Hopes for Civ 7 (or things I wish they'd fix in Civ 6)

Vandal Thorne

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Whelp, after getting fed up for how easily civic and technology research gets out of sync (once again) and the resulting anachronisms it causes I'm back to playing Civ 5 while waiting for Humankind to drop.

I'm hoping Civ 7 does the following things (or that Firaxis will make one more mega expansion to Civ 6 to experiment with some of these things)

1) Tie era progression to a variety of achievements instead of just either of technology or civic progress. Also ditch the calendar. What year it is is pretty meaningless in game. Related, culture and science should feed into one another so that neither lags too far behind the other.

2) Better than tying culture and science together would be to abandon the technology-like civic tree (this approach is a fundamental design flaw in Civ 6) and go back to a card or similar system like earlier versions of Civ did it. Civics are too much like technologies, for which, why not merge them together rather than make an anachronism machine?

3) Add a prehistory stage to the game!

4) Automate missionaries and other religious units. Fussing around with them constantly is tedious.

5) Ditto spies!

6) Richer emersion with deeper tech tree, more military unit variety, and more resource variety.

On the whole, Civ 6 has been much less fun for my play style than older versions of Civ. I'm guessing that Humankind is going to be closer to my kind of gameplay experience. Which is sad because Civ is a grand old franchise.
 
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1) Tie era progression to a variety of achievements instead of just either of technology or civic progress. Also ditch the calendar. What year it is is pretty meaningless in game. Related, culture and science should feed into one another so that neither lags too far behind the other.

2) Better than tying culture and science together would be to abandon the technology-like civic tree (this approach is a fundamental design flaw in Civ 6) and go back to a card or similar system like earlier versions of Civ did it. Civics are too much like technologies, for which, why not merge them together rather than make an anachronism machine?

I don't mind this system. At least to me it makes sense as why you would unlock a Theater Square and amphitheater from cultural progress rather than scientific progress.

At the same time I wouldn't mind a system like Civ 5 Social Policy tree as long as the many of those things including the governments and policies, as well as certain districts, buildings, and wonders have to be unlocked on them.

I agree on a prehistoric era and choosing to automate religious units and spies.
 
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1. I think eras should be determined by tech era or era should come from a pre selected list that activates under certain circumstances (Age of Sail, Bronze Age)
2. With Boris Gudenuf, I imagined special policies that have different things and bonuses. One of them is hierarchy, allowing Civs to build cities and ends the Neolithic segment
3. Neolithic is a good idea
4 and 5. Agree. Religions could be special ai civs
6. Totally agree
 
I could fill a thousand threads with my wishlists for civ7, but a couple of things I wish they would bring back from my favorite version (civ4):

1. The maturing villages i.e. you found a trading post, work it for x number of turns and it becomes a hamlet, etc etc, Made for an interesting dynamic and gave older cities more value. I guess it could fit into the district concept but honestly I would go right back to straight villages and leave the rest in the city center.

2. State religions. Like, in that you had to choose a religion for your civ which would have consequences for your citizen's happiness and other civ's attitudes towards you. Too often I find that religion is something I completely ignore in civ6 if I'm not going for a religious victory; state religions made it matter.

3. A simpler civics system, or at least ones that matter. Too often I find that the forms of government only really differ in policy slots, there's little flavor between them. As such, you don't really have as many hard choices to make, as especially in the later game you can hold seemingly opposite policies at the same time.
 
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I agree on points 3 and 4. Religion should be a mechanic that the player has no control over, outside of perhaps adopting a certain one as a state religion. The quasi-domination-style religious victory doesn't really work.

As far as micromanagement goes, I'd love if governors were reworked to reduce it. I wish you could assign a governor to a city and then they could take over and decide what's produced (to a point -- the player should still have control over district placement) so that you don't have to handle 30 cities that have all completed production in the same turn. Additionally, it'd be nice if you could make AI players vassals once you take over their civ, again so you don't have to then decide what's produced in 10+ more cities.
 
