How much uniqueness should each faction have ?

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More a discussion point than a suggestion, interested in peoples thoughts on how many unique bonuses each faction should get. For instance in VI we have the civ ability, leader ability, unique infrastructure (improvement/building/district) and unique unit (some have multiple).

I find having a civ ability and leader ability a bit cluttered. Like technically random leaders for each civ should work, but then you look at something like Kupe leading the Malinese (Start in Ocean without sailing or shipbuilding somehow).

I would go
Leader Ability
Unique Great People (To replace having civ abilities. This allows you to for instance adapt England to an inland start. It also means you don't roll say Russia as an opponent and just never great any great people as a result).
Unique Unit (I only want one though, it should feel like a big opportunity)
Unique Infrastructure
A starting technology (To vary starts more between each civ)

I think that's enough uniqueness while also not being so much as to scare away new players. In particular the great person thing, like if you hit a new player with say 6 bonuses (Sumeria for instance) at the game start they spend like 15 minutes just reading. You have one ability to start the game (the leader ability), to sort of define your playthrough, then as your knowledge of the game increases you add more abilities as you go. You also avoid "cool I'm France, I get to play through two eras of being generic before my earliest unique comes up".
 
Unique Great People (To replace having civ abilities. This allows you to for instance adapt England to an inland start. It also means you don't roll say Russia as an opponent and just never great any great people as a result).
I have two objections to this. The first is that competitive Great People was one of Civ6's best ideas (even if Russia specifically breaks the system--that was bad design, and I say that as someone who overall adores Civ6 Russia's design). The second is that this would be very difficult to do for some civs. How many Cree Great Writers can you name? I've got Tomson Highway, and his work is still copyrighted. There are probably a couple more, but my point is that while certain civs might be easy to fill out Great People lists for (China, France, England, Arabia, etc.), others would not. Better to keep the Great People universal. Another reason to keep Great People competitive and universal is that this is very often how Great People worked in real life. Courts all over Europe were fighting over Desiderius Erasmus (who politely declined all of them), and courts would recruit scholars, artists, and musicians from all over the world to work for them.

Moving back to your core question, however, I want every civ to be maximally distinct with a lot more civs that have a unique niche like Maori, Mali, and Inca in Civ6. However, I do think the abilities need some streamlining and also need to involve a lot fewer flat bonuses. I'm of two minds about splitting Leader and Civ abilities: namely, multiple leaders either need to be used more broadly or not at all, and gimmicky dual leaders like Eleanor and Kublai need to disappear and never come back. I like your idea about bringing back starting techs from Civ4; this would help shake up the early game and would compensate civs whose abilities focus on later portions of the game as you say.
 
You also avoid "cool I'm France, I get to play through two eras of being generic before my earliest unique comes up".

I actually prefer that some civs have era specific abilities. Having Gran Columbia and America be ancient era domination civs doesn't make them as fun for me as if they were given era appropriate bonus, assuming those bonus are given some heft for having to wait for an era. Not the all civ's should have era specific abilities. Egypt and China could be built with game long bonus.

Unique great people - This could be a place for people like Gandhi and Budica to go instead of making them leaders.
 
Unique great people - This could be a place for people like Gandhi and Budica to go instead of making them leaders.
Boudicca is already a Great General in Civ6 (and may she never be otherwise). If we brought in something like Boris Gudenuf's Great Ministers, that would be a great place to shuffle off Gandhi. Have him give a bonus to nuclear development if you absolutely must have your Nuclear Gandhi meme. :p
 
Unique Great People (To replace having civ abilities. This allows you to for instance adapt England to an inland start. It also means you don't roll say Russia as an opponent and just never great any great people as a result).
Other than a few exceptions like Portugal possibly getting Unique Admirals, or Gran Colombia's Comandante Generals, I'd rather the Great People pool be universal.

Something that I would like is for each leader to have their own unique unit or infrastructure, alongside the civs uniques.
Elizabeth with an Elizabethan Theater would play differently than Victoria with her Redcoats.
 
Something that I would like is for each leader to have their own unique unit or infrastructure, alongside the civs uniques.
Ooh, I like this. Having more than one unique infrastructure would feel great for me since I almost never build a Unique Unit unless it replaces something in the Scout or Archer line. :p
 
I'd like to see Civs start out with variable Uniques.

By this I mean that you start with a Civ and after seeing your starting position/situation you choose from a number of Uniques hat are specifically related to that situation. Some of them may be absolutely Unique to the Civ and some could be 'generic Uniques' that are particular to terrain or other considerations.

Likewise, a Starting Tech could be either unique to the Civ (Scythians or another pastoral Civ always starting with Animal Husbandry or Horseback Riding, for instance) or, again, unique to the starting situation - you start on an island, some kind of Boating or Seafaring Tech should be in your immediate future.

That would make every Civ potentially slightly different upon starting, and also reduce some of the horror-shows we have now, of terrain-specific Uniques that turn out to be worthless because you didn't start in the 'right' terrain: tie those to the terrain rather than the Civ and that problem, at least, is largely solved.
 
