Genius Design in Civ5 should come to Civ7

[Patine]

Try to avoid using pejoratives in at least one single post today.

There are lot of things that should be dropped from your posts for a day. I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Evie]

Get a room, you two.

 

[Patine]

Get a room, you two.

No, I'm done. He just never is.

 

[Patine]

Obviously there was going to be more "cold war" media before the fall of the Soviet Union rather than after. Am I stupid or isn't this common sense?

Like the precarious drop in WW2 fiction after the Instrument of Surrender? Shocking insight!

And up until and including the late 2000s we had for example, Red Alert 3.
It's not that cold war media depicting a simplistic view went out of style because people realised "the shocking truth about the cold war!"
It's literally that Cold War in general went out of style... Because it was over and media shifted towards the War Against Terror

Obviously, your perusal of media is much more limited than I had thought. And your simplistic portrayals of - well, everything I've seen you talk about - don't give your arguements from these particular angles strong credence. Especially when you actively mock more nuanced and involved viewpoints.

 

[GeneralZIft]

Wow, imagine that.

1. I tend to argue simplistically because the majority of the audience for this game are a silent majority we tend to ignore

2. You are imagining that you with all your historical background reflects everybody else, which it doesn't

3. Whether or not cold war media has taken a dive in recent year doesn't really reflect how people see it. World War 2 is thoroughly in the past, so people are happy to use it as inspiration nowadays. You CAN argue that the Cold War was overused, so people don't want to see it again. People alive today lived through the cold war and watched its media, so why would they facilitate making more of it, when more prominent topics are available?

4. I'm upset that you would target me personally rather than my viewpoint. I make it very clear on occasions that I am not a history buff by any stretch of the imagination (except as compared to the average person I suppose). So obviously it doesn't come with several layers of analysis - and it doesn't need to - we are talking about CIVILISATION, the game is basically surface level history.

5. Using words from the thesaurus doesn't make you sound smart, as others have suggested, it just makes you sound pompous.

 

[Evie]

While it's true that the vast majority of civ players don't participate in our discussion, the premise that any of us know what they want or can speak for them is ridiculous. Any idea of the silent majority any of us bring to the table is imaginary.

We can only have discussions on the basis of what people actually interested in discussion have to say, and the level of discussion should be determined by the people actually participating, not by the hypothetical preferences of imaginary people.

 

[pokiehl]

Any idea of the silent majority any of us bring to the table is imaginary.

No it’s not, not really. I think it’s quite clear that the discourse here has very little bearing on what most players care about.

If people wanted Civ games that were tediously historically accurate, every nation broken up into 12 constituent historical kingdoms, highly tactical combat where you individually control thousands of soldiers, and the nutrient levels of your topsoil affecting farm yields, then we’d have Civ games like that. But we don’t.

Civ games continue to grow in popularity, and Civ 6 is the best selling yet. Therefore, we can tell the majority of players are satisfied with the level of abstraction in the game and that it’s logical to expect more of the same.

 

[Evie]

Civ VI is also the game with the greatest diversity in terms of included civilizations, and the inclusion of the most obscure civs to date, as well as the one that rejected the classic Celtic blob, and popularity has only grown with the inclusion of more of these elements. One could hardly build from that a case against breaking down civs into smaller parts.

Most everything else you say the silent majority wants…well, that’s what my idea of the silent majority would likely want, too, but it’s something I feel I’m probably projecting on this silent majority. I take the parts of the series that sells it to me and project them as “what sells”, what explains their success. I don’t believe any of us have the market studies to do more - at least beyond general concept.

Sure we can make broad general educated guesses with reasonably good chance of being right - that people like the genre, general conceit (historical leaders and civilizations) and core design philosophy (gameplay-first) - but that’s about as far as it goes.

