Hint at 3rd expansion from Firaxis??

[steveg700]

Not really, it all depends on available space, available troops to defend your city, loyalty, population and whether or not you should spend your production on something else. Expanding has a cost, and if you just spam settler after settler you'll just end up funding your neighbours' expansion instead.

Expanding has no meaningful cost. Expansion is inherently self-supporting and self-rewarding. Most of the time, the only real consideration is running out of spots which can afford a city enough production to be worth the effort, and perhaps having a governor to spare until population reaches a self-sustaining threshold.

All other supposed costs are easily mitigated in the majority of situations, and therefore canards in such a discussion.

 

[VermelhoRed]

Expanding has no meaningful cost. Expansion is inherently self-supporting and self-rewarding. Most of the time, the only real consideration is running out of spots which can afford a city enough production to be worth the effort, and perhaps having a governor to spare until population reaches a self-sustaining threshold.

All other supposed costs are easily mitigated in the majority of situations, and therefore canards in such a discussion.

Expanding has a meaningful cost, and also meaningful rewards, don't mistake one for another. It is self-rewarding, as it should be, given the very nature of this game. The main real consideration is to whether it is best to spend those hammers and pop on another settler right away, or to do something else instead, but you still need to consider loyalty and military to defend both the settler on its way and the newly settled city from potential enemies. Which is as it should be. What would you even propose as an alternative?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Expanding has a meaningful cost, and also meaningful rewards, don't mistake one for another. It is self-rewarding, as it should be, given the very nature of this game. The main real consideration is to whether it is best to spend those hammers and pop on another settler right away, or to do something else instead, but you still need to consider loyalty and military to defend both the settler on its way and the newly settled city from potential enemies. Which is as it should be. What would you even propose as an alternative?

But the drive to develop your current cities should be equal to the drive to get more of them. That would make for more decisions. Right now one far outweighs the other.

 

[VermelhoRed]

But the drive to develop your current cities should be equal to the drive to get more of them. That would make for more decisions. Right now one far outweighs the other.

While I disagree on the "equal" parts, I do agree that so far, developing cities is underwhelming. That doesn't mean expanding should come with a malus though, rather than that developing should be more significant. Third tier district buildings for example, are a joke.

 

[bbbt]

With the introduction of so many ways to generate amenities (including an entire district for it), it seems the penalties for unhappiness could generally amount to more than just a 5% penalty.

Yeah, it's sort of bizarre to me they basically set up a lot of mechanics for expansion check in theory that they've made so mild as to be inconsequential. There's a 'rebellion' mechanism for negative amenities that is basically only hittable with severe war weariness - and then just generates some barbarians. There's a loyalty mechanic that really only causes trouble if you try and take a city deep in an empire. There's an entire cede mechanic that curbs the productivity of captured cities that just does nothing at all at this point.

Edit: To add, these are the sort of things that to me could be made to hit harder (on the human player) on higher difficulties, adding an additional challenge that's not AI dependent.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yeah, it's sort of bizarre to me they basically set up a lot of mechanics for expansion check in theory that they've made so mild as to be inconsequential. There's a 'rebellion' mechanism for negative amenities that is basically only hittable with severe war weariness - and then just generates some barbarians. There's a loyalty mechanic that really only causes trouble if you try and take a city deep in an empire. There's an entire cede mechanic that curbs the productivity of captured cities that just does nothing at all at this point.

Edit: To add, these are the sort of things that to me could be made to hit harder (on the human player) on higher difficulties, adding an additional challenge that's not AI dependent.

The goal of Civ 6 is to provide players a "win your way" experience. All of the challenges presented to the player are designed to be overcome without severely cramping the way you're trying to win. So, obstacles, yes, so you get the satisfaction of overcoming them, but not obstacles that prevent you from doing what you were intending to do anyway.

And yes, I, too, wish that this was different for Immortal and Deity.

 

[Alexadamz]

And yes, I, too, wish that this was different for Immortal and Deity.

That for me is the main issue. Instead of making the AI smarter or better, they just give them bonuses to be ahead of the human player and we players need to catch up. That is for worst than making the AI stronger or better at war and being able to crush me to the point of me being not able to recover. The game for me is less fun with the bonuses they give to the Emperor and above AI players than if they made the game indeed harder with the AI warring better but having the same starting point benefits. It would be more challenging and more immersive. Right now, when I want to rage quit is when the AI gets an early wonder first. Not because he is smarter, better or anything. But just because he has more cities, troops, science and culture than we do from start. Making the AI play better during wars and at combat would be better, but I guess not many players would like that overall. But that is for what higher levels of difficulty are, for players who want the challenge to play. If you want to win without much trouble and you can have fun that way, play at lower difficulties, Prince is fine for that.

