Future Update - Speculation Thread

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I am going to jump on the bandwagon for random events. What makes the late game so boring for me is the fact most of the time it really is a snowball. I want something drastic to happen, something that forces me to think and calculate. I want consequences (or rewards) for my actions but also would like to have something out of my control that might set me back that I did not see coming. The whole point of strategy games is to strategize and think and you lose that entirely when you're coasting towards the finish line. If all the other civs are getting the same treatment then I wouldn't mind if time to time a plague hit or some other random event because it adds to the story element of your civilization and allows you to think on your feet. I believe that's what draws people to games like EU4, not just the depth but the random events that could either hurt you or help you and you're forced to adapt to those situations.
 
i dislike random events because they are inherently unpredictable and if it is bad the immidiate feeling is "not now please" , i agree if you overcome it it is a nice "i am a great player" moment but it comes too late, if firaxis however could make sure that the random events affect not only one civ in the game but at least 2 ( the more the merrier ) it would be something else entirely.
i am also still waiting to see how they will tackle the late game conundrum of just hit the end turn button till the player wins and there is nothing the AI can do about it.i love the early game and i see a lot of potantial easy fixes for the mid-game but endgame gets tricky.
 
Right, let's say you can control or mitigate. Then you should've done so, even if that means less growth early. Do whichever thing results in the most growth overall. You should never have allowed your Civ to wane, if that is what is less overall growth. Just don't cause the waning.

So the alternative is to not have control over it, and make you adapt to it. But as a strategy game, many players will be frustrated by this. They have to *expect* that the game is *about* alternately waxing and waning, and then adapting to the situation you're in, so that they won't be frustrated.

What elements did Civ4 have that caused your empire to wane? The random events? People said those were immensely frustrating, for this exact reason. If there was some sort of rubber-band mechanic or slingshot effect that caused you to become weaker if you grew too strong, then optimal gameplay would've been to just not get too strong in the first place...unless the rubber-band was so weak that the snowball was still worth it. And then I wouldn't call that waning...just lessened waxing.

I think is quite weird to say that systems that make the game more difficult, or having negative effects frustrate the players. This is exactly the same argument used against natural disasters.

Probably FXS thought something simmilar maybe after reading posts like this, and as a result, disasters mean nothing and most players ignore them.

This may also have been the same reason to make the AI not very aggresive at wars, specially late games. As a result, late wars are a joke.

The same happened with WC, and other game systems. People was worried to not frustrate the player, and as a result many game systems are pointless and the game is much less fun than it should have been.

The weird thing is that i have not seen anyone saying "this would frustrate me". They speak in the name of other people, as if "other" players needed protection against challenge, as if "people" were too weak to face any difficulties. And look at it, most complains for the game I have seen are: it is not challenging or engaging anymore, or it is too easy.

Is sad thinking how often communities sabotage ourselves in this way.

Yes, I think plagues should be a negative effect to all civs in a balanced way and not punishing tall play. Just you know, providing challenge. Not all game systems have to provide rewards. If you cant have challenge, you cant have fun either. It is just a matter of implementation.

I'm a bit sick and tired of this way of thinking about games, or extremist talking in general. As if there is no room for anything besides a harcore challenge for people to meme at newbies, or an "experience" with no lose condition.
 
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I think is quite weird to say that systems that make the game more difficult, or having negative effects frustrate the players. This is exactly the same argument used against natural disasters.

Probably FXS thought something simmilar maybe after reading posts like this, and as a result, disasters mean nothing and most players ignore them.

This may also have been the same reason to make the AI not very aggresive at wars, specially late games. As a result, late wars are a joke.

The same happened with WC, and other game systems. People was worried to not frustrate the player, and as a result many game systems are pointless and the game is much less fun than it should have been.

The weird thing is that i have not seen anyone saying "this would frustrate me". They speak in the name of other people, as if "other" players needed protection against challenge, as if "people" were too weak to face any difficulties. And look at it, most complains for the game I have seen are: it is not challenging or engaging anymore, or it is too easy.

Is sad thinking how often communities sabotage ourselves in this way.

Yes, I think plagues should be a negative effect to all civs in a balanced way and not punishing tall play. Just you know, providing challenge. Not all game systems have to provide rewards. If you cant have challenge, you cant have fun either. It is just a matter of implementation.