On the great people thing, I'm assuming we don't have categories like "great writer/great admiral" etc. They are just great people. Maybe you each faction has like a pool of 10, you get 1 with each golden age, or you earn them by generating culture points, or developing your government. Do you have a favourite great writer to earn ? Is earning great musicians fun ? I guess that is splitting off into another discussion.

I did think about leaders having unique infrastructure. I feel like if you have a unit, like it is only relevant for part of a game, whereas infrastructure lasts an entire game, therefore a leader with infrastructure would almost always be preferable over a leader with a unit. But then if you restrict infrastructure to a specific era or time in the game, it starts getting difficult to use. Like there's a Chinese leader who gets early Canals and one that doesn't, if you play the one that doesn't are you just going through the playthrough feeling like you aren't getting 'the full China experience' ?

Starting tech based on the terrain you are in (as opposed to starting faction) is a very interesting idea. Tundra you maybe get an advanced or different form of animal husbandry (animal migration?) where you get +1 food from every tile adjacent to camps or something. If you are in starting jungle maybe you get a well tech giving you fresh water there.
 
Do you have a favourite great writer to earn ?
I actually do. I very much enjoy Sean Bean's delivery of Chaucer: it's quite wrong, but he gives it a nice lilt. I also really like Li Bai. I avoid Margaret Cavendish if it's not overly disadvantageous to me because the purple prose just kills my soul. :p

Is earning great musicians fun ?
No, because the poor-quality MIDIs they use sound like a carnival organ. :sad: Your clips are like ten seconds long, Firaxis. Would it have killed you to have the Prague Philharmonic perform those ten second clips while you already had them for the soundtrack? I digress.

However, you're right that GWAM need a rethink, but mostly in the sense that we need a more sensible way to represent non-tangible works of art than the current mode. Music and writing aren't significant for their original manuscripts, however valuable those original manuscripts may be. Along the same lines, we need ways to represent culturally significant anonymous and oral works like Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh, or The Raven Cycle. However, I still see these things working within the current Great Person framework, which I think works very well. It's been suggested before to make GWAM have unique abilities like other Great People, and I think that's a great idea.
 
GWAM could be used to convert "generic" population points into "specialized" workers for districts, replacing the current system of assigning pop to districts. By limiting the number of pop that can be assigned they could give specialists some meaningful bonuses. GWAM come in later in the game because this should be a late game mechanic.

By this I mean that you start with a Civ and after seeing your starting position/situation you choose from a number of Uniques hat are specifically related to that situation. Some of them may be absolutely Unique to the Civ and some could be 'generic Uniques' that are particular to terrain or other considerations.

This sound similar in concept to secret societies. You get to choose a single terrain type - sea side, island, mountainous, desert, hilly, plains, or lakes.

Speaking of secret societies I really like the idea of combining all unique abilities costing one type of promotion. Civ Unique abilities should be the most powerful but gaining access to Uniques should have some opportunity cost.
 
GWAM could be used to convert "generic" population points into "specialized" workers for districts, replacing the current system of assigning pop to districts. By limiting the number of pop that can be assigned they could give specialists some meaningful bonuses. GWAM come in later in the game because this should be a late game mechanic.
Don't like this. First, I can't see the connection between GWAM and specialists; if anything, most people inspired by a GWAM are going to aspire to be a GWAM themselves. Second, Great Musicians are already much, much too late in the game.
 
I did think about leaders having unique infrastructure. I feel like if you have a unit, like it is only relevant for part of a game, whereas infrastructure lasts an entire game, therefore a leader with infrastructure would almost always be preferable over a leader with a unit. But then if you restrict infrastructure to a specific era or time in the game, it starts getting difficult to use. Like there's a Chinese leader who gets early Canals and one that doesn't, if you play the one that doesn't are you just going through the playthrough feeling like you aren't getting 'the full China experience' ?
I mean Qin already does get early canals in Civ 6 and Kublai doesn't. :p
 
I mean Qin already does get early canals in Civ 6 and Kublai doesn't. :p
Pretty sure that's what he was referencing. :p Of course, one might well ask what's the point of multiple leaders if they don't get different abilities? :p
 
Don't like this. First, I can't see the connection between GWAM and specialists; if anything, most people inspired by a GWAM are going to aspire to be a GWAM themselves. Second, Great Musicians are already much, much too late in the game.

My assumption is that there needs to a shake up in Civ 7 that makes the late game matter (specialists as well). Break up the culture victory into painting and sculpture, literature and music. Music would come later where you have to build performances spaces and train your citizens to perform there. GWAM would be a shortcut to training otherwise you would have to create a music school and run a project..
 
My assumption is that there needs to a shake up in Civ 7 that makes the late game matter (specialists as well). Break up the culture victory into painting and sculpture, literature and music. Music would come later where you have to build performances spaces and train your citizens to perform there. GWAM would be a shortcut to training otherwise you would have to create a music school and run a project..
I agree that we need a late game shakeup and that specialists need to be more important, but I don't like music coming later. It doesn't make sense, and it has the effect of making Great Musicians feel like an afterthought. Despite being worth more tourism, Great Musicians currently feel irrelevant to the CV due to how late they come. I realize you're suggesting an alternate way to make late-game Musicians matter, but I think it makes more sense to have them start earlier in the game.
 