 

[Arcaian]

In addition to not knowing what exact aspect of a game made it a success, it's also hard to compare the relative success of two games in the franchise given the difference in time between the two releases. Civ 6 obviously dramatically outsold Civ 4, but given the relative sizes of the gaming markets, and specifically of the strategy game market, which was more successful? All the issues discussed by posters above and here contributes to the use of the 'silent majority' to be used more often as rhetorical device meaning "I'm confident that my opinion is correct, and that can be backed up by an unfalsifiable claim that the games' success is based off of this part that I like". I've seen people use the silent majority to argue both for and against the same mechanic, especially in ones that differ between civ 5 and 6.

In terms of the ideology, I do think it is a misrepresentation of the more complicated history of the cold war - but at the same time, civ rarely takes the time for nuanced takes on history. It's a game of pop history, at its core. From experience, I think the ideology system of civ 5 wasn't fully successful in changing up the end-game enough to get rid of the end-game malaise that is so common in the 4x genre, but it did alleviate it a great deal more than civ 6's mechanics do. I think it's a worthy area to think about drawing inspiration from for modern 4x games. The key advantage to me is that it shuffled power relations in the end-game; I would be concerned about a version of it that was constantly active from the early game, as it would need to be designed specifically so that it didn't just create different power-blocks the whole game.

The core benefit of the sort of system from a game perspective to me is the idea that when there's a run-away victor, a meaningful collaboration of (at least some of) the AI will occur to try and take that victor down - in this case it functioned more by breaking apart alliance-blocks that were contributing to the victor's success. This ties into the clash between people who want the AI to behave in a relatively believable roleplaying fashion, and those who want the AI to behave as if they're in a game and trying to win; the framing of the ideology mechanic as a 'communism vs capitalism vs fascism' divide was helpful on that front, as it functioned as a reasonable role-playing cover for a mechanic designed to appeal to the latter group there. As an alternative to tying this into religion, where I think it struggles a little more as a rubber-banding mechanic thematically, is to create something like a Great Power/Coalition system, where the focus is on the power blocks that form around major players:

• Keep a metric of how well a civ is going; this could be score, this could be some combination of military and economic strength, this could be Era Score if it returns.
• Something like the top 2-3 civs are Great Powers (perhaps one needs jazzier words for this, my word choices sound very 19th century and/or academic I know ), who don't receive benefits as such but people are more likely to form a block with one of them based on the perceived threat of the great powers
• If one Civ is noticeably more powerful by this metric than everyone else, they become a hegemonic power and there are no great powers. Other civs are more afraid of them, and ideally are both more likely to kick them if they end up falling down, and are more likely to listen to their requests/demands. One might even give them some unique diplomatic actions to use to bully people around.
• If the Hegemonic Power loses their position of overwhelming dominance, it returns to a system of Great Powers; the hegemon that has lost power should be at substantial risk of the new Great Power(s) trying to act against them directly, and if the Hegemon abused their power to control and bully others, they'd be much more likely to act against them if they felt the new Great Power(s) were capable of threatening the old Hegemon.
• The power-block to which minor powers associate can be affected by non-power factors as well - if they share a religion with a Great Power, or maybe an ideology late-game that functions similarly to a religion, or cultures if they end up represented, who the minor power's rival is in a power block, etc. This lets one introduce some of the roleplaying and narrative justification to the system to help it feel like it's not just a system to pull the biggest power back.
• In this way, you can have a similar (diplomatic) rubberbanding mechanism (though it relies on the hegemon not being able to pull away from everyone else in perpetuity, so needs changes in game design elsewhere to accomplish all of its goals, IMO) that has a more varied set of historical justifications, that I think relies less on semi-ficticious stories of the recent past, and that should still be very understandable and gameable to those playing the game. You'd have some sort of ranking of power, and could see "OK, I'm at 500 power; at 550, I can dethrone Macedon as the hegemon, and the -15 relationship malus he's accured with these civs from intimidating them is going to make them happy to join a joint war with me against him; it's not enough for the other civ he's bullied, as they share a religion and get along quite well despite the intimidation".

