GameRant: 10 Forgotten Features That Should Return In Civilization 7

The_J

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GameRant has recently published an article about the Civ series (notified via Twitter), called: 10 Forgotten Features That Should Return In Civilization 7.
The author talks about which features from previous iterations, like the "We Love The King" Day, or puppeting cities, he would like to see back in Civ7.
So... do you agree with this list? Would you like to have them all back? Only some of them? Discuss!
 
Read it, thought it was a bit underwhelming.

Some I outright disagree, in other cases I don't disagree with the idea of the returning mechanic, but the suggested implementation is pretty shallow.

I read better ideas every day in these forums tbh.
Welcome to modern video game "j o u r n a l i s m," where someone who may have never played a video game in their lives makes a poorly researched list, optionally slaps a clickbait title on it, and watches it generate clicks. :rolleyes: (Have to admit, though, PCGamer kills it with their bylines.)
 
Green: yes, Orange: conditional, Red: no

10) We love the king day - it's really easy to cheese this. You just go and trade for it as soon as it pops. That's not really a meaningful interaction, IMO, and if you've already got access to all the luxuries, you don't get the option of the bonus. If it returns, it needs to be in a different form
9) Diplomats/Spies - Yes, and the espionage game needs to be more fleshed out
8) Unique great people - For the right civ, sure. In Civ 6, it works for Colombia, but I'd rather see the great people concept reworked more generally anyway, especially with the cultural ones.
7) Scenarios - I never play them
6) Slavery - I have no great need for this. If they radically changed their vision towards realism and included all sorts of adult themes, war crimes, atrocities, police state societies, nuclear holocaust, etc (Alpha Centauri had some of these as options and I absolutely loved that game), it could work. Devil's in the details here, but honestly I think it would take a brave... fearless publisher to do such a thing in the modern political climate.
5) Attack and defense values. Some unique units have these. Ranged and siege units have these. I don't see any great need to complicate it.
4) More options when conquering cities. Yes. Puppets are a good idea, but they'd depend on a competent city management AI. I'd also like the idea of resettling to deal with situations where the AI forward settles you. Now, you solve the problem by razing their city and building your own proper one on top of it's ashes, but that comes with a huge diplomacy penalty. It'd be better to remove the city and send the peasants back to their own empire for less of a diplomatic penalty.
3) Plague. Natural disasters were a good addition in Civ 6. Does plague need to be added? Only if the counter-play is interesting. If it's just build X building to negate the mechanic or research X tech to negate the mechanic, no. I really like Civ 6's idea of making disaster's a risk. Yes, they trash your city, but you get better yields from it after you recover. I also like knowing in advance where the at-risk areas are so you can settle appropriately, like we get with volcanoes and flood plains. If it's an interesting strategic element, add it. Otherwise, no need.
2) Vassalage. Some way to mitigate the warmonger's dilemma is a good thing. If you let them live, they chain denounce for the rest of the game, which is annoying and pointless. If you don't want that, you have to wipe them off the map, which is annoying and pointless. Being able to seize their capital, assert dominance, and move on is a good thing.
1) National wonders. Civ 6 has them by a different name. They're the government plaza and diplomatic quarter buildings. I don't think there needs to be two such districts. I do like the choices of the tiers in the government plaza.
 
6) Slavery - I have no great need for this. If they radically changed their vision towards realism and included all sorts of adult themes, war crimes, atrocities, police state societies, nuclear holocaust, etc (Alpha Centauri had some of these as options and I absolutely loved that game), it could work. Devil's in the details here, but honestly I think it would take a brave... fearless publisher to do such a thing in the modern political climate.
Not remarking on slavery specifically, I would not object to a T-rated Civ7, but I also wouldn't count on it--pretty sure every edition of Civ has been at most E10+.

2) Vassalage. Some way to mitigate the warmonger's dilemma is a good thing. If you let them live, they chain denounce for the rest of the game, which is annoying and pointless. If you don't want that, you have to wipe them off the map, which is annoying and pointless. Being able to seize their capital, assert dominance, and move on is a good thing.
Anything that reduces binary choices and adds more nuance and complexity to diplomacy is good.

