GameRant: 10 Forgotten Features That Should Return In Civilization 7

[aieeegrunt]

I don't give a damn about any of those things besides vassalage and unique great people, and even those aren't some sort of awesome necessity I'd put in the top 10 of desirable features

But again, gaming journalism is in the utterly desolate condition

Vassalage seems really cool, but I'm also not sure how would you implement that in civ context, where you have very few players in the map, and enormous problems with exponential snowballing making catching up impossible. Vassalage only makes sense if you can figure out how
1) Make it useful to the domineering party (instead of conquest or peace)
2) Make it useful to the dominated party (instead of fight at all cost always being better option)
3) Make it capable for the vassalized player to be realistically able to sometimes break free and catch up
4) Make it interesting for third party diplomacy (support independence, secret talks, espionage etc)

Didn’t Civ4 already answer all of those questions?

 

[pokiehl]

Didn’t Civ4 already answer all of those questions?

Absolutely not. I sort of understand the rose-tinted glasses for Civ 4, but man people really overhype the game.

Vassalage in Civ 4 was hardly perfect. It felt like civs would voluntarily become vassals of another civ randomly and it just made the master civ snowball like insane. Also, when you went to war with an AI that had a vassal, for some reason their proclivity to make peace just plummeted so you get stuck in tedious forever wars.

As long as Civ remains a game focused on achieving a victory condition (as opposed to simply roleplaying like in a Paradox game), any implementation of vassalage will be busted one way or the other IMO.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Absolutely not. I sort of understand the rose-tinted glasses for Civ 4, but man people really overhype the game.

Vassalage in Civ 4 was hardly perfect. It felt like civs would voluntarily become vassals of another civ randomly and it just made the master civ snowball like insane. Also, when you went to war with an AI that had a vassal, for some reason their proclivity to make peace just plummeted so you get stuck in tedious forever wars.

As long as Civ remains a game focused on achieving a victory condition (as opposed to simply roleplaying like in a Paradox game), any implementation of vassalage will be busted one way or the other IMO.

So because something wasn’t perfect we shouldn’t even try?

I agree with the VC verses role play thing

 

[pokiehl]

So because something wasn’t perfect we shouldn’t even try?

I agree with the VC verses role play thing

I did not say that.

Your post suggested Civ 4 already resolved any issues with a vassalage system.

I said it did not and gave examples of why it wasn’t perfect.

 

[Josephias]

I don't give a damn about any of those things besides vassalage and unique great people, and even those aren't some sort of awesome necessity I'd put in the top 10 of desirable features

But again, gaming journalism is in the utterly desolate condition

Vassalage seems really cool, but I'm also not sure how would you implement that in civ context, where you have very few players in the map, and enormous problems with exponential snowballing making catching up impossible. Vassalage only makes sense if you can figure out how
1) Make it useful to the domineering party (instead of conquest or peace)
2) Make it useful to the dominated party (instead of fight at all cost always being better option)
3) Make it capable for the vassalized player to be realistically able to sometimes break free and catch up
4) Make it interesting for third party diplomacy (support independence, secret talks, espionage etc)

For me an easy* implementation based on civ VI rules* could be plausible, by the following lines:
*needing improvement on some areas, see below

Vasallage would basically a locked-in alliance, commanded by the "master" without option to disagree by the vassal, and limited diplomatic relevance of the second, which in turns supports the master. This means
- the master can fix the type of alliance he wants (cultural, economical, scientifical..., and the vassal would have to accept, breaking the alliance of the selected type if established.
- vassal would have to accept as well any type of diplomatic agreement that is bi-lateral (i.e, common open borders, or joint wars)
- 50% of the diplomatic favour gained by the vassal would be transferred to the master.
- suzerainity bonuses of city states would be shared, independently of who is the suzerain. (This reflects a city state that is vassal to the master identifies the vassal civ as part of the master subjects, and a city state that is vassal to the vassal civ is actually vassal to the master civ but ruled by proxy: remind 50% of the gained diplo. favour goes to the master, but in this case, the vassal civ retians 50% favour as its people are the ones who are managing things with the city state and still have some agency).

Here the domineering civs gets favor, suzerainity and alliance benefits (choosen by themselves), while the vassal civ still gets alliance benefits (altough maybe not the ones they would accept) and suzeranity, (and of course, living) just at the cost of diplo favour (= less international relevance). This might fit (1) and (2).