That would make every Civ potentially slightly different upon starting, and also reduce some of the horror-shows we have now, of terrain-specific Uniques that turn out to be worthless because you didn't start in the 'right' terrain: tie those to the terrain rather than the Civ and that problem, at least, is largely solved.
This is a problem about the world generation, a proper starting point assignation should be assured for each civ with terrain bias. Even the starting tech a la CIV4 would be way more usefull if a naval civ with Fishing tech start next to the sea.

Now about ways to be unique...

WE THE PEOPLE
Of course CIV have famous leaders, great peoples and theirs works but where is the people and their traditions?

Give identity to each main civ, city state and barbarian group in the form of an unique Heritage that provide you their Tradition when they become a significative part of your empire. This traditions are similar to Techs/Civics but are earned by the management you do to incorporate those populations, no more brainless accumulation of mana points, use actions and decisions on map, diplomacy and techs/civics/tenets to either add many heritages to your nation or go full nationalist and reach the higger tier bonus from a single specialized tradition.

By the way this would be related to immigration mechanic and could be done for any culture and since the early game unlike the famous specific historical figures needed for others game mechanics.
 
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This is a problem about the world generation, a proper starting point assignation should be assured for each civ with terrain bias. Even the starting tech a la CIV4 would be way more usefull if a naval civ with Fishing tech start next to the sea.

Now about ways to be unique...

WE THE PEOPLE
Of course CIV have famous leaders, great peoples and theirs works but where is the people and their traditions?

Give identity to each main civ, city state and barbarian group in the form of an unique Heritage that provide you their Tradition when they become a significative part of your empire. This traditions are similar to Techs/Civics but are earned by the management you do to incorporate those populations, no more brainless accumulation of mana points, use actions and decisions on map, diplomacy and techs/civics/tenets to either add many heritages to your nation or go full nationalist and reach the higger tier bonus from a single specialized tradition.

By the way this would be related to immigration mechanic and could be done for any culture and since the early game unlike the famous specific historical figures needed for others game mechanics.

I really like that idea, giving your population some sort of identity through traditions made by your Civ's decisions would be a very interesting way to add some weight to the choices you make as a leader!

This probably isn't very surprising but I'd also like each civ to have more Unique Units and Unique Buildings available to them (probably around 3-5). The only tricky that I can think of right now is that some civs like Persia, China, etc. could have uniques from every era while others like Babylonia would be much more limited since all their choices would be picked from 1-2 eras.
 
If we brought in something like Boris Gudenuf's Great Ministers, that would be a great place to shuffle off Gandhi
I had an Idea about National Governors/Ministers that I want to implement in 4XP, and this talk about Great People and Great Ministers got me thinking; what if we could have Great Ministers that get claimed normally with GMP, but instead of getting a Unit, you get a Governor/Minister? a National Governor with the Name and Picture of the Great Minister, who has 1 Unique Promotion (the Unique Ability) and the rest are usual generic Promotions (3-4 in Total, number based on GP Era) based on the Minister Type (Foreign, Culture, Defence, Finance...etc.). No guarantee for unlocking ALL Great Minister Types, but it would add so much replayability to the always stiff Governors. And you can skip any Great Minister if you

As for OP's Question; I agree, making the Players have a bit less Abilities (and more Unique Infrastructure), but making each one more Unique would certainly be a good thing IMO. And I think you can find plenty of Ideas for each Civ to have a truly Unique Bonus.
 
I had an Idea about National Governors/Ministers that I want to implement in 4XP, and this talk about Great People and Great Ministers got me thinking; what if we could have Great Ministers that get claimed normally with GMP, but instead of getting a Unit, you get a Governor/Minister? a National Governor with the Name and Picture of the Great Minister, who has 1 Unique Promotion (the Unique Ability) and the rest are usual generic Promotions (3-4 in Total, number based on GP Era) based on the Minister Type (Foreign, Culture, Defence, Finance...etc.). No guarantee for unlocking ALL Great Minister Types, but it would add so much replayability to the always stiff Governors. And you can skip any Great Minister if you
That was more or less what Boris Gudenuf proposed. You can read more here.
 
every single civ in every single game should be different

Play as China in one game. Start surrounded by mountains and desert and ocean just like irl. Develop like IRL, but the player can make changes.

Play as China in another game. Start surrounded
by fertile terrain split up by mountains. Split into mini-Chinas that eventually turn into the Sinicized version of Europe

Play as China in yet another game. Start in an isolated island with no draft animals.

Reset.

Turn on Mythological mode. Play as China. Beeline for the most broken mythological units (terracotta soldiers, shapeshifting dragon ladies, etc) only to lose because Brazil has the power of memes on its side

uninstall

jump off cliff

revive to do it all over
 
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