[GS] Future Update?

[Victoria]

I like the idea of housing based on appeal.

I feel the opposite, at first it sounds good but think about it, the more houses, the less appeal an area has.
High appeal areas bring wealth and skill and high quality people. A large amount of housing has the opposite effect.

 

[AntSou]

1. Plague Doctors are an artificial game mechanic: there was no such thing unless you count the people going around with carts every morning collecting the dead from the night before. On the other hand, the Great Doctors were real, and had real effects on the practice and effectiveness of medicine, including sanitation, surgery, and battlefield/military medicine. That's why I suggested them rather than another artificial 'game mechanic', which I regard as a failure of research or imagination in game design.

Plague Doctors weren't real? The beaky things? I know they weren't effective, but I thought they did exist. Plus apostles can cast spells, so... .

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Plague Doctors weren't real? The beaky things? I know they weren't effective, but I thought they did exist. Plus apostles can cast spells, so... .

"Plague Doctors" were real in the sense that there were people hired by the cities to 'treat' plague victims - starting, by the way, with the Justinian Plague of the 6th century, so well before the infamous Black Death of the Medieval Era. However, if they cured anybody it was purely accidental, since most of them had no medical training at all: they mostly just kept track of the numbers of dead so the city could rebuild its tax and property rolls when the whole thing was over. The beak-like mask was so that aromatic herbs or flowers could be packed into the 'beak' to keep the 'noxious air' away, since the prevailing theory was that 'miasma' or bad air spread disease.

It makes a great graphic, but that's about all.

And in my experience, the correct phrase is: "Apostles can't spell, but they can cast aspersions . . ."

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Plague Doctors weren't real? The beaky things? I know they weren't effective, but I thought they did exist. Plus apostles can cast spells, so... .

Well in that case plagues would still give Medics and Supply Convoys more to do, even if there wouldn't be a Plague Doctor unit which I would make that upgrade into a Medic instead of a Siege Tower.
Siege Towers instead could go straight to Observation balloon instead and we could get another Medical Support upgrade path separate from the other support units that deal with sieging cities and attacking from long range.

 

[riddleofsteel]

"Plague Doctors" were real in the sense that there were people hired by the cities to 'treat' plague victims - starting, by the way, with the Justinian Plague of the 6th century, so well before the infamous Black Death of the Medieval Era. However, if they cured anybody it was purely accidental, since most of them had no medical training at all: they mostly just kept track of the numbers of dead so the city could rebuild its tax and property rolls when the whole thing was over. The beak-like mask was so that aromatic herbs or flowers could be packed into the 'beak' to keep the 'noxious air' away, since the prevailing theory was that 'miasma' or bad air spread disease.

It makes a great graphic, but that's about all.

And in my experience, the correct phrase is: "Apostles can't spell, but they can cast aspersions . . ."

The wealthiest ones could afford to have ruby lenses on their masks so they wouldn't catch anything from looking at icky dead people as well.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The wealthiest ones could afford to have ruby lenses on their masks so they wouldn't catch anything from looking at icky dead people as well.

Wealthy ones didn't become "Plague Doctors" at all - it was not what you call a Plum Assignment, and usually went to the desperate or destitute.
And nobody minded looking at icky dead people: remember, in Medieval Europe, public executions were a Spectator Event, complete with food and drink vendors and pickpockets working the crowd.

Sort of like a modern professional sporting event with headsman's axes, nooses and drawing hooks . . .

 

[UWHabs]

I feel the opposite, at first it sounds good but think about it, the more houses, the less appeal an area has.
High appeal areas bring wealth and skill and high quality people. A large amount of housing has the opposite effect.

I like there being some reasons for appeal, but I think the bigger thing to me is that the way appeal is generated in-game, it doesn't really mesh with reality. Like, the best neighbourhood spot is next to a bunch of forests and cliffs. It's not like those are really the spots where people congregate most, and even less so if you treat housing as the health-ish mechanism. I really feel that neighbourhoods should be the districts you use to fill in the gaps with other districts, and not ones that you put in the middle of nowhere.

 

[acluewithout]

This thread really has become a shrine to delay and frustration.

I’m really quite over the whole question of whether we’re getting something or not or what it’ll be. I’d just like some clarity about what’s going on.

I know it’s silly, but I end up reluctant to play Civ when I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t want to invest time in mechanics that are going to be radically changed.

The game still needs some updates (hello, Spearmen / Anti-Cav). Are we getting an update? If so, when? Should I wait for that, or double down on @Sostratus ’s Mod. Or maybe this new one from steam? Are we getting more content, and if so to what extent? Is the end game going to get better, or should I play Civ as a strategic 4X for 120 turns and then as either space race Tetris or city skylines for the rest of the game (which is what I currently do)?

I’m sure there’s some sort of marketing strategy going on here. But the way things are going, by the time there’s an announcement I’m likely to be pretty over it.

