to make the Religion's Beliefs something to interact over. So each Religion would be founded with a core belief (maybe the same every game, or maybe semi-random, or maybe chosen by the founder), and any Civ with that religion in their cities (even if not majority) can "join" that religion by making it the State Religion. Civs have some amount of "Influence" in the Religion, which would be determined by followers, wonders, faith production, and so on (some Beliefs could affect which things are worth Influence, for example). Civs spend faith to add new Beliefs to the Religion, which cost going down the more Influence you have in the Religion.

Then this Influence system could be used for other things, like increasing/decreasing relationships with the other Civs of the same/different Religions (and perhaps tie into the economic systems in some way that makes this work for multiplayer, like a Tithe pissing people off), implementing some sort of joint war (religious schism, crusades/jihad), allowing members to contribute to a pool and get random bonus Beliefs added to the Religion, etc. Basically a smaller World Congress within your Religion, I suppose.

And of course you can change your State Religion when you've decided your Religion has veered too far away from the bonuses you wanted, or when someone else's Influence gets too overwhelming and you can't get enough "votes" to control the policies that get implemented.

Civ6 had a nice idea with having the Great People be in a market that everyone interacted over, but I think that type of system would be far better suited to something like Religion, where you aren't just adding to a bucket until you unlock something, but actually have some more prominent elements of gameplay factor into how valuable the market is at any moment (religions in cities, faith treasury, diplomacy with other players).

 

[Deggial]

Smoke d updated and 2kqa d updated again. So many updates to the same one.

The question is: Is this a good sign or a bad sign?

Well, any activity is great, of course.
But it also means that they are not done jet and still working on it.

So, the more interesting question might be: which depots were NOT updated for a significant time by now?
And do they really, really need to finish each and every depot content first, before they are willing to announce something? (Not that anybody here could answer this ...)

 

[RohirrimElf]

Havent checked the steam depots updates for a week. Looks like firaxis is still updating them at rapid succession. Thanx for everyone refreshing the f5 button and keeping us updated.

 

[Casworon]

The end game has been a big problem in 4x games in like forever. Throwing on lots more mechanics for us to fiddle around with atleast gives us interesting things to do. Even if the impact on you wining or not is essentially non existent

 

[bite]

Just had a thought ... what if one of the depots is an update to the Red Death mode

 

[RohirrimElf]

The end game has been a big problem in 4x games in like forever. Throwing on lots more mechanics for us to fiddle around with atleast gives us interesting things to do. Even if the impact on you wining or not is essentially non existent

You could ignore it mostly. (Climate change). Pressing enter towards victory. If you handled the first half of the game ok. In theory the endgame should be exciting but in practice it is not. The endgame warfare could be great but the AI can’t seem to make good use of aircraft, ranged units and nukes in the same way a human can. Besides that the AI aggression is like that of a sheep. I have not seen many lategame wars against me. The last one i was in against Australia. The AI had some powerfull tanks units. But to uncoordinated. And even outnumbered no opposition against 2 aircraft and outdated defenders. It did some damage but not a real treat capturing a border city.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Just had a thought ... what if one of the depots is an update to the Red Death mode

Red Death doesn't have its own depot. It's on the Madrid depot (I think? Or is it GS exclusive?).

The four new depots (which are as yet unused) are linked to the Runner-SoonTM DLCs. So it wouldn't make sense for them to have anything to do with Red Death.

Now, updates for Red Death could be included in whatever this is going to be, but there's no connection between the things we see on SteamDB and Red Death by itself.

 

[RohirrimElf]

Just had a thought ... what if one of the depots is an update to the Red Death mode

firaxis rather pushes forward more scenarios than updating old ones.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Like I said, these are more thoughts for Civ7 than Civ6. Keep the pantheon system as it is--that works fine. Founding a religion, however, is something that happens outside the player's control, perhaps dynamically as a result of in-game events; make its ability an upgraded version of your pantheon belief. You have a choice whether to make it a state religion or not. Later you might have the option to reform the religion and alter/add to its beliefs. (These are all off-the-cuff ideas, not ones I've thought out. It could definitely use more polish. General idea: remove player control from the development and spread of religion but make it something the player reacts to instead; later in the game give some control in reformation. Again, by the High Middle Ages four religions were the dominant religions of the better part of Afroeurasia, and only two of them were dominant in their place of origin. I'd love to see religion as something where more civs will share a common religion and where there will be a strong diplomatic tendency for coreligionists to form loose alliances, while non-coreligionists will tend to have a degree of diplomatic tension.)

Reformations and state religions as new mechanics would help bring Ethiopia (Axum) and the Byzantines with abilities tied to them to Civ 6 though.

 

[tedhebert]

With the release yesterday of XCOM:Chimera Squad, I guess we can restart the timer to an announcement for CIV6 now ;-)

For those interested also, FX has made XCOM2 free to play until april 30th on steam. Guess it goes along the Chimera Squad release

 

[Zaarin]

Reformations and state religions as new mechanics would help bring Ethiopia (Axum) and the Byzantines with abilities tied to them to Civ 6 though.

Agreed. I really liked that religion was more of a diplomatic factor than a victory condition in Civ5, and insofar as RV allows it I'd like to see that return in Civ6. I remember a Civ5 game where I spread my religion to one of my neighbors and he, not I, militantly spread it around the globe until my religion was not only dominant but had actually stamped out some other civs' religions. I thought that was an interesting scenario--and one I've never seen in Civ6 where civs only spread religions they found because RV. As an aside, RV meaning something other than Rig Veda feels really weird to me...

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I know everyone is totally curious to know this:

XCOM Chimera Squad's age rating build was last updated between 1 and 2 months ago and it was announced 10 days ago. while Civ's age rating build was updated 24 days ago.

If there is any kind of symmetry between these events, we could be looking at Apr 28 to May 12 for an announcement.