For (3) and (4) is were we need an improvement on current mechanics, and it would be extending grievance system to actually work: first, by making grievances extend to subjects beyond war, both agenda related and gameplay related. Here is one of the areas where I see Humankind has got a very interesting system surpassing civ.
Rejected deals should generate (minor) grievances. Settling to near or spreading your religion were your vassal has already his should generate grievances (it somewat does, but it should be more automatic). Stopping trade routes to a civ should generate (minor) grievances. Voting against proposals in the WC should generate grievances... Building wonders that the other Civ was also building should generate grievances (it generates grievance to you as a player, so the AI should have such a grievance too). Building any wonder in any case should generate grievances to Qin. Not spreading religion to him should generate grievances to Mbemva. Building cities on islands should generate Grievances to Gitarja... and so on.
Grievances should fill a bar (here is were humankind-type system enters), which allows you to Dennounce or Make War at no cost, and it is directly related to war weariness. For Vassals, there should be as well a treshold on this bar upon which they are enabled to declare independence (maybe you could as well declare independence without the treshold, in cases were your master is kind to you, but you will need to save the scarce diplo favour you retain for that). Of course, independence resorts to the former state: War, unless the master decides to let you go peacefully (gaining diplo favour by that decission). Masters can as well get grievances from the vassal, but they won't be able to do much with them, unless the vassal finally rebels and they can use them to justify penalties in the ensuing war.

This would cover (3), and for (4) it would be as easy as playing with this treshold: Master civ could spend envoys on you (instead of in city states), to increase the treshold at wich you can rebel (or the dipo. favour cost of the rebellion). Third parties may offer the party favour or use spies to lower the treshold / increase the existing grievances against the master. Spies / diplo visibility may be needed to realy be aware of the current grievance/treshold status.


Just a few ideas, probably some can be easiliy gamed or won't work as expected, but I think there is room for an interesting vassalage system.


Edit: @Zegangani : please feel free to use any of these ideas in your mod concept, if they fit. I'm not used to Modding forum threads, and I was not able to figure how to follow the thread / put a meaningful post there.

​

 

[Zegangani]

Thanks @Josephias for sharing your Ideas, and for the permission to use them! They are really great, you gave me a lot of food for thought.

I really like the Idea of using Envoys and Diplomatic Favor Points to increase/decrease the Rebellion Threshold, and I'm starting to think of a cost per Turn for Favor perhaps, in a similar way like how the Humankind Independent Cities work now.

This also made me realize how I avoided the use of Diplo Favor Points beside some small Favor and with Puppets in the late-game, where it's mainly about gaining it, but this is actually an oportunity to make it more useful and relevant even outside a Diplomatic victory (and as a Resource to trade for Gold).

I'm not used to Modding forum threads, and I was not able to figure how to follow the thread / put a meaningful post there.

The thread is actual in the Ideas & Suggestions forum, and not in one of the Modding forums yet, so it should work the same way as threads here. Though, now that you shared your Ideas here, I guess it's ok.

 

[DeckerdJames]

On the religious game, if they really must have it:

Get rid of faith as a currency. The currency of religion is, guess what, gold. The same thing that feeds the poor or trains a missionary also pays the military. If you make that one change, the game is already much more like the real world.

The competition isn't just between religions. It is actually between all governmental systems. You can see that in the real world. America may have created a government system that can supposedly exist alongside government, but the rulership is with the secular government. The religions in America do not have the power to rule like a government. In other countries, it is completely reversed. Some religions, like Christianity, do not seek to the rule the people as a worldly government, but consider themselves like salt of the world, showing good morality by example. Other religions do wish to directly rule.

The point is you can play a religious game to rule or not to rule. What do all government seeking to rule want to rule over? To determine what is moral and right. The money is a utility to that end.

Government is about morality and so is religion, so they often compete. I think it would be hard to model morality and the effects of governmental and religious systems in a game like civ. Maybe impossible, since what do we really know about the effects of government and religion all the way up to the end, if there is an end. Much is speculation and if you believe any government must work out for the good in the end, usually because of its activities and moral belief systems, then that is faith.

So anyway, I am not a big fan of having religion in, because if it is a game of yields and combat then there are better ideas or take the other ideas and make them more interesting. I really like the idea of culture, in general. I would like to see the idea of building the most cultural structures and buildings across an empire be enhanced and taken to another level.

 

[Zaarin]

On the religious game, if they really must have it:

Get rid of faith as a currency. The currency of religion is, guess what, gold. The same thing that feeds the poor, pays the military. If you make that one change, the game is already much more like the real world.

The competition isn't just between religions. It is actually between all governmental systems.