It does fundamentally rely on the ability of the game to have the balance of power between civs to change over time, which civ hasn't been great at historically - that's my biggest concern with it, it could end up as just a way to give the person on top more ways to bully weaker civs without recourse, but if the changing in power over time can't be improved for civ 7, one could play up the impact of some late-game choices on the balance of power semi-artificially to get a change, or even have the dissatisfaction of the minor powers increase over time as the hegemon has been in power for a longer period of time, and/or has otherwise-permanent dissatisfaction points for the use of any of the abilities that only go away when you lose hegemon status.

 

[pokiehl]

In addition to not knowing what exact aspect of a game made it a success, it's also hard to compare the relative success of two games in the franchise given the difference in time between the two releases. Civ 6 obviously dramatically outsold Civ 4, but given the relative sizes of the gaming markets, and specifically of the strategy game market, which was more successful?

I don't think this line of reasoning holds. It is certainly possible that sequels can perform worse than their predecessors, despite ostensible growth in the gaming market. In other words, it was not fait accompli that Civ 6 would sell better than Civ 4, so pretending that its popularity and sales are not a result of the game itself doesn't make much sense.

All the issues discussed by posters above and here contributes to the use of the 'silent majority' to be used more often as rhetorical device meaning "I'm confident that my opinion is correct, and that can be backed up by an unfalsifiable claim that the games' success is based off of this part that I like". I've seen people use the silent majority to argue both for and against the same mechanic, especially in ones that differ between civ 5 and 6.

I think you're addressing me. I didn't mention silent majority at all, and I didn't say I was confident that my opinion is correct. I haven't mentioned popularity of the ideology mechanic a single time, except to dispute the baseless claim that it would somehow be unpopular today.

Rather, I am confident that most opinions and ideas expressed in this subforum would be unpopular and drag the series down. As a whole, ideas here are too niche, rely too much on nitpicking history factoids, and generally prioritize either historical accuracy or the pet interests of the poster over marketability and good gameplay. How many threads here devolve into people reciting history trivia to each other at some point, completely ignoring any discussion of gameplay? (Nearly every single one) Players aren't sitting at their desks, rubbing their chins in frustration about how the World Congress system doesn't accurately reflect the origins of the League of Nations and emergence of the UN. They're just playing with it and reacting to frustrating or cool gameplay effects.

This concept that ideas here aren't mainstream applies to me as well--I would love it if Civ 7 included 15 Ancient Near Eastern civs but obviously that's not going to happen and would probably be unpopular. The difference is I don't portray this opinion of mine is some enlightened viewpoint founded on noble fealty to historical accuracy. It's just my preference, and I've spent zero words convincing others of it.

In terms of the ideology, I do think it is a misrepresentation of the more complicated history of the cold war - but at the same time, civ rarely takes the time for nuanced takes on history.

It's not a misrepresentation. It's a streamlined abstraction because this is a videogame series designed to sell copies and have mass appeal. Can you point out a single element of any Civ game that isn't a streamlined abstraction?

It's a game of pop history, at its core. From experience, I think the ideology system of civ 5 wasn't fully successful in changing up the end-game enough to get rid of the end-game malaise that is so common in the 4x genre, but it did alleviate it a great deal more than civ 6's mechanics do. I think it's a worthy area to think about drawing inspiration from for modern 4x games. The key advantage to me is that it shuffled power relations in the end-game; I would be concerned about a version of it that was constantly active from the early game, as it would need to be designed specifically so that it didn't just create different power-blocks the whole game.

The core benefit of the sort of system from a game perspective to me is the idea that when there's a run-away victor, a meaningful collaboration of (at least some of) the AI will occur to try and take that victor down - in this case it functioned more by breaking apart alliance-blocks that were contributing to the victor's success. This ties into the clash between people who want the AI to behave in a relatively believable roleplaying fashion, and those who want the AI to behave as if they're in a game and trying to win; the framing of the ideology mechanic as a 'communism vs capitalism vs fascism' divide was helpful on that front, as it functioned as a reasonable role-playing cover for a mechanic designed to appeal to the latter group there. As an alternative to tying this into religion, where I think it struggles a little more as a rubber-banding mechanic thematically, is to create something like a Great Power/Coalition system, where the focus is on the power blocks that form around major players:

• Keep a metric of how well a civ is going; this could be score, this could be some combination of military and economic strength, this could be Era Score if it returns.
• Something like the top 2-3 civs are Great Powers (perhaps one needs jazzier words for this, my word choices sound very 19th century and/or academic I know ), who don't receive benefits as such but people are more likely to form a block with one of them based on the perceived threat of the great powers
• If one Civ is noticeably more powerful by this metric than everyone else, they become a hegemonic power and there are no great powers. Other civs are more afraid of them, and ideally are both more likely to kick them if they end up falling down, and are more likely to listen to their requests/demands. One might even give them some unique diplomatic actions to use to bully people around.
• If the Hegemonic Power loses their position of overwhelming dominance, it returns to a system of Great Powers; the hegemon that has lost power should be at substantial risk of the new Great Power(s) trying to act against them directly, and if the Hegemon abused their power to control and bully others, they'd be much more likely to act against them if they felt the new Great Power(s) were capable of threatening the old Hegemon.
• The power-block to which minor powers associate can be affected by non-power factors as well - if they share a religion with a Great Power, or maybe an ideology late-game that functions similarly to a religion, or cultures if they end up represented, who the minor power's rival is in a power block, etc. This lets one introduce some of the roleplaying and narrative justification to the system to help it feel like it's not just a system to pull the biggest power back.
• In this way, you can have a similar (diplomatic) rubberbanding mechanism (though it relies on the hegemon not being able to pull away from everyone else in perpetuity, so needs changes in game design elsewhere to accomplish all of its goals, IMO) that has a more varied set of historical justifications, that I think relies less on semi-ficticious stories of the recent past, and that should still be very understandable and gameable to those playing the game. You'd have some sort of ranking of power, and could see "OK, I'm at 500 power; at 550, I can dethrone Macedon as the hegemon, and the -15 relationship malus he's accured with these civs from intimidating them is going to make them happy to join a joint war with me against him; it's not enough for the other civ he's bullied, as they share a religion and get along quite well despite the intimidation".

This entire idea was already represented in Civ 5 as the "fear" diplomatic modifier. It could stand to return and be fleshed out more, but don't necessarily think it needs to be as complex as delineating someone a great power or a hegemon or whatever. It also need not be mutually exclusive with an ideology system.

 

[Arcaian]

I don't think this line of reasoning holds. It is certainly possible that sequels can perform worse than their predecessors, despite ostensible growth in the gaming market. In other words, it was not fait accompli that Civ 6 would sell better than Civ 4, so pretending that its popularity and sales are not a result of the game itself doesn't make much sense.

I didn't say that Civ 6 was always going to sell better than Civ 4 - but if Civ 4 sold a million copies (all numbers 100% made up, to be clear0 but 75% of strategy gamers bought it, and civ 6 sold 10 million copies but 30% of strategy gamers bought it because the market has grown dramatically, which is more popular? Clearly Civ 6 outsold Civ 4, but Civ 4 had greater market dominance - which represents a more popular game? That's a subjective, personal decision - that's my point, not that Civ 6 was destined to out-sell Civ 4 and so we can't say Civ 6's ideas are popular

I think you're addressing me. I didn't mention silent majority at all, and I didn't say I was confident that my opinion is correct.


Rather, I am confident that most opinions and ideas expressed in this subforum would be unpopular and drag the series down. As a whole, ideas here are too niche, rely too much on nitpicking history factoids, and generally prioritize either historical accuracy or the pet interests of the poster over marketability and good gameplay. How many threads here devolve into people reciting history trivia to each other at some point, completely ignoring any discussion of gameplay? (Nearly every single one)

This concept that ideas here aren't mainstream applies to me as well--I would love it if Civ 7 included 15 Ancient Near Eastern civs but obviously that's not going to happen and would probably be unpopular. The difference is I don't portray this opinion of mine is some enlightened viewpoint founded on noble fealty to historical accuracy.

