[NFP] How can the early civics tree be better?

[GunsGermsandSteel]

TL/DR. There is only one civic to choose from on turn one, which is boring, and the ancient/early classical options are very limiting. I would like to discuss it but mainly would just like to bring it to the developers attention so they can come up with an optimal fix.


I am hoping this can be more of an open discussion than just me proposing a couple of ideas. Really I just want to highlight the issue and Firaxis comes up with the fix. This is somewhat of a long post.

The Problem
On turn one you get to choose from FIVE different technologies. There are several things to consider here and risk/rewards with some (astrology for example). It's interesting and I often choose different techs depending on the civ and map. Heck there might even be too many techs to choose from at the start.

Compare that to civics. There is only ONE civic to 'choose' from at the beginning of the game. That's just boring and very skewed with the plethora of options for techs. That's only one part of the problem. The other issue is that from there the top an bottom parts of the civic trees skip over political philosophy. As such you are often either 'cavalry rushing at the expensive of overall civ development' or beelineing for political philosophy just so you can unlock a 4 card government. Political philosophy is also a bit weird in that it unlocks ALL three early governments. Every government after that gets unlocked from a specific tree route. This really doesn't make sense because the "ingredients" for these early governments should really be different.

My Suggestion
Entirely rebuild the early civics up to about late-classical. Most likely they would release change with one of the packs and would likely add in new civics/polices with new districts/etc. What we need though is to have 3 civics to choose from in the beginning that fit the following themes:
Culture/State building - Leads to Classical Republic
Military/Religious - Leads to Autocracy
Trade/Expansion - Leads to Oligarchy

Three possible starting civics now with an early bonus:
Code of Law (Military and Economic slot). Monuments build 50% faster.
Ceremonial Burial (Military and Wildcard slot). +1 faith per city.
Social Stratification (Military, Economic slot). Diplomatic slot.

Part of the idea here is that if instead of continuing down the tree you could get each one of these one right after the other, which would allow you to unlock for different policy slots.

Of course there would still be mutual civics before you could unlock the civic containing the government. I'm not suggesting there be three straight lines. There could even be some concepts/unlocks shifted from the tech tree to the civics tree like astrology or even some parts of the naval tech line. Surely if they did did all this there would be new early policies, at least one of which should be called something like 'Artistic Reliefs' which would grant +2 culture per city.

Lastly, the three different early governments should not all be unlocked at the same pace, Autocracy should be first, Oligarchy second, Classical republic last.

I hope the developers pay attention to this. It is a rather glaring issue in game design. Especially considering that in Civ 5 you could choose from three different policies to begin with, and with further unlocks either develop down the tree or just get the early bonus from each. What are your thoughts?

 

[UWHabs]

I doubt this is the sort of change they would bring in now, but I agree that the setup is too narrow. The governments are way too strong early - you gain both double the amount of policy slots, plus inherrent bonuses, that it's incredibly rare to ever want to delay that by even a turn.

I don't know how to redesign things, and while the current setup leads to similar civics paths, which actual policy cards you use can dictate which direction your civ grows in. So while there's only 1 civic early to research, once you're done that you at least have a few different choices in policy cards. So having a few different track would potentially let you specialize a little more.

However, it does start running into some problems just because those government choices are so strong early, that whatever path leads to the government will be the dominant choice. And you can't make it too hard to change gears and make a run at a different government, so you do have to be very careful when designing the early tree to make sure that you don't get too stuck on a path without a way to change gears.

 

[Tinkerture]

I'm pretty sure that the lack of early civic choice is a deliberate choice by the developers. Civ 6 is the first iteration to split the tech and civic trees. For better and worse, the goal of the civ franchise has been to make it accessible both to new and returning players. If new players are overwhelmed by the choices in the first few turns then they are less likely to stick with the game. Having the civic tree bottlenecked through one civic at the beginning of the game allows players to focus on other choices on turn 1, while gradually introducing the concept of civics. So while I might also enjoy more complexity in the early civics tree, I believe that it is likely designed in a way that is better for the overall health of the game.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

It might be nice if there was a three way path towards different first tier government. I don't think it's essential right now and the way it's set up is fine needing to get to Political Philosophy. Maybe they could do it in future games.
But I think flavor wise it makes sense that Code of Laws is the only one available at the very beginning at least. It's hard to build a society/government without a set of laws.

If you wanted I could see State workforce unlocking Autocracy, Early Empire unlocking Oligarchy, with Classical Republic staying at Political Philosophy.

 

[GunsGermsandSteel]

I'm pretty sure that the lack of early civic choice is a deliberate choice by the developers. Civ 6 is the first iteration to split the tech and civic trees. For better and worse, the goal of the civ franchise has been to make it accessible both to new and returning players. If new players are overwhelmed by the choices in the first few turns then they are less likely to stick with the game. Having the civic tree bottlenecked through one civic at the beginning of the game allows players to focus on other choices on turn 1, while gradually introducing the concept of civics. So while I might also enjoy more complexity in the early civics tree, I believe that it is likely designed in a way that is better for the overall health of the game.

Not quite sure what you mean by "Civ 6 is the first iteration to split the tech and civic tree"... Civ 5 had a tech tree and a policy tree. There were 4 techs to pick from and 3 policies (more were added with xpacs) to choose from at the start. civ 5 policies are very different from civ 6. I can't remember if you got to choose a policy from turn one or not, but you did had three choices once it was available and you could fully develop that small tree set, or pick and choose from the others.

Also, just a note that while I outlined my suggestion in the OP I am not saying it must be that. I could go for a much simpler change like they just add 1 other civic to the beginning of the game or just split the governments up. I just want the developers to do something to make early civics more interesting.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Not quite sure what you mean by "Civ 6 is the first iteration to split the tech and civic tree"... Civ 5 had a tech tree and a policy tree. There were 4 techs to pick from and 3 policies (more were added with xpacs) to choose from at the start. civ 5 policies are very different from civ 6. I can't remember if you got to choose a policy from turn one or not, but you did had three choices once it was available and you could fully develop that small tree set, or pick and choose from the others.

You unlock more than just policies/governments in the Civ 6 culture tree though. I'm not quite sure many people see those from Civ 5 as a tree though. They are more similar to the governors where you pick one or multiple and then go down the line from the beginning.
It also has units and districts/buildings.

 

[GunsGermsandSteel]

True, it wasn't a "tree" in Civ 5. You are right that you unlock a wider variety of things from culture in Civ 6.
Still, my point is there were more options with what your culture option (be it civics tree or policies or whatever else) in civ 5. Not that I want this to be civ 5 vs civ 6. Just pointing out that in Civ 5 you had several options in the early part of the game for what you did with your culture "spending".
The point is I just want more viable decisions in the early civics tree in Civ 6.

 

[civfan_999]

I don't see only one option in the first row as an issue. You can start making choices by your second civic. I would, however, like to see the three teir 1 governments all show up in different civics, rather than the same one. That will influence choices after you complete that first civic.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Remove "astrology" from the Science tree. There are way too many early districts tied to science and too few to civics.

Add "Mythology"/Storytelling"/"Animism" to the Civics tree alongside "Craftsmanship" and "Foreign Trade", granting Holy Site and Shrine and unlocking "Mysticism".