You're projecting modernism on the past. Governmental ideology has steadily replaced religion in Western societies as Western societies have grown increasingly religiously diverse as a result of the Protestant Reformation. Unable to channel people's energies into public religion without riving the community, that energy was instead funneled into civic and economic channels, gradually leading to the decline of both public and private religion. Historically, that energy would instead be invested in public worship, religious festivals, pilgrimages, etc.--which is what the Faith currency represents along with cultural staying power (because Civ6 made things a bit muddy). Said Faith continues to be relevant as religion declines because the Faith simply devests from public religion and into civic and economic forces.

Government is about morality

 

[DeckerdJames]

You're projecting modernism on the past. Governmental ideology has steadily replaced religion in Western societies as Western societies have grown increasingly religiously diverse as a result of the Protestant Reformation

The very possibility that religion can be replaced by government ideology shows that government ideology and religion can serve the same purpose for the people. Government ideology might not provide a deity like God, but some governments do provide a central figure that can be nearly the same. Other government ideology might hold the “Fatherland” or “Motherland” as sacred. In recent times, in America, I have even heard our capital buildings referred to as sacred spaces.

So, this what I mean when I say that religion and other government ideologies often compete, which does involve replacement. I am not a historian, but some religions were seeking to replace existing governments from their start or very near the start of the religion.

 

[Zaarin]

The very possibility that religion can be replaced by government ideology shows that government ideology and religion can serve the same purpose for the people. Government ideology might not provide a deity like God, but some governments do provide a central figure that can be nearly the same. Other government ideology might hold the “Fatherland” or “Motherland” as sacred. In recent times, in America, I have even heard our capital buildings referred to as sacred spaces.

So, this what I mean when I say that religion and other government ideologies often compete, which does involve replacement.

I'm all for Civ5's Ideologies or something like it returning.

 

[DeckerdJames]

I'm all for Civ5's Ideologies or something like it returning.

If I were making the game, I probably would not put in religion and if I had to, I wouldn't want to use real world religions. They don't all have the same attitude toward society or their role in society. Some can function perfectly fine under a secular government and others tend to want to replace the government. If I were putting in real world religion, I would feel obligated to represent them correctly, but that would invite the whole world to criticize the game for its inaccuracy because even people of the same religion often disagree about many things.

If they want religion in Civ 7, I think they should just drop the real-world names and go all in on player created religions, but ultimately it isn't very important if they do. It's hard to get a religious person excited about the misrepresentation of their religion when the game says you can buy material things with faith. If that were true to life, I could have someone type this for me while I just talk.

 

[Zaarin]

If I were making the game, I probably would not put in religion and if I had to, I wouldn't want to use real world religions. They don't all have the same attitude toward society or their role in society. Some can function perfectly fine under a secular government and others tend to want to replace the government. If I were putting in real world religion, I would feel obligated to represent them correctly, but that would invite the whole world to criticize the game for its inaccuracy because even people of the same religion often disagree about many things.

If they want religion in Civ 7, I think they should just drop the real-world names and go all in on player created religions, but ultimately it isn't very important if they do. It's hard to get a religious person excited about the misrepresentation of their religion when the game says you can buy material things with faith. If that were true to life, I could have someone type this for me while I just talk.

I'm of the opposite opinion that religion should be divorced from player control. Religion is almost invariably a force outside what cultures and commonwealths control and instead something they have to react to--embrace, spread, modify, reform, reject, but almost never control. Even Islam, the organized religion that has probably been most closely tied with civic power, was far beyond the proclamations of the caliph, as demonstrated by the many Islamic sects (including the Shiites who rejected the sitting caliph) and splinter religions (like the Druze and Baha'i). Religious traits could be randomized or derived from the situation in which they develop, which can be modified through reforms; as you say, I doubt anyone trusts the devs to portray religion authentically (glares at CK3's celibate Eastern Christian clergy and polygamous "Insular" Catholics).

 

[DeckerdJames]

I'm of the opposite opinion that religion should be divorced from player control. Religion is almost invariably a force outside what cultures and commonwealths control and instead something they have to react to--embrace, spread, modify, reform, reject, but almost never control. Even Islam, the organized religion that has probably been most closely tied with civic power, was far beyond the proclamations of the caliph, as demonstrated by the many Islamic sects (including the Shiites who rejected the sitting caliph) and splinter religions (like the Druze and Baha'i). Religious traits could be randomized or derived from the situation in which they develop, which can be modified through reforms; as you say, I doubt anyone trusts the devs to portray religion authentically (glares at CK3's celibate Eastern Christian clergy and polygamous "Insular" Catholics).