1) National wonders. Civ 6 has them by a different name. They're the government plaza and diplomatic quarter buildings. I don't think there needs to be two such districts. I do like the choices of the tiers in the government plaza.
That's an interesting way to look at the Government Plaza and Diplomatic Quarter. At any rate, so long as wonders stay on the map--and they should--I don't see national wonders as such returning.
 
6) Slavery - I have no great need for this. If they radically changed their vision towards realism and included all sorts of adult themes, war crimes, atrocities, police state societies, nuclear holocaust, etc (Alpha Centauri had some of these as options and I absolutely loved that game), it could work. Devil's in the details here, but honestly I think it would take a brave... fearless publisher to do such a thing in the modern political climate.
I don't understand this. You can raze cities and pillage improvements, which implies that civilians are murdered. You can launch inquisitions to wipe out religions you dislike, you can nuke cities, inflicting massive civilian casualties (the population drops). Also, you have the fascist and communist government along with the totalitarianism policy. The themes you mention are already in the game. There's only one glaring omission. If someone is outraged for the inclusion of slavery but has nothing to say on the fact that you can start nuking another civ, razing all its cities and wiping out its religion, then I don't know what to say. There's no need to make explicit, just a policy that gives extra gold to plantations or any other kind of bonus and giving unhappiness or slave revolts.
 
8) Unique great people - For the right civ, sure. In Civ 6, it works for Colombia, but I'd rather see the great people concept reworked more generally anyway, especially with the cultural ones.
This would go well with Unique civ and Leader abilities.

There's no need to make explicit, just a policy that gives extra gold to plantations or any other kind of bonus and giving unhappiness or slave revolts.
Civ 6 has a triangular trade policy.
 
Biggest thing I want back in Civ 7 is each continent on a map having its own graphics for the terrain and features. This was in Civ 5 and is sorely missed in Civ 6.
Like I said in the other thread, they can feel free to be less subtle about it next time, though.
 
Green: yes, Orange: conditional, Red: no

10) We love the king day - it's really easy to cheese this. You just go and trade for it as soon as it pops. That's not really a meaningful interaction, IMO, and if you've already got access to all the luxuries, you don't get the option of the bonus. If it returns, it needs to be in a different form
9) Diplomats/Spies - Yes, and the espionage game needs to be more fleshed out
8) Unique great people - For the right civ, sure. In Civ 6, it works for Colombia, but I'd rather see the great people concept reworked more generally anyway, especially with the cultural ones.
7) Scenarios - I never play them
6) Slavery - I have no great need for this. If they radically changed their vision towards realism and included all sorts of adult themes, war crimes, atrocities, police state societies, nuclear holocaust, etc (Alpha Centauri had some of these as options and I absolutely loved that game), it could work. Devil's in the details here, but honestly I think it would take a brave... fearless publisher to do such a thing in the modern political climate.
5) Attack and defense values. Some unique units have these. Ranged and siege units have these. I don't see any great need to complicate it.
4) More options when conquering cities. Yes. Puppets are a good idea, but they'd depend on a competent city management AI. I'd also like the idea of resettling to deal with situations where the AI forward settles you. Now, you solve the problem by razing their city and building your own proper one on top of it's ashes, but that comes with a huge diplomacy penalty. It'd be better to remove the city and send the peasants back to their own empire for less of a diplomatic penalty.
3) Plague. Natural disasters were a good addition in Civ 6. Does plague need to be added? Only if the counter-play is interesting. If it's just build X building to negate the mechanic or research X tech to negate the mechanic, no. I really like Civ 6's idea of making disaster's a risk. Yes, they trash your city, but you get better yields from it after you recover. I also like knowing in advance where the at-risk areas are so you can settle appropriately, like we get with volcanoes and flood plains. If it's an interesting strategic element, add it. Otherwise, no need.
2) Vassalage. Some way to mitigate the warmonger's dilemma is a good thing. If you let them live, they chain denounce for the rest of the game, which is annoying and pointless. If you don't want that, you have to wipe them off the map, which is annoying and pointless. Being able to seize their capital, assert dominance, and move on is a good thing.
1) National wonders. Civ 6 has them by a different name. They're the government plaza and diplomatic quarter buildings. I don't think there needs to be two such districts. I do like the choices of the tiers in the government plaza.