I was not addressing you! The example I had in my mind when writing that was the way that I've seen people argue to death whether Civ 5 proves that 1-unit-per-turn is more popular than stacks-of-doom, which was seemingly a neverending argument of both sides stating that their game proves that the silent majority supported/did not support 1UPT. I do think this forum has a tendency to discuss things assuming a great deal of familiarity and care about history, accurately representing history, and complex game mechanics because of who we are. I don't think that's necessarily an issue - I've learnt a great deal from a long time on this forum, and it has made me think more deeply about the mechanics of 4x games. I don't see why something should be done to change this - it's not like we can all magically change our minds to conform perfectly with the average consumer, so we'll inevitably discuss what interests us. I don't think the historical accuracy or complex mechanics we tend to enjoy have to be at odds with good gameplay - but I do think care needs to be taken for suggestions to align with with it.

It's not a misrepresentation. It's a streamlined abstraction because this is a videogame series designed to sell copies and have mass appeal. Can you point out a single element of any Civ game that isn't a streamlined abstraction?

The reason I think it's a misrepresentation is because it gets the cause-and-effect the wrong way around; it goes "these civs valued capitalism/fascism/democracy, and therefore naturally banded together with other civs of similar opinion to fight against those who didn't". That was certainly a popular way to look at the issue for a time, but to my reading, it's exactly the wrong way around - major power blocks formed during and after WW2 because of the dynamics of power and who held it, which affected which parts of the world became communist/capitalist. Of course there are streamlined abstractions in the game, I don't think you'll find anyone disagreeing with that - but this abstraction feels like it has the causation incorrectly. I imagine a similar example would be if you had an event pop up that said "if you don't send a 150 gold gift to Babylon, they'll lose 10 opinion of you and might declare war" - it would feel strange to me, because it should be the other way around; Babylon should lose opinion with you because of other factors, and then you choose to send a gift if you want to try and alleviate that to prevent war. As a note here, I wouldn't find this as strange in a game with events and randomness built in there - if an event pops up saying "the heir of your kingdom has insulted Babylon and you get -10 opinion with them unless you smooth it over", that provides more justification for the cause-and-effect

This entire idea was already represented in Civ 5 as the "fear" diplomatic modifier. It could stand to return and be fleshed out more, but don't necessarily think it needs to be as complex as delineating someone a great power or a hegemon or whatever. It also need not be mutually exclusive with an ideology system.

I literally presented it as inclusive to an ideology system in there, so I do obviously agree that it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. A fear diplomatic modifier has existed previously, as you say, but my issue with it is:

• Historically, it hasn't worked very well - there's a reason it is never brought up as a way to try and address these issues
• Fear is a complicated one to provide a mechanical representation of without a more fleshed out system - it should both make the civ who is afraid more likely to give in to your demands, but also to take retributive action against you if they can.
• Civs that have joined these power blocks don't necessarily dislike the leader of the power block, as a negative fear modifier tends to represent
• I do consider the system I suggested above a fleshed out version of a fear modifier; it really doesn't have much complexity to it, I don't think:
  • You have a civ that you are most at risk from, a slightly more fleshed out version of fear, who has power
  • If they abuse that power you dislike them
  • If you end up in a position where they are not so dominant, there's a built-in mechanic for those who dislike the person who was on top working together against them

At it's core, I'm trying to focus on good gameplay, as you were mentioning above. It's easy for these mechanics to either get complicated in a way that AI will struggle to take advantage of, or that relies on the AI somehow being dramatically improved and just using a flat opinion modifier change as somehow being enough to change the game's dynamic in a meaningful way. The aim is for a system that gives players more gameable choices, and information about those in an understandable way, that the AI can understand. Click on the Power leaderboard (or Era Score system, or whatever it is tied into), and if you're not the top-dog, see how many work is needed to challenge them, and the AI who will fight them if you get that high are highlighted (and it will happen automatically, so it works for the AI too). If you're on top, you see how far away you are from being threatened, and if it's close you can either try and focus more on pulling ahead in the way the score measures, or you can try and pacify those in your power block so they won't be as angry when you're no longer in charge

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I've heard the argument that "the silent majority" or "most of" the players are not interested in history before in these Threads, so I guess I should say why I think that may not be as accurate as the arguers believe.