 

[steveg700]

Yeah, it's sort of bizarre to me they basically set up a lot of mechanics for expansion check in theory that they've made so mild as to be inconsequential. There's a 'rebellion' mechanism for negative amenities that is basically only hittable with severe war weariness - and then just generates some barbarians. There's a loyalty mechanic that really only causes trouble if you try and take a city deep in an empire. There's an entire cede mechanic that curbs the productivity of captured cities that just does nothing at all at this point.

Sure, and beyond that, there are maintenance costs for buildings and units that are only relevant if you are a complete boob. When was the last time anyone worried about GPT except in the very earliest of stages?

In theory, you develop your cities a district at a time, waiting for them to grow so you can build more districts. But victory conditions aren't about diversification, they're about specialization. You want to excel at science, you need campuses. You want to go for culture, you need theaters. You want to generate a ton of faith, you need holy sites. You don't need to worry about the quality of any given city, just the quantity of districts.

This was intended to be somewhat addressed through those policy cards that double district yields, as they were revised to only award a full 100% to cities with a pop of 10 or greater. But it's a really watered-down benefit. 10 isn't exactly prohibitive to ICS.

The goal of Civ 6 is to provide players a "win your way" experience....

....But the result is a "win this way" experience.

You can have lots of options without any meaningful choices. You don't have to "overcome" the obstacle of happiness. You can just ignore it. Can't ignore loyalty, but you can deal with it in a rote fashion. It's good for a game to put a player in a situation where they can't do something they want to do because things didn't go their way. The possibility of failure is one of the things that distinguishes a game from an activity.

 

[Ziad]

In theory, you develop your cities a district at a time, waiting for them to grow so you can build more districts. But victory conditions aren't about diversification, they're about specialization..

This is a little reductive seeing that the components are more interconnected than that. The fact that some victory conditions promote certain setups are a consequence of picking that victory condition, which in essence doesn't even guarantee success (so you're putting all your eggs in one basket). It doesn't mean that you can outright ignore everything else either.

GS doubles down on this, with a player that ignores diplomacy being prone to receiving crippling penalties.

....But the result is a "win this way" experience.

A meta exists in any activity. It's up to the player to define what they want out of the game.

Personally I play Civilization with roleplaying in mind, and that in itself reinforces certain limitations to my gameplay often to my detriment.

 

[Disgustipated]

I was reading a certain lengthy article in the Atlantic whose contents we won't discuss here, but that got me thinking (or actually dreaming in my nap after work). Is there a way to incorporate things like impeachment and revolution in this game? Revolution I see to be much simpler than impeachment. I'll start there since people are talking about expanding costs above. These would be ideas for a 3rd expansion or possibly just a mod.

I would say if you have over 10 cities (or maybe you might set the number at 15) all in negative amenities your empire should have a revolution and you are thrown out- game over. Harsh? Yeah maybe. Obviously you give the player some warning first and a way to counteract this. Like say utilize all your pooled currencies (dropping gold, faith, and diplomatic favors to 0) to buy you an extra 40 turns or so (depending on speed) to build entertainment districts etc. Will they ever implement something so harsh in Civ6? Probably not. They are pretty gentle with players this game. I know what you are thinking, aren't I the person who complains about Civ 5's happiness mechanics? My biggest problem with that game is I had no way to counteract it. I either didn't have tech for colosseums, or if I did and built one in every city, that wasn't enough. God I hate that game. And maybe running a bankrupt nation for 10 turns would also spur revolution. Just some rough ideas. If this happened to the AI player it should just cause every one of their cities to go to free cities and they are eliminated from the game. This would provide a brake on unrestricted expansion either through warfare or peaceful. It would force you to stop and focus on amenities for a while before expanding again.

And impeachment, this one would really only apply in democracy and the future era version of democracy. It's a little harder to think of ideas for this, but I wanted to include it because of the article I read this morning. Things like triggering a betrayal emergency or even just certain cassus belli should trigger this (really if you want to be a belligerent, you shouldn't be in democracy anyways, it's your own fault). And yeah, you are impeached, game over. Harsh? maybe. It will certainly get your attention. Perhaps we could add things like a shrinking economy. This is harder to implement since it's impossible to run a gold deficit later in the game I would think unless you completely ignore commercial hubs. You might have to include things like declining gold per turn to represent your corruption that is draining the economy.

 

[Ziad]

I think "impeachment" might be a tad much but I do think that if there is indeed a third expansion, they'll expand a bit on loyalty. There's a lot more that can be done in terms of culture and unrest.

 

[bbbt]

Impeachment - or any of the number of "keep the civ change the leader" events that have happened through history - don't really work with Civs, single, high development cost leader models.

I.e. Trajan gets assisinated in the Senate and replaced with Shaka?

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

Kind of defeats the the point of ruling with an immortal despot.