We love the king day and slavery are also already in Civ 6 by a different name. We love the king day is basically just the general positive amenities boost. Slavery is the Aztecs ability basically (well combo of eagle warrior and ability).

I do like the government plaza (and agree those are essentially Civ 6's national wonders), and never build the diplo quarter. I do think there could be more in Civ 7 though. Maybe help with the late game micro - National Library requires half your cities have libraries, when built gives a science boost but also provides Libraries in all your cities, including new ones, etc.

Diplomat/spies - if they flesh out barbarian clans as mainline Civ 7 with more peaceful options, I think Scouts could function as early era diplomats and potentially even have promotion trees and upgrade to them in later eras in some regard? Like I'd imagine a fully promoted diplomatic scout could convince a clan/free city to join your empire for the right fee...

I agree, I think replacing Scenarios with game modes for the most part, or complete overhaul scenarios like Pirates, would be a good call. Most scenarios were primarily one and done.

I do think some sort of Vassalage/puppet/etc. mechanic should return.
 
Slavery is the Aztecs ability basically (well combo of eagle warrior and ability).
Also China's similar wonder-boosting ability, as well as the aforementioned Triangular Trade policy card.
 
Also China's similar wonder-boosting ability, as well as the aforementioned Triangular Trade policy card.

The problem in civ 6 is that all of the "slavery" items are pure positives, with no negative consequences. Even if they didn't call it that, but if Triangular Trade had the same positive boosts as it does now, but also added in "-1 amenity per city", you at least marginally have some downside to consider. I don't think there's nearly enough times in civ where you have hard choices with a negative, and stuff like slavery and the old nationalism drafting units at least had some negative consequences to them.

As for the rest, as with any features, I think it depends on the implementation. Like sure, the diplomat/spy units of the past had some fun to them, but at the same time, if it just adds new micro, then it's not worth it. I wouldn't mind some of the options like puppetting or vassals of previous games - or heck, even just being able to set a city on like "auto" mode where I can plan out where I wants its districts and it simply just builds them plus all the buildings in turn. So much of the late civ game when you have a large empire is just clicking through to queue the next building for each city in turn, and the queue not letting you put in library and university at the same time just means it pops back on the city every few turns.
 
Diplomats--One of these days, I really hope for the viability of diplomacy conducted by units on a map. This could look like early-game envoys with later diplomats and diplomatic missions. Their journeys to foreign powers could govern war declaration and treaty negotiations, with some espionage overlap. Not as a unit for the sake of a new class of units, but rather incarnating diplomatic functions on the map.

Vassalage--More in the spirit of @Zegangani's efforts, please!

National Wonders--From Civ IV alone, I think these can make the AI more competitive. In terms of gameplay, they can aid in centralization or specialization. As for flavor, they are highly relatable from the perspective of every country's leading institutions.
 
The problem in civ 6 is that all of the "slavery" items are pure positives, with no negative consequences. Even if they didn't call it that, but if Triangular Trade had the same positive boosts as it does now, but also added in "-1 amenity per city", you at least marginally have some downside to consider. I don't think there's nearly enough times in civ where you have hard choices with a negative, and stuff like slavery and the old nationalism drafting units at least had some negative consequences to them.
I 100% agree on wanting more nuanced choices with positive and negative consequences, but the devs have been extremely reluctant to impose any kind of penalties or negative choices.
 
There's no need to make explicit, just a policy that gives extra gold to plantations or any other kind of bonus and giving unhappiness or slave revolts.
Makes me wonder if Lincoln's ability could be a test run for a possible return of slavery for Civ 7?
 
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