I'm a bit sick and tired of this way of thinking about games, or extremist talking in general. As if there is no room for anything besides a harcore challenge for people to meme at newbies, or an "experience" with no lose condition.
I think you should bear in mind that people who play games like Civ6 for a "challenge" are a very small part of the player base. The Civ franchise appeals to more casual players. Speaking for myself, I play on low difficulty levels not because I couldn't compete at higher levels but because I mostly want the AI to stay out of my way while I focus on building. I'd love to see Civ4-style random events where a mixture of positive and negative events can shake up your experience, but I don't want to see anything added simply to make the end-game more challenging--frankly the end game is tedious enough already.
 
I think you should bear in mind that people who play games like Civ6 for a "challenge" are a very small part of the player base. The Civ franchise appeals to more casual players. Speaking for myself, I play on low difficulty levels not because I couldn't compete at higher levels but because I mostly want the AI to stay out of my way while I focus on building. I'd love to see Civ4-style random events where a mixture of positive and negative events can shake up your experience, but I don't want to see anything added simply to make the end-game more challenging--frankly the end game is tedious enough already.

Again, I think you missundertood me. The existence of difficulty levels mean you can make the game as hard as you want.

A different thing is to design the game so the player never has to face a drawback.

You can have an easy game with negative effects. I don't want a more difficult game, I want a better one.

For example a better AI is something we all agree the game should have. That will make the game more difficult, but that is not the point. The point is to have an engaging play, if I need to lower a difficulty level as a consecuence to play comfortably, so be it. I will not ask for a dumb AI in order for me to be able to play at high difficulty levels.

Casual play does not require to not have any difficulty. I personally never play above king, and hate "playing optimal". That does not mean I need to win all the time against enemies that do nothing. Or that I don't want to feel the joy of overcoming a challenge.

Actually, as many others, if I dont play civ more often, even in a casual way, is because I dont find it engaging or rewarding, cause is boring to be always on the top.

Also saying the vast majority of players want the game to a casual experience is at best an opinion. As worst nonesensical, since what even casual means?. Does it mean that the players want to play one hour easy games where they get rewarded for everything they do and always win? I dont think so.

People saying players dont want to be frustrated by negative effects has the same basis as saying players would play more if only the game was more difficult. None of those things is true. And is not what the point is about.
 
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I am going to jump on the bandwagon for random events. What makes the late game so boring for me is the fact most of the time it really is a snowball. I want something drastic to happen, something that forces me to think and calculate. I want consequences (or rewards) for my actions but also would like to have something out of my control that might set me back that I did not see coming. The whole point of strategy games is to strategize and think and you lose that entirely when you're coasting towards the finish line. If all the other civs are getting the same treatment then I wouldn't mind if time to time a plague hit or some other random event because it adds to the story element of your civilization and allows you to think on your feet. I believe that's what draws people to games like EU4, not just the depth but the random events that could either hurt you or help you and you're forced to adapt to those situations.
I wouldn't mind them if they were more in the form of Civ6 "emergencies" where you have x turns to do something for a reward/avoid a penalty, rather than the previous "sorry your iron randomly disappeared, sucks to be you." That might be interesting, like another side quest to perform along the way.
 
Again, I think you missundertood me. The existence of difficulty levels mean you can make the game as hard as you want.

A different thing is to design the game so the player never has to face a drawback.

You can have an easy game with negative effects. I do t want a more difficult game, I want a better one.

For example a better AI, is something we all agree the game could have. That will make the game more difficult, but that is not the point. The point is to have an engaging play, if I need to lower a difficulty as a consecuence to play comfortably, so be it. I will not ask for a dumb AI in order for me to be able to play at high difficulty levels.

Casual play does not require to not have any difficulty. I personally never play above king, and hate "playing optimal". That does not mean I need to win all the time against enemies that do nothing. Or that I don't want to feel the joy of overcoming a challenge.

Actually, as many others, if I dont play civ more often, even in a casual way, is because I dont find it engaging or rewarding, cause is boring to be always on the top.
Okay. I agree with most of this.

Also saying the vast majority of players want the game to a casual experience is at best an opinion. As worst nonesensical, since what even casual means?. Does it mean that the players want to play one hour easy games where they get rewarded for everything they do and always win? I dont think so.
It means most people aren't playing Civ because they want a challenge. TBH if I'm looking for challenge in a game, I'll play a platformer (that frustrating genre that often draws me in with its charming art and stories only to outclass my platforming skills a couple hours into the game :lol:).
 