 

[Ondolindë]

I really enjoy the idea of impeachment and revolutions. I don't think it is feasible in Civ VI considering that not all civilizations have a second leader and Ed commented before R&F that they are not going that route and would rather leave models to implement them. But it is a fun idea to consider.

i.e. The people of England get fed up with Victoria's attitude and is forced to abdicate due to the decrease in loyalty and happiness. Eleanor takes her place. Not historically nor chronologically correct, but it would be fun.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think it would be more viable to have "congress" force you to implement certain amenity cards if you go too low, much as democracy in the old games might make you declare peace randomly.

 

[steveg700]

This is a little reductive seeing that the components are more interconnected than that. The fact that some victory conditions promote certain setups are a consequence of picking that victory condition, which in essence doesn't even guarantee success (so you're putting all your eggs in one basket). It doesn't mean that you can outright ignore everything else either.

With the victory conditions being what they are, winning a game of Civ is about picking a victory goal early and then beelining towards that goal. Anything else the player does to deviate is either reacting to exogenous events or just screwing around. Players can put their eggs in one basket with confidence because the game is procedural in nature, and the design ensures that costs and risks are minor considerations once you're out of early-game hell.

A meta exists in any activity. It's up to the player to define what they want out of the game.

No no, this is Civ VI we're talking about, not some sandbox game from Paradox.

Seriously though, if you are not taking actions to pursue the endgame, you're just screwing around. Doing what promotes success is not meta-gaming. That's just gaming.

If you are not focused on civ as a game, then choices and consequences aren't meaningful and don't have to be balanced. Bully for you, but not valuable as input on discussions of game balance.

Personally I play Civilization with roleplaying in mind, and that in itself reinforces certain limitations to my gameplay often to my detriment.

Okay, so you're playing your own personal sandbox game, which kinda effectively negates your rebuttal, as it has no bearing on anything I said--except perhaps to reinforce the lacking nature of the actual game we are provided with.

 

[Ziad]

With the victory conditions being what they are, winning a game of Civ is about picking a victory goal early and then beelining towards that goal. Anything else the player does to deviate is either reacting to exogenous events or just screwing around.

You still pursue the victory conditions as they are. You're eliminating any sort of context to gameplay and just reducing it to a mechanical process.

What you're describing is optimal gameplay, not gameplay.

And that's not even true. If you ignore your military then you can be crushed if you beeline culture. Putting all your eggs in one basket.

No no, this is Civ VI we're talking about, not some sandbox game from Paradox.

Who are you to define what a Civilization game is or how someone plays it? I'm providing an example of how one can add parameters to diversify the experience.

I fail to see what the difference is between playing the game with a "Historic limitations" setting and one placing their own limitations.

If your entire experience of a video game is dictated by what is provided to you by the game and only that, then you will inevitably hit a plateau.

As a less "personal" example, mods do the same thing I describe except in a more material form. It can enhance the baseline gameplay experience. If you've ever used mods, then you have modified the gameplay parameters and shifted the path to a victory condition.

*shrug* do what you want. I have no empathy for p

 

[steveg700]

Who are you to define what a Civilization game is or how someone plays it?

Well, imagine that you might criticize a novel on the basis on the basis of plot and character motivation--the sort of things that people generally evaluate as good writing. Someone else could declare that it's a fine novel, and then show us the doodles they made in the margins, or they can open to the middle and place it on their heads and show us what a fetching hat it makes. If that's what they enjoy, bully for them. But that means of finding inventing enjoyment with the book is separate and apart from an effective rebuttal of the initial criticism, which involves interacting with the story on the terms of its structure as a work of writing.

I assert that ICS has no meaningful costs or risks. Not trying to harsh anyone's buzz, but I don't see how relating that you enjoy roleplaying and self-imposed obstacles constitutes a counterpoint.

As to being crushed if you don't have enough military, I submit that's just another argument for ICS, not against it. All civ's would do well to be able to defend themselves. To be strong militarily, settle more cities, not fewer. More cities, more production, more units. Fewer cities, less production, fewer units. Again, if you've survived the opening ancient-era free-for-all, a player will be fine in the majority of cases.

 

[darko82]

I'd rather want them to release the DLL for modders to fix the game (the AI). Because they are not able to. They just release the new content to grab the cash without fixing the game.

So I do not want the third expansion if they cannot fix the game first.

After my last game, I am frustrated. The more so that, I like the game.

 

[sonicmyst]

I still see a third expansion and my hope is that they focus more in economy of the civs.

Corporations could come back.
Espionage for stealing gold could still be improved. Perhaps the amount of gold stolen should also scale based on era?
Same with gold maintenance costs of standing army, they should scale up with era, or they should have higher maintenance costs during war.
Stock market crashes, recession and embezzlements could cause loyalty reduction and unhappiness.
Trade embargo could be added in WC. Sanctions for a warmongering civ? Yes I want that.
And of course, economic victory.