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1. The maturing villages i.e. you found a trading post, work it for x number of turns and it becomes a hamlet, etc etc, Made for an interesting dynamic and gave older cities more value. I guess it could fit into the district concept but honestly I would go right back to straight villages and leave the rest in the city center.

I doubt they will abandon completely the districts-on-map in 7. So, we could go this way : instead of planting districts anywhere, we could "settle" resources (any type) with a district on top of them (ranch for cattle, plantation for tobacco, etc.) and they would grow slowly over time. They even could yield different things, not only gold. (food, production -those two can be lacking in 6-, gold, faith, culture, etc.) With time, they might be able to grow on surrounding tiles, for whatever benefits. Such conglomerats could overlap, giving a mix of yields.

First in Civ5 I found that the player has too much space to grow. I mean, we were creating farms to work, to create more citizens, to work more farms. It was counter-productive ! Best players improved land more less than i did first. So, I concluded that each city had too much unnecessary room. But with 6, I now struggle for room ! Too often i find myself with slow-growth and slow-production cities. I wish I could make farm triangles or more, but often, even a basic triangle is impossible. And the map generator does not help. (rivers should bring other benefits than housing, because elsewhere we can always plant Wells)

That leads to me wanting to be able to work the tiles with districts and wonders. We can somehow already work some districts tiles, with specialists, but it appears that it's sub-optimal, and i will not bother to check it. (i don't even know how many science beakers a scientist gives, two maybe ?) So, either we should go for working districts the normal way ("districts" in reality don't take so much room), just like if there was no district (that could be pillaged still), and even improve the land to farms or mines for example, plus some room for valuable specialists, either we should revise the concept of "specialists", like replacing the campus by a monastery, with monks that could create science as well as food, production or luxuries. Buildings inside districts could bring 3 things : inner %bonus, additionnal specialists room, and better yields.

That might make disctricts more important early, especially in multiplayer. That doesn't remove the fact that an aggressive neighbour could benefit from your districts if he conquers your cities, so some districts like monasteries should pop military units regularly.

Well... MONKS. :D
 
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I doubt they will abandon completely the districts-on-map in 7. So, we could go this way : instead of planting districts anywhere, we could "settle" resources (any type) with a district on top of them (ranch for cattle, plantation for tobacco, etc.) and they would grow slowly over time. They even could yield different things, not only gold. (food, production -those two can be lacking in 6-, gold, faith, culture, etc.) With time, they might be able to grow on surrounding tiles, for whatever benefits. Such conglomerats could overlap, giving a mix of yields.

Yeah, I could get behind that. I would like to have the option of villages for giving value to otherwise unproductive tiles.

(rivers should bring other benefits than housing, because elsewhere we can always plant Wells)

The fact that rivers don't impact trade routes at all annoys me to no end,

That leads to me wanting to be able to work the tiles with districts and wonders. We can somehow already work some districts tiles, with specialists, but it appears that it's sub-optimal, and i will not bother to check it.

It'll never happen, but I would move it all -- wonders, districts and buildings -- back into the city center. If that isn't possible, just add 'layers' to the map: a tile can contain a farm *and* the Eiffel tower. I'm sick of my wonders taking up so much place and still don't understand that they can harvest strategic resources, as long as I build them before they're discovered.

either we should revise the concept of "specialists", like replacing the campus by a monastery, with monks that could create science as well as food, production or luxuries. Buildings inside districts could bring 3 things : inner %bonus, additionnal specialists room, and better yields.

I want specialists, mainly because it opens to door to something else in the game: class. Not just that your citizens can produce more money or science, but also that specialists are made happy by things different than their agrarian cousins. Policies should impact different strata of society differently, and you as a ruler have to decide if you align yourself with the peasantry, the middle class or the aristocracy.
 
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It'll never happen, but I would move it all -- wonders, districts and buildings -- back into the city center. If that isn't possible, just add 'layers' to the map: a tile can contain a farm *and* the Eiffel tower. I'm sick of my wonders taking up so much place and still don't understand that they can harvest strategic resources, as long as I build them before they're discovered.

Yeah, but i thought more about each wonder giving peculiar inner yields while worked, although it makes little sense.

