Hint at 3rd expansion from Firaxis??

[steveg700]

Once you get down to the last couple of civs to conquer, the steamrolling really kicks in and they can't offer much resistance. Usually by this point I starta a new game instead of clicking through the next 50 turns. Making me hold those capitals for a number of turns after wouldn't change much. By then their armies have been annihilated.

Exactly. Victory conditions in a civ game are pretty passe. Paradox figured out the actual answer to endgames: don't really worry about'em.

But to me it seems obvious that if you're going to have victory conditions in Civ VI, they should reward diversification, not beelining and hype-specialization. No point in having all these districts and constraining them by population if ultimately a victory condition means just ICS'ing and spamming one district over and over. As for dom, capturing all the capitals is kind of tedious on the big maps I like to play. I'll never do it, and the AI simply cannot even take a stab at it.

 

[Red_warning]

Without victory conditions many game mechanics, like tourism and religion, become fairly pointless though.

 

[VermelhoRed]

All you guys asking for Tibet, don't forget another civ that's located nearby and has a culture and history just as fascinating, Nepal!

 

[humble serf]

Without victory conditions many game mechanics, like tourism and religion, become fairly pointless though.

^ This is the biggest advantage Civ has over the Paradox games in my opinion. EU4 has dozens and dozens of different game mechanics to master, but pretty much the only thing you can actually do with those mechanics is acquire more land. Everything else in the game is just a tool for further land acquisition and holding onto your conquests.

CK2 handles this better, because of characters, vassalage, and more dynamic religious gameplay. In CK2 my goal isn't always to acquire land -- sometimes it's to reform a pagan faith, or to dominate trade in the eastern Mediterranean, or to be a lifelong loyal vassal to my liege, or to Christianise the steppe.

By having several non-military victory conditions, Civ opens up multiple different avenues for gameplay and empire-building which might otherwise be lost.

 

[RohirrimElf]

^ This is the biggest advantage Civ has over the Paradox games in my opinion. EU4 has dozens and dozens of different game mechanics to master, but pretty much the only thing you can actually do with those mechanics is acquire more land. Everything else in the game is just a tool for further land acquisition and holding onto your conquests.

CK2 handles this better, because of characters, vassalage, and more dynamic religious gameplay. In CK2 my goal isn't always to acquire land -- sometimes it's to reform a pagan faith, or to dominate trade in the eastern Mediterranean, or to be a lifelong loyal vassal to my liege, or to Christianise the steppe.

By having several non-military victory conditions, Civ opens up multiple different avenues for gameplay and empire-building which might otherwise be lost.

Both eu4 and civ 6 have their advantages. EU4 is still a sandbox game. There is nothing stopping you from not expanding (play peacefully) and helping out your allies. Work on your religion percentage or make your army more professional. There are dozens of goals. In my current eu4 England game, i’ve spend 40 hours on my campaign and have not even reached the halfway point. Which is great. Spain is just ahead of me by development. And i know i could be in a rough spot in a colonial war.

Can’t choose between the two. I’ve often stopped playing civ 6 for months and played eu4 nonstop. Eu4 is just in a far better state right now. But i would still miss playing civ 6. It is just more relaxing playing civ 6. Lissen to the music and go for little goals. Like build 2 galleys and see if i can find oppertunities nearby. Or plan ahead 50 turns because a neighbour plants a forward city on your spot.

The biggest reason why i am not playing civ 6 at the moment. is that most immortal/deity games end up in a clear victory for me in the last 2/3/4 era’s of the game. It is just pressing end turn for 60-80 turns knowing you would win playing on auto pilot. You just know the AI is not a treath even being given an advantage. Very unlike the first 2 era’s of the game which is way more fun.

 

[Stilgar08]

I just can't wrap my head around a lot of games which don't offer an ending... win or loose it is for me.
I tried some Paradox games and like the general idea of course but I prefer a given goal when I play... Just "play sandbox and see whats happening" isn't engaging enough for me...
I"m not capable to be a Jogger either. I need another goal than to reach the Start once I ended...

 

[Raven_2012]

Here is an interview done by PCGames with Ed Beach (whom we all know and love) and Dennis Shirk (Lead Producer):

https://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-vi/civ-6-gathering-storm-natural-disasters

If you scroll about halfway down they ask Shirk about the Black Plague scenario that will be included and if disease mechanics will make their way into the full game. His reply is:

"No, no. We didn't want to have disease YET."

Later on in that reply he mentions that they sometimes use scenarios as a place to test out ideas they will put into the game.

Now this is basically conjecture on my part, but there are two tiny hints at it in that reply. What do you guys think? I don't remember there ever being a 3rd expansion for a Civ game before so I still very much doubt it, but it's not impossible.