Anyway. While I’m here...

"Plague Doctors" were real in the sense that there were people hired by the cities to 'treat' plague victims - starting, by the way, with the Justinian Plague of the 6th century, so well before the infamous Black Death of the Medieval Era. However, if they cured anybody it was purely accidental, since most of them had no medical training at all: they mostly just kept track of the numbers of dead so the city could rebuild its tax and property rolls when the whole thing was over. The beak-like mask was so that aromatic herbs or flowers could be packed into the 'beak' to keep the 'noxious air' away, since the prevailing theory was that 'miasma' or bad air spread disease.

It makes a great graphic, but that's about all.

And in my experience, the correct phrase is: "Apostles can't spell, but they can cast aspersions . . ."

I like how health and sanitation and all those things are rolled into just "housing". That feels like the right level of abstraction for me.

I don’t get why people want disease in the game. It’s the same as slavery, that people also ask for. First, I don’t see how these mechanics actually improve gameplay - there’s nothing strategic here, just more stuff to go wrong and more pointless stuff to build. Second, given how abstract the game is generally, creating specific mechanics around things like plague or slavery ends up giving these things way too much emphasis versus their actual importance to history. To be clear, I’m not saying either isn’t significant historically, but I’m saying that they end up getting emphasised way beyond even that materiality. If you’re going to have disease, I think you need much more realistic mechanics around city growth, innovation that is generated around high density / economic concentration, and colonialism. If you’re going to have slavery, I think you need more mechanics around class and concentration of economic and political power.

If you want an example of what I mean, look at Volcanos and Nuclear Powerplant Failure. Yeah, the world has Volcanos, and they do produce more fertile land and have occasionally destroyed human populations; and yeah, nuclear powerplants do sometimes fail. But these things are pretty marginal in the real world, whereas in Civ 6 Volcanos are now a massive mechanic that really dominate gameplay - Volcano settles are easily as powerful as Natural Wonder settles (actually more so, became it’s always food and hammers, and likely good campuses from thermals) - and Nuclear powerplants are the ultimate in late game pointless micro.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Leave disease in a scenario. That’s the best place for it. Indeed, I could even maybe see a new scenario with disease in the modern world - like Pandemic. At most, I could see something like disease just being another random event like natural disasters, perhaps being implemented along with earthquakes and civil wars.

But there’s really no upside to adding these sorts of mechanics to the base game at least not as fully fledged mechanics - too granular for Civ 6’s approach to history and no real gameplay upside.

I feel the opposite, at first it sounds good but think about it, the more houses, the less appeal an area has.
High appeal areas bring wealth and skill and high quality people. A large amount of housing has the opposite effect.

Neighbourhoods (and Sewers) deserve to be better. I really want to build these more, but there’s just no reason beyond eurekas and memes.

I don’t mind appeal = housing, but agree it doesn’t make a tonne of sense. I like some of the weird synergies it creates though - like holy sites creating more housing.

I don’t know how this stuff can be improved. Part of the problem is that FXS haven’t found a balance where High Pop is useful enough that you want a few Cities with really High Pops (requiring investment in Housing and Amenities) but without ending up making every City to be huge. The late game is also just irrelevant, and real growth can’t happen until then, so the result is mega cities just come too late (even though historically they probably should come pretty late).

Basically, FXS need to fix the role of growth and improve late game / game pacing before they can make any meaningful changes to Neighbourhoods and Sewers etc.

 

[AntSou]

Plague Doctors" were real in the sense that there were people hired by the cities to 'treat' plague victims - starting, by the way, with the Justinian Plague of the 6th century, so well before the infamous Black Death of the Medieval Era. However, if they cured anybody it was purely accidental, since most of them had no medical training at all:

Sure, but we know that now. I think if we're going to include treatments to fight off disease, then they should reflect actual historical attempts and pratices, regardless of the unscientific and innefective nature of the treatment. Otherwise it breaks immersion.

By that logic, what's the point of pantheons? Just change all descriptions to: "Pick whatever, it won't matter. Praying doesn't work."

I think there should be a considerable difference in capacity to treat depending on the Era one is in. Plague doctors could have minimal capacity, but enough to justify its production. Furthermore, it is an iconic looking unit. Proper doctors should appear later, to differentiate from the earlier unit.

I would skip Plague Doctors in the Ancient Era (or any unit of this class), make them the standard "plague" unit in classical and medieval, upgraded in the late renaissance, and then again in the modern era.

A bit like the Scout changes name and gains new abilities, while still being the same class.

 

[AntSou]

I don’t get why people want disease in the game. It’s the same as slavery, that people also ask for. First, I don’t see how these mechanics actually improve gameplay - there’s nothing strategic here, just more stuff to go wrong and more pointless stuff to build

Stuff going wrong, or the potential of it going wrong, is the only way I have fun in games, and I typically get bored right around the time when the likelihood of this occuring becomes too low.