Back in the 1990s and early 2000s I was part of the 'War College' at the GAMA (Gaming Manufacturer's Association) ORIGINS convention every year for roughly 10 years. This segment of the convention was straight Military History lectures, presented by 'real' military historians from academia and elsewhere. For examples, retired Colonel David Glantz, the founder of the Tactical Studies Group at the Command and Staff College of the US Army was a lecturer, as was Dr Müller, an expert on air warfare from the US Air Force's command schools in Montgomery, Alabama, but also Frank Chadwick, a very good amateur military historian but also one of the best board game designers in the USA.

Every year, this 'real history' part of the convention presented 20 or more lectures in 3 days, and most of the time the lecture rooms were Standing Room Only and frequently wth a lively question-and-answer session that had to be moved to the cafeteria or other venue to clear the room for the next lecturer. I would estimate that overall some 700 - 1000 people total were 'exposed' to the lectures, although some of those numbers doubtless reflect one person attending multiple lectures - I know I came to recognize many of the same faces year after year.

Now, the total convention, which was largely board, card, role-playing and miniatures since other conventions already covered electronic gaming, had an average attendance of 8 - 10,000, so this group was by no means a majority. On the other hand, they weren't silent either, but very interested in the historical 'background' to the games they were playing, with a keen interest in learning more about it.

Old information, and not directly computer gaming, but my experience, reinforced by attending and lecturing at other conventions like KUBLACON which did cover electronic as well as board, card, miniatures and role-playing games, is that the gaming community does not divide up neatly into exclusive segments with no overlap among them: I play largely computer games these days, but I still have multiple shelves of miniatures in the back room and a couple dozen boardgames on the top shelves of several bookcases, and most f the gamers I know in this area are similar: they play what they are interested in and can find opponents for, and their primary gaming interest may change with the next game of any type that catches their attention.

All very personal experience, of course, and may or may not be applicable to the World of gaming or even the Province of gaming here in the USA. And I am certainly NOT arguing that everyone or even a large sample would prefer 'history' to 'game-play' in any form of gaming other than Re-enactment societies (Who are Crazed: I knew a fellow who lost three toes trying to pretend he was an 1830s Mountain Man in the winter up in the Cascade Mountains - froze them off wearing 'authentic' footgear!).

I just go by what I have known over the years, and it does not allow me to believe that there is no interest in the history behind the game in any gaming genre, just that any such interest should not be allowed to detract from the ability to play and enjoy the game.

 

[Evie]

Yes, that'S part of my discomfort with the silent majority: the silent majority, to my mind, is a diverse group of people who each enjoy the game for their own reason - assuming that the silent majority want any particular thing, or that any particular thing is what the silent majority *seeks* versus what the silent majority *accepts*, is simply not a sound presumption. And so we end up projecting our own preferences on them.

The sales tell us, chiefly, that there is a strong market for 4X, history-inspired but gameplay-focused semi-casual games (as in, there is room for some depths and details, but not for detailed simulation), and little else about the details.

 

[Patine]

Wow, imagine that.

1. I tend to argue simplistically because the majority of the audience for this game are a silent majority we tend to ignore

2. You are imagining that you with all your historical background reflects everybody else, which it doesn't

3. Whether or not cold war media has taken a dive in recent year doesn't really reflect how people see it. World War 2 is thoroughly in the past, so people are happy to use it as inspiration nowadays. You CAN argue that the Cold War was overused, so people don't want to see it again. People alive today lived through the cold war and watched its media, so why would they facilitate making more of it, when more prominent topics are available?

I concur with what Evie and Boris on this pompous claim (a literal Nixonism, in fact).

4. I'm upset that you would target me personally rather than my viewpoint. I make it very clear on occasions that I am not a history buff by any stretch of the imagination (except as compared to the average person I suppose). So obviously it doesn't come with several layers of analysis - and it doesn't need to - we are talking about CIVILISATION, the game is basically surface level history.