I don't think anyone conceives of more events as "X thing happened. Oh well!" That's not what any of us are suggesting.

Every strategy game that has implemented them has at least choices to make and other ways to interact. Even Gathering Storm: there are ways to mitigate and avoid disasters and it's extremely clear to the player.
 
I think is quite weird to say that systems that make the game more difficult, or having negative effects frustrate the players. This is exactly the same argument used against natural disasters.

Probably FXS thought something simmilar maybe after reading posts like this, and as a result, disasters mean nothing and most players ignore them.

This may also have been the same reason to make the AI not very aggresive at wars, specially late games. As a result, late wars are a joke.

The same happened with WC, and other game systems. People was worried to not frustrate the player, and as a result many game systems are pointless and the game is much less fun than it should have been.

The weird thing is that i have not seen anyone saying "this would frustrate me". They speak in the name of other people, as if "other" players needed protection against challenge, as if "people" were too weak to face any difficulties. And look at it, most complains for the game I have seen are: it is not challenging or engaging anymore, or it is too easy.

Is sad thinking how often communities sabotage ourselves in this way.

Yes, I think plagues should be a negative effect to all civs in a balanced way and not punishing tall play. Just you know, providing challenge. Not all game systems have to provide rewards. If you cant have challenge, you cant have fun either. It is just a matter of implementation.

I'm a bit sick and tired of this way of thinking about games, or extremist talking in general. As if there is no room for anything besides a harcore challenge for people to meme at newbies, or an "experience" with no lose condition.

You're complaining about people speculating on the frustrations of other players, and in the same breath speculating on how those speculations caused Firaxis to purposely make the game less challenging.

Most players of this game happily sit around and build up their empire. That is what they want to do. I have firsthand seen people who get *depressed* after having their empire destroyed, even by something they could have mitigated. How many people continue their game once they lose a city? In EU4, how many people continue their campaign after the first time they lose land in a war?

My core point is that this game is not designed for these types of setbacks because it is a race game. Nobody has actually tried to debate this point, just naysaid it or argued the supplemental points of pointlessness/frustration. Even without those points, the fact remains that setbacks are antithesis to the design of the game, which is about building up a snowballing civilization.

To tie it back into the thread topic more closely, I think this means that Firaxis will not be implementing this type of feature, even if we disagree on whether or not they should, or whether we want them to.
 
You're complaining about people speculating on the frustrations of other players, and in the same breath speculating on how those speculations caused Firaxis to purposely make the game less challenging.

Most players of this game happily sit around and build up their empire. That is what they want to do. I have firsthand seen people who get *depressed* after having their empire destroyed, even by something they could have mitigated. How many people continue their game once they lose a city? In EU4, how many people continue their campaign after the first time they lose land in a war?

My core point is that this game is not designed for these types of setbacks because it is a race game. Nobody has actually tried to debate this point, just naysaid it or argued the supplemental points of pointlessness/frustration. Even without those points, the fact remains that setbacks are antithesis to the design of the game, which is about building up a snowballing civilization.

To tie it back into the thread topic more closely, I think this means that Firaxis will not be implementing this type of feature, even if we disagree on whether or not they should, or whether we want them to.

It was an observation, not a complain. I dont know what the FXS design process was.

Im sure you have seen people complaining about stupid things. Im sure a lot of people rage quit civ6 for the art style, for the dumb AI, or many things.

Not everything is for everyone, since if you try to make something for everyone it will probably appeal to no one.

Again, what kind of setback are you talking about. An hypothetical setback that does not exist yet and deppends on an implementation that has not happened?

I really don't understand your point. Do you think that there is no room for any difficulty or negative effect in Civ? Cause that was my only point. And the only argument presented for not having any kind of plague mechanics.

You know everything else is a matter of implementation. Is not reasonable to oppose a gme system that does not exist based on the assertion that any negative drawback will frustrate "other" players. That is the only thing I said, and the only thing you seem to be responding to. And still dont know if you disagree with me or not.

Are setbacks the anthithesis of a game? That strikes me as ridiculous. What an attack is? What a natural disaster is? Or an spy action? Or a dark age? Or the golden age of a rival? Can even the gameplay exist if there are no setbacks? Do good effects gave any meaning if all there is are good effects? Has a race even make sense if no one is racing against you and you have no impediments whatsoever to arrive first?