You also want better late game but not more ways for things to go wrong. This for me is a contradiction.

 

[Sostratus]

Should I wait for that, or double down on @Sostratus ’s Mod.

If they have all decided to hang out on a beach or start on another game, then the community can always mod in some balance. We have the technology. We can rebuild <the SQL tables>.

I really should post an updated mod to adjust naval units. Although playtesting naval in game is unbearably difficult because the Ai just won't play along.

 

[James_Champagne]

Temporarily breaking my vow of silence to say, in regards to plagues, for people who play the Civ game that are less concerned with the "winning" aspect of the game and more interested in the narrative/roleplaying aspect, plagues seem like they would be an interesting addition. It's fun to go over your timeline at the end of a game and see all of the high points and low points of your civilization, and the absence of plagues in that timeline seems like a glaring omission. Worse comes to worse, just put it in the game and give the player the option to turn it on or off. A win/win situation!

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

did civ3 not solve this plague/housing issue with a simple research this tech and build this building or your cities are capped at 6 / 12 population until you do?
you can make those techs leaf techs , so that wide players would receive some speedbumps.

 

[cvb]

Although playtesting naval in game is unbearably difficult because the Ai just won't play along.

Perhaps I miss completely the point, but to test/balance the relative strength of units against each other (without the "usability" for the AI) I would try duel hotseat & "playing" both sides while printing interesting data to Lua.log file and/or to FireTuner's console window.

.

 

[Sostratus]

Edit: I posted the first section in the wrong thread. Oops. Trimming that.

Perhaps I miss completely the point, but to test/balance the relative strength of units against each other (without the "usability" for the AI) I would try duel hotseat & "playing" both sides while printing interesting data to Lua.log file and/to to FireTuner's console window.

While my designs on naval units do, in my opinion, produce balance amongst the units themselves (if humans were to use them I think they would be balanced) the nature of human-AI interaction, which is how most people experience civ6, is hard to map out. There are certain balance choices I would never make for land units because it would mess this up interaction - for example, humans could utilize a half cost low strength unit much better than the AI would. While this primarily affects how I would like naval units to interact with land units, I would need to get a handle on how this feels to face in the hands of the AI. It's a game, after all.

I think my v1.0 covers most things pretty well though, in terms of bringing most units up to a fairly balanced level. In this way, other changes can then be laid on the game without having to worry that it will magnify the unit issues that exist in the vanilla game.

 

[cvb]

While this primarily affects how I would like naval units to interact with land units, I would need to get a handle on how this feels to face in the hands of the AI.

Ok, a blurred and also (still) always moving target ... which reminds me of this thread again, the 'endless' loop.

Did they plan indeed a package trimmed for Chinese New Year (January 25) and then decided last December to delay, especially if it features an alternate Leader ... or will we further see just some fixes to console issues, because the three years budget is empty and there won't be a new, as much dshirk may personally want it ...

.

 

[oSiyeza]

Plague Doctors weren't real? The beaky things? I know they weren't effective, but I thought they did exist. Plus apostles can cast spells, so... .

"Plague Doctors" were real in the sense that there were people hired by the cities to 'treat' plague victims - starting, by the way, with the Justinian Plague of the 6th century, so well before the infamous Black Death of the Medieval Era. However, if they cured anybody it was purely accidental, since most of them had no medical training at all: they mostly just kept track of the numbers of dead so the city could rebuild its tax and property rolls when the whole thing was over. The beak-like mask was so that aromatic herbs or flowers could be packed into the 'beak' to keep the 'noxious air' away, since the prevailing theory was that 'miasma' or bad air spread disease.

It makes a great graphic, but that's about all.

And in my experience, the correct phrase is: "Apostles can't spell, but they can cast aspersions . . ."

This is incorrect. Well maybe not exactly incorrect but out of context and out of perspective.

Plague doctors existed, and they may have been insanely important.

Sure they lacked a true scientific understanding, or efective treatments. The same way african witch doctors, or traditional chinese medicine did.

However, we cannot forguet that a lot of modern pharmacological compounds have been refined from well known natural treatments, and that modern science stands on the shoulders of previous traditions.

The fact that they did not have a propper scientific background does not mean they were stupid or wrong. They understood quite soon that patients should be isolated. And stablished the first quarantine protocols, isolation procedures, and body disposal procedures. Actually, we have very good textual evidence on how these procedures worked, and we know they were in some cases very effective.

Sure the hypothesis of miasma was not correct. But it was a very important advance in the understanding of the disease. As, in practise, describes somewhat accurately how the contagion of the plague works, what are the potential sources of infection and how to prevent the infection by isolating the sources.