I think with the response disease yet, meant in series in general, so like something they are leaving for another Civilization game, in the future.

 

[footslogger]

I struggle to imagine how a disease feature would be an interesting one. I seem to recall a dev saying corruption was removed from an earlier civ game because people were finding the micromanagement involved not fun. Just beating corruption with nothing positive to aim at didn't provide enough incentive. I would have thought disease would be in the same category.

 

[Gedemon]

IMO the now sacrosancts "all positives" and "gameplay trumps realism" interpretations were more curses than blessings for modern gaming.

We've lost the challenge part of "objective - challenge - reward" in the process, the only skill needed to go from objective to reward is now patience.

The reward of beating corruption (or any similar mechanism) is to have an efficient large empire, ie building something to be proud of.

 

[Disgustipated]

Yeah I can't see it being a big feature. Have disease problems, build a hospital, problem solved. Maybe they can make it more than that. But otherwise I see the mechanic being random population loss until you build the appropriate infrastructure.

 

[Gedemon]

Yeah I can't see it being a big feature. Have disease problems, build a hospital, problem solved. Maybe they can make it more than that. But otherwise I see the mechanic being random population loss until you build the appropriate infrastructure.

The Health mechanism was a big part of city placement in civ4.

 

[Disgustipated]

Yeah I remember. Made settling near swamp and jungle not very desirable. Not sure if they will give a nerf to rainforest this time, it's already pretty weak except for Pedro and maybe Kongo.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yeah I can't see it being a big feature. Have disease problems, build a hospital, problem solved. Maybe they can make it more than that. But otherwise I see the mechanic being random population loss until you build the appropriate infrastructure.

You could make it more interesting than that, but you'd probably need to re-work Civ 6's economic balance.

If you make specialists more productive than field workers, then you could tie the chance of disease to the number of specialists you have (essentially your urban core versus rural population). Maintaining a large, productive urban centre then becomes a cycle of growth and decline, until you have the ability to invest in sewers, etc. that reduce the likelihood or impact of disease. Or you maintain a less efficient pastural society and by-pass all the ups and downs stuff until you have the technology to grow large cities safely.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

disease--no thanks.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Yeah I can't see it being a big feature. Have disease problems, build a hospital, problem solved. Maybe they can make it more than that. But otherwise I see the mechanic being random population loss until you build the appropriate infrastructure.

Here are some examples of something more I came up with: Gathering the world leaders to help stop an epidemic in a World Congress emergency. Diseases can turn into plagues and expand across international boundaries and then they can have random promotions and you could name them.
I talked a little more in detail here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/new-health-disease-and-plague-mechanic.640300/

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Frankly, if disease were essentially just another housing type mechanic, a limit on pop growth that requires you build something to negate, I am not sure the game needs that. My guess is that the devs would probably implement it similar to natural disasters where cities have a % chance of losing pop if certain conditions are met but you can build something to reduce or eliminate that chance event.

 

[DWilson]

Talking about health reminds me of a previous post I made on a potential plague mechanic.

Spoiler Long text from post :

So this thread inspired a chain of thoughts on how we could potentially implement something like a plague mechanic.

• Make plagues more likely to appear with higher levels of trade, particularly international trade. They move along trade routes, and thus can be spread when you contact them. And they will fade more quickly, when you diminish trade.
• Potentially make plagues more likely to occur when at war, especially when conquering or acquiring foreign cities (this seems historically accurate from my recollection, but I could be wrong- I haven't studied the matter).
• Have a set number of turns until the punishment stops, and your civilization becomes immune. Allow it to, later in the game, spread to other civilizations which trade routes exist with, that have not previously become immune.
• In civilizations with very low housing, potentially allow a second epidemic of an individual plague, regardless of previous immune status (to represent lack of proper hygiene and waste systems, access to clean water, healthcare, etc.). High housing levels helps eliminate plagues faster.
• During a plague, population growth becomes negative, possibly other penalties apply.
• Multiple plagues can be effective on a given civ at once, but hard cap the number that appears game wide based on eras (maybe 1 plague every 1-2 eras). This represents the danger of isolated civs coming into contact with civs that have experienced several plagues and built immunity. This would punish the powerful isolated starts in a realistic way (Eurasian diseases hammering the Americas all at once).

This would create a system that is not completely surprising or random, thus enabling civs to prepare for it and address it by changing their efforts (lower international trade, higher infrustracture investment). It would also create an in game manner of displaying that things are not always progressive and that set backs happen, but that they do not have to be debilitating and are not limited to a single civilization.

 

[Ferocitus]

Talking about health reminds me of a previous post I made on a potential plague mechanic.