Maybe the only reason why FXS does not implement things like this is because we are very vocal saying them that they should not. Even is we kind of agree that we want them to!
 
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It means most people aren't playing Civ because they want a challenge. TBH if I'm looking for challenge in a game, I'll play a platformer (that frustrating genre that often draws me in with its charming art and stories only to outclass my platforming skills a couple hours into the game :lol:).

I never said I wanted the game to be "hard".
Obviously most people want some form of challenge, otherwise everybody will play on the easiest level or play a sim game. Civ is designed so the player has oposition already. I dont think most of the players want to play with an AI that is there only for flavour.

The point is again, any system that affects all civs will not make the game harder!. So difficulty has nothing to do with an hypothetical plague system. Unless there is a reasonable reason to prevent any not positive efect to be in the game. The only reason I see is: Other players will be frustrated. And I dont think is true.
 
They've already implemented it though: disasters and emergencies. We just want more stuff like that. Even WC has elements of this.

I mean, more stuff like that would be great, but I don't think either of those are setbacks. The disasters also give you permanent yields on the tiles, and the emergencies give someone a huge reward for participating. The World Congress is the closest thing with the voting, and I hear people complain about how the AIs all vote as a monolith and the player loses any sort of control over their own destiny. I myself don't mind this because you can still control what you do because of that, but I think the point stands.

It was an observation, not a complain. I dont know what the FXS design process was.

Im sure you have seen people complaining about stupid things. Im sure a lot of people rage quit civ6 for the art style, for the dumb AI, or many things.

Not everything is for everyone, since if you try to make something for everyone it will probably appeal to no one.

Again, what kind of setback are you talking about. An hypothetical setback that does not exist yet and deppends on an impleme tation that has not happened?

I really don't understand your point. Do you think that there is no room for any difficulty or negative effect in Civ? Cause that was my only point.

My apologies, then.

The impression I got from all of the posters was that they wanted something to "shake up the late game", as in make the winner uncertain again, aka undo your snowball or help others catch up to your level of snowball. As Civ is a race game, those types of things are inherently problematic. If getting ahead just causes you to fall behind when that late-game shake-up comes along, then you would choose not to get ahead. If falling behind causes you to slingshot to victory when that late-game shake-up comes along, then you would purposely fall behind, and playing well would become about...playing poorly (sorta)? If the shake-up is NOT enough to do these things, then it doesn't really do anything at all. And if it hits the sweetspot where you aren't certain if it is enough or not, then that instead makes the whole game up until then *pointless* rather than inverted, since by returning things to even ground all you've done is reset to the beginning of the game.

Look at Mario Kart. The items you get when in 1st place are generally meh, while you can get targeted by other items (Red/Blue Shells). The items you get in last place are enough to bring you halfway through the pack, or if the race was hotly contested in the first place, all the way to 1st place. So if you are WAY better than everyone else at the racing portion of the game, you can stay in 1st all game and still win despite the items. If not, you'd be better off staying in 2nd to avoid Blue Shells, or to fall back to last to get a good item, then race back up the ranks and then use that item at the last second.

This is fine because Mario Kart is designed for this experience. Races are short, the controls and characters are casual-friendly so people are not as heavily invested in the outcome, and a wide variety of people with different skill levels can play together because the items even the playing field. Now if you tried to put items in Gran Turismo, I think people would have a fit. That game is harder to control, and as a more simulation-heavy game is geared toward people who become invested in the outcome. They want the best driver to win, full stop.

Civ is somewhere in between. It is no WWII simulator, nor is it the Sims. It has a casual-friendly theme, but is filled with strategy elements. So you get many players, even strategy gamers, who play for that feeling that the theme gives them, of building up a civilization through history. This is the design of the game, and since it is a race game, the game mechanics line up rather well with this feeling. Unfortunately, for anyone that actually cares about the game being challenging (and no, not talking about difficulty level, because the official difficulty levels only make the beginning challenging, not the whole game), this snowballing leads to the "victory is inevitable" problem that plagues the late game, and always has in the series.

If you want to shake up the late game, the first thing you need to do is change the victory conditions to not be a race game. And that is too extreme a change for them to do in an expansion, I think. I hope they consider this for Civ7, especially with Humankind and Old World offering up some innovative ideas on this front.