I actually agree with you but trying to fight or harness or influence internal autonomous religious pressures doesn’t sound like a fun game. That’s a matter of personal preference though. I tend to want to build something. I like the idea of conquest strategy but I find it hard to scale up my military efforts because scaling up efforts at getting more yields tend to compete with spending on military conquest. That might just be because I am not very good at it though.

I would rather see gathering of intelligence about the world and its inhabitants be expanded. Like actual spy units and greater need for recon units, but the map design has support covert gameplay at a deeper level and having greater vision should yield tangible benefits. There is some of that in civ 6.

Also, I would rather be able to produce units quicker in the early eras. With larger and more armies on the board the game can become more strategic on a military level. Though something has to done to improve moving and repositioning numerous units. Upgrades are too expensive in terms of gold, but not every unit should be upgradable like boats and other vehicles. Mounts can be swapped and infantry and riders can be re-equipped so that is upgradable.

They could make all mounts a strategic resource instead of a technology, unless it makes sense that riding a particular kind of animal needs special technology beyond saddles. Some civilizations could be guaranteed particular strategic resources as a civ trait.

I could go on with minutiae but the main things are larger military scale earlier and more involved intelligence gathering are to my taste.

As for unit stacking, maybe we could just create army units that collapse into a column when they move and deploy into various formations. The composition of the army is custom designed and “encampments” can have a project that produces “reinforcement” group for a particular army. I don’t know, but I want greater capabilities but also greater ease of control.

 

[Zaarin]

I would rather see gathering of intelligence about the world and its inhabitants be expanded. Like actual spy units and greater need for recon units, but the map design has support covert gameplay at a deeper level and having greater vision should yield tangible benefits. There is some of that in civ 6.

I have yet to play the game where I did not hate the espionage system. Hmm, Birth of the Federation's was okay--but that's because it was entirely passive. It's a system they need to do something with, though; it's my impression that it's current state isn't making anyone happy.

 

[UWHabs]

I'm of the opposite opinion that religion should be divorced from player control. Religion is almost invariably a force outside what cultures and commonwealths control and instead something they have to react to--embrace, spread, modify, reform, reject, but almost never control. Even Islam, the organized religion that has probably been most closely tied with civic power, was far beyond the proclamations of the caliph, as demonstrated by the many Islamic sects (including the Shiites who rejected the sitting caliph) and splinter religions (like the Druze and Baha'i). Religious traits could be randomized or derived from the situation in which they develop, which can be modified through reforms; as you say, I doubt anyone trusts the devs to portray religion authentically (glares at CK3's celibate Eastern Christian clergy and polygamous "Insular" Catholics).

Religion is always such a tricky subject to work into a game like civ. Like, on the one hand, religion has obviously played a huge part in the history of the world. But as you said, in a lot of cases it's developed much more organically. But then again, obviously in time governments have certainly used it to their advantage.

I would love it if they could find a way to mix and merge a system like that in, but also obviously let the player have some control over it. Speaking on the topic of the old civ games, I definitely miss the old religion civics choices in civ 4. I thought all in all, it was a good way to basically determine the impact of religion on your empire, give you some bonuses for advancing a state religion, but also giving you some explicit ways to plays without a religion if you didn't want it.

 

[DeckerdJames]

I have yet to play the game where I did not hate the espionage system. Hmm, Birth of the Federation's was okay--but that's because it was entirely passive. It's a system they need to do something with, though; it's my impression that it's current state isn't making anyone happy.

Civ 6 has a gossip system, and it is an interesting idea. It is actually the intelligence you are gathering. Your trader might learn something. An ally might pass along something. Somebody started a wonder. A new city was founded, A war started. All useful info. Who has time for it?

I don't read it as it scrolls by. You can go in at look at the log somehow. I have done it before. The presentation is not working for me. I need the new intelligence highlighted on the map, or I need a presentation view that is specific. Can I pull up a report that shows me when all known wonders were started and completed or their current progress? The gossip is like raw intel. It needs a reporting system. Integrated with the map. If I pull up the wonder building report, then minimize unnecessary UI elements and let me see the wonders highlighted on the map too and give me controls to cycle through them. Tab order and selectable in the list to jump right to it.

Let me have a report that presents all intel about a specific civilization. It would be complicated but it would take the game to a new level. If I were reading all the intel that comes over the gossip channel, it probably would improve my game. It just needs better reporting.

 

[bbbt]

As long as Civ remains a game focused on achieving a victory condition (as opposed to simply roleplaying like in a Paradox game), any implementation of vassalage will be busted one way or the other IMO.