I did not attack you persnally, but did criticise your demonstrated viewpoints and conduct. You're taking after pokehl's noxious playbook of disingenuus declaring any criticism as a personal attack.

Moderator Action: Please cease the personal attacks and discuss the topic. If you have an issue with a post, report it instead of replying to it. leif

5. Using words from the thesaurus doesn't make you sound smart, as others have suggested, it just makes you sound pompous.

Now, note, THIS is a personal attack and insult, and in no way, shappe, or form, a criticism of viewpoint or conduct.

 

[GeneralZIft]

I didn't say that I represent the silent majority, I am stating that I keep my arguments simplistic as the majority would probably view the game on a surface level.

I agree with Evie and Boris, but let me just remind you, wasn't you that claimed to say that this mechanic wouldn't work because... Oh... You think everybody views it in a different way? Aren't you claiming that you speak on behalf of the majority? Isn't this the same exact thing?

I'm tired of this conversation so it would be best to agree to disagree.

Ps. It's not a personal attack, I'm just letting you know for future, that throwing thesaurus words doesn't make your point more valid.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Back to topic. Please stop discussing each other!

 

[vorlon_mi]

When I look at my Steam hours, I've played a lot more BERT than I have Civ5. I expect the late-game hostility from factions that don't match my affinity in BERT, so I plan for it. I've been surprised by the ideology choices in Civ5, so I'm usually not prepared for it -- either pay the cost to switch, or somehow try to "power through" the unhappiness penalty. Without mods, Civ6 has neither a planned nor an unplanned late-game mechanic to shake things up. For my games, the closest I get is knowing that some tiles will be inundated when the sea levels rise. I take care when placing districts, since the lowest will certainly be flooded before I can complete all the stages of the science victory. It's anticipated; I can take some steps to mitigate; it might weaken an AI that didn't place its cities or districts well.

As I thought about which I would prefer, which would fit my playstyle best, I landed on the "planned" side. I love crafting my empire to stand the test of time, with lots of cities, projecting military power, and going for old-school domination. Yes, I embrace the snowball effect. Yes, I would welcome an AI that could also snowball, so that I have to worry about getting to the victory condition first.

To be fair, if I took a serious look at the Civ5 AI as they approached adopting their ideology -- what they have adopted as social policies, whether or not they have been aggressive with military or alliances with city states -- then I probably wouldn't be surprised. I should do a better job of anticipating what ideologies my neighbors will choose so that I can be prepared.

In Civ3, I know that pollution is coming, so I have teams of workers to clean it up. Civ3 has its own late-game shakeup mechanic, in that many AI seem to increase their aggression during the industrial age and all sorts of wars break out. They discuss it starting with post 15 in this thread https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/love-the-ai.686857/post-16546836 Having a late-game decision / shake-up mechanic in Civ7 would be OK, if I could anticipate some of the consequences. I find the idea of a random, high-impact, late game change that is a surprise not something that I want in Civ7.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I have not commented in this thread for many pages now. I am now the silent majority. My word is therefore law

 

[pineappledan]

The civ 5 ideology system was probably planned to be more complex than the final product. There are traces in the code that enable the founding of multiple world congresses simultaneously, which probably means that you could have >1 multilateral diplomatic body in the game passing resolutions within/against each other, and that membership was probably organized by ideology.

to @Evie 's point about conflating ideology and religion, I think you could do that with a conservative ideology that doubles down on your existing religious bonuses and uses them to push for some sort of religious or cultural victory. Then you could have the fascist branch offer bonuses that supercharge your pantheon, or significantly transform your religion to emphasize a neopagan revival. Communism could liquidate your religious bonuses entirely. Lastly, the Liberalism branch leaves the religious game untouched; Freedom of Religion, separation of church and state, etc etc.

Simplistic, but the franchise has always tried to model an abstracted form of these ideologies, and you can use the idealized forms and histories of each of those 4 ideologies to handle late-game religion differently.

 

[Patine]

I have not commented in this thread for many pages now. I am now the silent majority. My word is therefore law

No, it isn't. You made a mistake. A grave one. YOU SPOKE!