Now if you just want the feeling of a setback, but it to not affect your chances of winning that much, or it to not be based on how well you were doing beforehand? Then I would call that "lessened waxing" as I said before, not waning. So it wouldn't feel like a setback to me at all. And if everyone gets the same setback, then why even bother? Flavor?
 
I mean, more stuff like that would be great, but I don't think either of those are setbacks. The disasters also give you permanent yields on the tiles, and the emergencies give someone a huge reward for participating. The World Congress is the closest thing with the voting, and I hear people complain about how the AIs all vote as a monolith and the player loses any sort of control over their own destiny. I myself don't mind this because you can still control what you do because of that, but I think the point stands.



My apologies, then.

The impression I got from all of the posters was that they wanted something to "shake up the late game", as in make the winner uncertain again, aka undo your snowball or help others catch up to your level of snowball. As Civ is a race game, those types of things are inherently problematic. If getting ahead just causes you to fall behind when that late-game shake-up comes along, then you would choose not to get ahead. If falling behind causes you to slingshot to victory when that late-game shake-up comes along, then you would purposely fall behind, and playing well would become about...playing poorly (sorta)? If the shake-up is NOT enough to do these things, then it doesn't really do anything at all. And if it hits the sweetspot where you aren't certain if it is enough or not, then that instead makes the whole game up until then *pointless* rather than inverted, since by returning things to even ground all you've done is reset to the beginning of the game.

Look at Mario Kart. The items you get when in 1st place are generally meh, while you can get targeted by other items (Red/Blue Shells). The items you get in last place are enough to bring you halfway through the pack, or if the race was hotly contested in the first place, all the way to 1st place. So if you are WAY better than everyone else at the racing portion of the game, you can stay in 1st all game and still win despite the items. If not, you'd be better off staying in 2nd to avoid Blue Shells, or to fall back to last to get a good item, then race back up the ranks and then use that item at the last second.

This is fine because Mario Kart is designed for this experience. Races are short, the controls and characters are casual-friendly so people are not as heavily invested in the outcome, and a wide variety of people with different skill levels can play together because the items even the playing field. Now if you tried to put items in Gran Turismo, I think people would have a fit. That game is harder to control, and as a more simulation-heavy game is geared toward people who become invested in the outcome. They want the best driver to win, full stop.

Civ is somewhere in between. It is no WWII simulator, nor is it the Sims. It has a casual-friendly theme, but is filled with strategy elements. So you get many players, even strategy gamers, who play for that feeling that the theme gives them, of building up a civilization through history. This is the design of the game, and since it is a race game, the game mechanics line up rather well with this feeling. Unfortunately, for anyone that actually cares about the game being challenging (and no, not talking about difficulty level, because the official difficulty levels only make the beginning challenging, not the whole game), this snowballing leads to the "victory is inevitable" problem that plagues the late game, and always has in the series.

If you want to shake up the late game, the first thing you need to do is change the victory conditions to not be a race game. And that is too extreme a change for them to do in an expansion, I think. I hope they consider this for Civ7, especially with Humankind and Old World offering up some innovative ideas on this front.

Now if you just want the feeling of a setback, but it to not affect your chances of winning that much, or it to not be based on how well you were doing beforehand? Then I would call that "lessened waxing" as I said before, not waning. So it wouldn't feel like a setback to me at all. And if everyone gets the same setback, then why even bother? Flavor?

Is a game of civilization. All players are set in a world where they have no total control over and compete with each other. I dont see how diseases could not improve it.

Why bother? Because It will bring more variety, more decission making, more things to do, more elements that real civilizations face, and yes some flavour!

Otherwise why bring anything to the game if all civs have access to it or suffer from it?

Because more cool stuff is always great! And because gameplay changes is where expansions really shine in the civ franchise. Just because more fun is always fun!
 
remember that the people writing/discussing in these forums are above average players and even if they are new there is a lot of good advise to be gained that will make you a formidable player. However this group is a fraction of a tiny group of the whole franchise. Unfortunately we no longer live in an age where video games gave you a quest that read go to the XYZ cave that is somewhere east of here , instead you get a minimap with an X and path highlighted with an arrow on the screen leading you there. This trend can be seen across all genres. So Firaxis is trying to add disasters but in a "fun" way as to not make the players unhappy. I dont see that trend changing .
I fear best what we can expect is that Firaxis adds more customization options to the game that we can tweak to make the game more to each ones liking.