I want specialists, mainly because it opens to door to something else in the game: class. Not just that your citizens can produce more money or science, but also that specialists are made happy by things different than their agrarian cousins. Policies should impact different strata of society differently, and you as a ruler have to decide if you align yourself with the peasantry, the middle class or the aristocracy.

Not to contradict you, but in history it's more or less always the "aristocracy" that is favourised, even in Communism. And if the game is realistic, the middle class is the more massive, so one should favourize it while choosing policy cards. Not sure it's a good idea except if you explain why. :)
 
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Go Full Bethesda

1). Nail the basic elements of your genre (They have already shown they can do this)
2). Encourage and support a modding scene (already done)
3). Release a full suite of modding tools and access
4). Watch the modding community do most of your QA, bug fixing, and custom content generation for you. For free
5). Money printer BRRRRRRR

Seriously any primarily single player genre publisher that doesnt do this is stupid
 
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Go Full Bethesda

1). Nail the basic elements of your genre (They have already shown they can do this)
2). Encourage and support a modding scene (already done)
3). Release a full suite of modding tools and access
4). Watch the modding community do most of your QA, bug fixing, and custom content generation for you. For free
5). Money printer BRRRRRRR

Seriously any primarily single player genre publisher that doesnt do this is stupid

Can think of fewer things more emblematic of hellscape capitalism than expecting free labor from people to fix something they paid for and creating a multi-tiered experience based on how much money you can spend (PCs vs consoles).
 
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Can think of fewer things more emblematic of hellscape capitalism than expecting free labor from people to fix something they paid for and creating a multi-tiered experience based on how much money you can spend (PCs vs consoles).

People shouldn’t have hobbies? Because this is what most modding amounts to

You analogy would be correct if say buying the game required you to work X hours a week on it for free.

But it doesnt

So it’s not
 
You analogy would be correct if say buying the game required you to work X hours a week on it for free.

4). Watch the modding community do most of your QA, bug fixing, and custom content generation for you. For free

If that isn't expecting free work from people then what is it? Even if it is only a small portion of the fanbase it's still factoring in free labor from people who bought the game.

People shouldn’t have hobbies? Because this is what most modding amounts to

Sure, for nonessential stuff, not bug fixes and quality control. Expecting a small portion of your fanbase to make non-cosmetic improvements to your game for free is exploitative, regardless of enthusiasm of the fanbase is about doing it. Custom civs, sure, and I respect the passion but stuff like Vox Populi for Civ5 is a little much. The fanbase should not be making substantive gameplay improvements, for free, whatever the reason.
 
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Two biggies for me:

1) bring back capitulation/vassal states.
2) capturing an enemy's holy city should provide the benefits it provided the original owner as it did in previous civs.
 
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Not to contradict you, but in history it's more or less always the "aristocracy" that is favourised, even in Communism. And if the game is realistic, the middle class is the more massive, so one should favourize it while choosing policy cards. Not sure it's a good idea except if you explain why. :)

If you mean that the ruling class favours itself, then yes, that is the way things tend to go. But there is a difference between a government whos power and legitimacy comes from a landed gentry versus one that is supported by merchants or priests.

I guess my point is this: currently the only source of 'internal' unrest comes from a lack of resources. No peasant revolts because of new taxes, no nobleman revolts due to lost fiefs, no merchant plots to grab power or gain rights. Empires more often than not fall from the inside and, at the risk of sounding too Marxist, because of friction between classes.

I think this could be a cool thing to have in Civ because it would add another dimension to the game that would be quite situation specific. If the majority of your citizens are working farm and mine tiles, you had better adopt policies to keep them content (or alternately, under control through force). If you have a very urbanized civ with a large number of citizens working commercial districts, you'd be smart make concessions to your merchants to keep them trading. A large number of temples and monasteries? Keep pious. And if you have a mix of cities in a diverse empire, well, you have some decisions to make...
 
No fond of your idea (i think there's enough decisions making as is), but if anything that reminds me a proto-idea i had in addition to policy cards : having laws adopted. Not sure if you would need a form of currency to adopt new ones, but a system of class with pros and cons could limit it automatically.
 
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