Those medics observed the disease, understood their cycles, measured infection, contagion and progression rates and incorporated that knowledge into their protocols. They actually used an empyrical aproach to fight the disease and they may have started modern epidemiological science.

So saying these doctors and people are only a nice visual is not only wrong. Is as wrong as saying Egyptian architects were not architects. Egyptians did not understand structure equations but they understood enough to build the pyramids. Ancient doctors, did not understand the germ theory of disease, but they understood enough to save countless lives by implementing the first large scale effective quarantine protocols.

Just my two pennies.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Wealthy ones didn't become "Plague Doctors" at all - it was not what you call a Plum Assignment, and usually went to the desperate or destitute.
And nobody minded looking at icky dead people: remember, in Medieval Europe, public executions were a Spectator Event, complete with food and drink vendors and pickpockets working the crowd.

Sort of like a modern professional sporting event with headsman's axes, nooses and drawing hooks . . .

Well, sure. Just a little joyful hyperbole. Those ruby lenses couldn't have been cheap!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

This is incorrect. Well maybe not exactly incorrect but out of context and out of perspective.

Plague doctors existed, and they may have been insanely important.

Sure they lacked a true scientific understanding, or efective treatments. The same way african witch doctors, or traditional chinese medicine did.

However, we cannot forguet that a lot of modern pharmacological compounds have been refined from well known natural treatments, and that modern science stands on the shoulders of previous traditions.

The fact that they did not have a propper scientific background does not mean they were stupid or wrong. They understood quite soon that patients should be isolated. And stablished the first quarantine protocols, isolation procedures, and body disposal procedures. Actually, we have very good textual evidence on how these procedures worked, and we know they were in some cases very effective.

Sure the hypothesis of miasma was not correct. But it was a very important advance in the understanding of the disease. As, in practise, describes somewhat accurately how the contagion of the plague works, what are the potential sources of infection and how to prevent the infection by isolating the sources.

Those medics observed the disease, understood their cycles, measured infection, contagion and progression rates and incorporated that knowledge into their protocols. They actually used an empyrical aproach to fight the disease and they may have started modern epidemiological science.

So saying these doctors and people are only a nice visual is not only wrong. Is as wrong as saying Egyptian architects were not architects. Egyptians did not understand structure equations but they understood enough to build the pyramids. Ancient doctors, did not understand the germ theory of disease, but they understood enough to save countless lives by implementing the first large scale effective quarantine protocols.

Just my two pennies.

Thank you - Your comments are much more detailed than my own, admittedly superficial characterization.

However, the actual effectiveness of the Plague Doctors was minimal when it came to saving lives. We can be pretty sure of this because the Medieval Bubonic Plague they are most associated with also struck in Central Asia, Eastern Europe and parts of Anatolia (and may have hit parts of China and India). Admittedly, exact data is hard to come by, but as near as we can tell the percentage of the population that the plague killed was higher in western Europe than anywhere else: up to 50% there and 30 - 40% everywhere else. Still catastrophic in game terms, but it indicates that the Plague Doctors did not save enough 'countless lives' to make a difference in the mortality rate from the plague.
The opinion now (subject to change with the next archeological dig!) is that the amount of crowding - city conditions - made more of a difference than any other single factor: as a result Central Asia to Mongolia, which may have been the origination point of the Plague, seems to have suffered less than anywhere else simply because urban concentrations were such a relatively small percentage of the total population there. The medieval cities of western Europe, India, China and the Middle East were, on the other hand, epidemics waiting to happen. Why Europe seems to have been hit somewhat worse than anywhere else is still not well understood (more accurately, being hotly debated with no consensus), but whatever the contributing factors were, the Plague Doctors were not enough to counteract them.

And herbal or pharmacological remedies were 'formalized' long before the Era we are referring to: as far back as 2700 BCE in China (first herbal 'recipe' books known) and Dioscorides' De Materia Medica, 5 volumes written between 50 - 70 CE compiling 'everything known' (at least in the Roman Empire) about herbal remedies, and the basis for virtually all subsequent Western and Arabic pharmacologies . In my compendium of Great Doctors, should they be added to the game, Pedanius Dioscorides would be a definite inclusion, representing the possible ameliorating effects of applied natural pharmacology.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I think there should be a considerable difference in capacity to treat depending on the Era one is in. Plague doctors could have minimal capacity, but enough to justify its production. Furthermore, it is an iconic looking unit. Proper doctors should appear later, to differentiate from the earlier unit.

I would skip Plague Doctors in the Ancient Era (or any unit of this class), make them the standard "plague" unit in classical and medieval, upgraded in the late renaissance, and then again in the modern era.

A bit like the Scout changes name and gains new abilities, while still being the same class.

I mentioned above that Plague Doctors (unlocked in the Medieval Era) could upgrade into the Medic in the Industrial and then into a Supply Convoy turning them into a Medical Support Unit class with the latter two also able to heal military units, like they currently do.