For example an option to remove barbarians or make them raging and becoming worse as time passes would be welcome

or add difficulty levels above deity ( name them the SID challenge for example ) that add bonuses to the AI ( better yields and some units gifted with intervals ). Each time you complete a SID difficulty another more difficult ( with more bonuses to the AI ) becomes available.

or how about changing the disasters to give no or less benefits slider?

we can make the list longer but i think those are not that hard to code , question is are we numerous/loud enough to get Firaxis to spent resources on such ideas?

I would love to watch on twitch/youtube the "elite" on how they tackle these.
 
I am going to jump on the bandwagon for random events. What makes the late game so boring for me is the fact most of the time it really is a snowball. I want something drastic to happen, something that forces me to think and calculate. I want consequences (or rewards) for my actions but also would like to have something out of my control that might set me back that I did not see coming. The whole point of strategy games is to strategize and think and you lose that entirely when you're coasting towards the finish line. If all the other civs are getting the same treatment then I wouldn't mind if time to time a plague hit or some other random event because it adds to the story element of your civilization and allows you to think on your feet. I believe that's what draws people to games like EU4, not just the depth but the random events that could either hurt you or help you and you're forced to adapt to those situations.

Random events are not the solution to the late game snowball, because they are either so weak they make not enough drastic difference, or do destructive that (when combined with their total randomness) they are not fun in a game like civ.

Late game snowball should be avoided by ingame mechanics simulating history, such as:
- powerful secessionist movements of ethnicities, religions, colonies etc
- civil wars and revolutions
- coalitions and world wars
- sanctions and cold wars
- less linear and mindless progress, where lategame empire can stagnate and be overcomed by rapidly innovating smaller state (industrialization is perfect for this task; basically once enlightenment and industrialism set in IRL, each and every culture which couldnt embrace them - lost; same thing should happen in Kate game, race for industrial society)
- game design and AI in general prefering highly risk over complacency
- removing the idiotic, ahistorical and unfun idea of "later eras are more peaceful"

Unfortunately, the entire civ6 design is plagued by the inability to penalize or challenge the player in any real way, so each and every devs attempt to chante lategame falls flat on its face anyway. Dark ages and climate change are worthless when each of them is not real existential risk for the player, just slap on the wrist, because God forbid is anybody ever LOSES civ game against AI past early era conquest.
 
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Nationalism does practically nothing, despite destroying empires in real life. But my ideas of an answer to this would require another long post and a Civ 7. And the Civ system doesn't really allow for another nation to rise up in your lands, because most of the time you'll have 10 civs, and there isn't as many civs to fit in to a huge empire like that. The Ottomans had to deal with the Balkans, a (not literally, I respect their cultures. I mean the disparity) mess of languages and religions. The Balkans had to deal with the Balkans, even. There's 9 cultures at least in the Balkans (excluding Bulgaria and Romania and Hungary). Strangely, Hungary ingame has Belgrade (is it the Ottomans? might be the Ottomans) as a city, and Zagreb (this one isn't as far fetched as they were both under the same king).

hint for the ideas: Definitely more often than not in the last 1,200 years, there's been more than one Germany. Or Russia. Or Mongolia. Or Spain. most countries, really. Most weren't unified.
 
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- powerful secessionist movements of ethnicities, religions, colonies etc
I'd love to see Endless Space 2-style ethnic population in Civ.

Nationalism does practically nothing, despite destroying empires in real life. But my ideas of an answer to this would require another long post and a Civ 7.

hint: Definitely more often than not in the last 1,200 years, there's been more than one Germany. Or Russia. Or Mongolia. Or Spain. most countries, really. Most weren't unified.
This is true, but Civ doesn't represent polities: it represents civilizations. Civilizations don't have to be politically unified to still be the same civilization. That's why I'm such an opponent to adding nation-states to Civ: they don't fit the Civ model.
 
Exactly. Perhaps I just want a really long EU4. I don't know.
 
Years ago I remember reading an interview - with Meier himself maybe - stating that they had implemented dark ages in an earlier version of Civ, and the removed them when play testers ended up just restarting when it happened.

So I think that's lead their design policy for a while, that players want continual forward progress/momentum, not set backs.

However I'd agree that it's the sort of thing that should be able to satisfy everyone if implemented with proper difficulty levelling and game options set up.
 
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