Yeah I struggle to think of a version of vassalage that would be workable for a player in multiplayer, outside of some sort of game ranking system where being a vassal of victorious player gave you more points than losing (but less than winning). i.e. unequal co-op victory. Which is more like a meta-game reward rather than an in game one.

In theory a vassalage system should allow the vassal to re-emerge and win the game (while also benefitting the liege), but that's very challening in a snowball-based game. You'd have to provide enough benefit to the vassal for them to keep playing and potentially win, but enough benefit for the liege to make vassalage appealing versus just wiping another competitor off the map if they can re-emerge later.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

- We love the king day. I would welcome it if the luxuries desired weren't always random.
- Diplomats. Sure. I actually like the trade-off between spy vs diplomat in Civ 5.
- More unique great people. Indifferent.
- More scenarios. Don't care. I don't think I ever played a scenario, probably because I prefer to start games from scratch.
- Slavery. Interesting concept, but I thought it was overpowered in Civ 4 (for me at least). Since it was so easy to grow population and "whipping" them to build things provided such a minimal unhappiness cost to begin with. Perhaps I would specify that slaves would need to be captured from other Civs but I don't know if *ahem* more modern audiences would embrace that.
- Attack and Defense values. I'm not sure why this matters since we now have ranged attacks on top of strength for some units. Author doesn't mention this...
- Puppeting a conquered city. Sure but it depends what your game philosophy is. In Civ 4 and 6 it is relatively easy to just build a new city. In Civ 5 the point was to build a sort-of "nest egg" of cities where destroying one versus sparing it albeit with major unhappiness could be a major consideration.
- Plague. *shudders* oh no, bad memories from the Rys and Fall Mod where plagues basically destroyed your whole army. I don't particularly mind a health mechanic, but my goodness, please tone it down and make it much more manageable than your typical random event/disaster...
- Vassalage. Never really fiddled with this mechanic in Civ 4 since [to me] the costs outweigh the benefits. And it sort of defeats the purpose of the conquest victory.

Vassal State (Civ4)

In Civilization IV: Warlords, a Vassal State is a civilization that is, in a sense, "owned" by another civilization, though they still have control over their territory. A human player's civilization cannot become a vassal in a regular game, as the option to do so is never available and becoming...

civilization.fandom.com

- National Wonders. As mentioned, the government and diplomat district buildings in Civ 6 seem to fulfill the same purpose. Whereas in Civ 5, they were basically small rewards for having certain buildings in each city.

 

[cain3456]

I want to see terraforming come back. Surrounded by mountains? Turn 'em to hills without having to wait for explosives.

 

[nzcamel]

Moving units with numpad. That´s what I miss the most from older civ games. Hexes would make that a bit awkward, but it´s still doable.

Oh hells yeah!! Too many mouse clicks for my poor hands!

How about making Ctrl+S work again for saving a game? Like it did since Civ 1 I believe.

TBF, that one you can save in key bindings...?

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.

Hopefully by 7 they have worked out how to give options re district buildings, without it requiring extra inputs. Maybe have two options in the build menu, one district only, the other with all available buildings.

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.

I agree too. I was mildly annoyed when the New Deal policy lost it's very immersive negative effect. More trade offs like that should be on policy cards!

It’s ridiculous, but that’s identity politics for you.

Slavery should be a mechanic in the game. I’d make it a policy card that boosts the output of farms and mines, but also periodically you get a Slave Revolt that spawns barbarians inside your borders.

Puppet Cities and Vassals badly need to return as an anti snowball mechanic to prevent the Mindless Borg Blob effect where you take cities, and after a token unrest they Borgify into being your obedient little drones.

Any city you capture that you didn’t found automatically becomes a puppet city. It can easily flip back to the original owner using the culture flip mechanics from previous Civ titles

As well as the diplomatic route, capturing the capitol of a civ causes it to automatically become your vassal. Usual vassal mechanics apply

The above gives you more “natural” rise and fall mechanics than the blob we have now

I like the idea of puppets and vassals, though I do agree with many of the reservations expressed here of how that works well in a competitive game.
I certainly agree with you that when a city is first conquered it should enter some kind of puppet state arrangement; and take significant investment to be "converted" into your empire as a fully fledged city. There could be a different kind of governor for these puppeted cities, possibly with it's own promotion tree. You'd have one per puppeted city (i.e. these governors would not be something you would move between cities) as long as the city remains in that state, who would give you some options over influencing the city but in a more limited way than you having full control.

Talking of governors, I hope they retain them, but I also hope they get rid of the identities and make them nameless faceless bureaucrats.