Spoiler Long text from post :

So this thread inspired a chain of thoughts on how we could potentially implement something like a plague mechanic.

• Make plagues more likely to appear with higher levels of trade, particularly international trade. They move along trade routes, and thus can be spread when you contact them. And they will fade more quickly, when you diminish trade.
• Potentially make plagues more likely to occur when at war, especially when conquering or acquiring foreign cities (this seems historically accurate from my recollection, but I could be wrong- I haven't studied the matter).
• Have a set number of turns until the punishment stops, and your civilization becomes immune. Allow it to, later in the game, spread to other civilizations which trade routes exist with, that have not previously become immune.
• In civilizations with very low housing, potentially allow a second epidemic of an individual plague, regardless of previous immune status (to represent lack of proper hygiene and waste systems, access to clean water, healthcare, etc.). High housing levels helps eliminate plagues faster.
• During a plague, population growth becomes negative, possibly other penalties apply.
• Multiple plagues can be effective on a given civ at once, but hard cap the number that appears game wide based on eras (maybe 1 plague every 1-2 eras). This represents the danger of isolated civs coming into contact with civs that have experienced several plagues and built immunity. This would punish the powerful isolated starts in a realistic way (Eurasian diseases hammering the Americas all at once).

This would create a system that is not completely surprising or random, thus enabling civs to prepare for it and address it by changing their efforts (lower international trade, higher infrustracture investment). It would also create an in game manner of displaying that things are not always progressive and that set backs happen, but that they do not have to be debilitating and are not limited to a single civilization.

These debates have come up from time-to-time and there have been some fantastic ideas.

Apart from traders as disease vectors, some products could also be carriers. Outbreaks of, for example, foot-and-mouth, wheat rust, etc, provides a rationale for banning trade of the products, or a boycott of civs who have the products.

Diseases, prevention, and the search for cures, over time leads quite naturally into biological warfare.

Bio warfare leads ineluctably to zombies and mutants.

Zombies and mutants, united, can defeat Giant Death Robots.

Sorry, I forgot: why were people thinking disease in Civ might be a bad idea?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

You could make it more interesting than that, but you'd probably need to re-work Civ 6's economic balance.

If you make specialists more productive than field workers, then you could tie the chance of disease to the number of specialists you have (essentially your urban core versus rural population). Maintaining a large, productive urban centre then becomes a cycle of growth and decline, until you have the ability to invest in sewers, etc. that reduce the likelihood or impact of disease. Or you maintain a less efficient pastural society and by-pass all the ups and downs stuff until you have the technology to grow large cities safely.

I don't know, do we really need even more constraints on city growth?

 

[acluewithout]

Sorry to bump this thread. But there are so many threads bumping around at the moment that I didn't want to create new thread for what is a small thought...

I was looking a Civ 5's rules. And I thought, it's a bit odd Civ VI still doesn't really have any mechanics around ideology or how that impacts culture, diplomacy etc. Civ 5 had this whole thing where your ideology could impact other Civ's happiness and visa versa. Civ VI has even more to play with here, what with tourism, loyalty etc. If FXS did expand Ideologies, they could really make something super fun and interesting.

And it also feels really weird Governors, Government Plazas and Governments aren't getting some serious expansion (see here).

I'm very happy with the next expansion (bar a few small niggles ... which I wonder might not even be there when the game comes out, given it looks like a lot of balancing is going on). I think Civ VI plus the next expansion (... and a few patches... and or some balance mods...) really could be better than either IV or V. The game will feel pretty close to "complete".

...but there are still some, well, gaps...

...and some of those gaps feel, well, intentional...

...particularly as Ed was lead designer was responsible for all the ideology stuff in BNW - hard to believe he wouldn't bring that into the game...

...and FXS clearly have a very iterative* approach to Civ VI.

Looks like the World Congress might have been planned for RnF, at least judging from the RnF trailer and the very half-hearted Emergencies mechanics. Instead, it got held over to GS, maybe because they wanted to work on it for a bit longer...

I could really see a scenario where FXS maybe didn't plan a third expansion from the start, but mechanics around Ideologies just took that little bit longer, and or they later thought there was enough content for a third expansion and so decided to spread things out a little more...

Like I said. I'm guessing Civ VI will feel very "complete" after GS. ...wouldn't a third expansion then be particularly tempting? A chance to really build on the solid game FXS have made??

(*) Indeed, as much as RnF was kinda underwhelming, I wonder if that more iterative approach is why GS is looking so good and why the game is so good overall.

(**) Anyone interested in this topic might also want to check out this Reddit thread. People really want a third expansion.

tl;dr: hard to believe we won't get a third expansion focusing on ideologies and cultural influence.