How much uniqueness should each faction have ?

[Boris Gudenuf]

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

Not a bad summary of my thoughts.

Although terrain that encourages a fragmented China simply makes the historical Chinese Three, Ten, or Sixteen Kingdoms or Five Dynasties periods more likely than the Han, Song, Tang, or Ming models.

And, if you really want a Diety-level of difficulty, China on an isolated Island might be it, with no 'regular' Chinese Uniques that apply until much later in the game (the great Treasure Fleets of Huang-Di, which you won't get until half-way through the game, if ever)

I would think of Mythological Mode as Civ VI's Heroes and Legends done Right, including not only individual 'Heroes' but also Legendary Units like an animated Terracotta Army - which you can 'Upgrade' after Capek finishes writing writing about his R.U.R.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

I would think of Mythological Mode as Civ VI's Heroes and Legends done Right, including not only individual 'Heroes' but also Legendary Units like an animated Terracotta Army - which you can 'Upgrade' after Capek finishes writing writing about his R.U.R.

yup!

I want to summon Achilles himself and send him against Lu Bu

 

[Ryansinbela]

That’s what the Fate series is for

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

That’s what the Fate series is for

fate turns everything into generic anime, i am not against anime (i in fact like it) but it just makes it bland. If you want something Japanese, get Doi or Kaneko to do it

 

[Ryansinbela]

Yeah, I was joking (I have no knowledge of Fate)

 

[Xandinho]

I'm a little ambitious so I'd go for:

Civ ability.
Leader ability.
And three more unique ones that can be a combination of unique unit, unique infrastructure and a third unique that can be anything (unique religious unit, unique civil unit, unique Great People, unique governor, unique national wonder, other unique unit or other unique infrastructure ).
Free starter technology.
Customized starting location (Portugal and England always on the coast. Inca always close to mountains).

I like civilizations as distinct from each other as possible.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

As is probably known by now, I'm broadly in favor of richer civilizations and probably have a higher tolerance of content-heavy approaches.

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.

This is a great point. While I also would like to see highly distinct even niche/asymmetric design, a district like the Acropolis (shipped with the base game, I believe) goes to show how less really can be more. Streamlining Civilization for flavor/immersion would go a long way.

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.

This has got to be the coolest idea I have seen for some time. It runs the risk of possibly feeling a bit artificial in-game, but it's a great development of many other ideas here about crafting an organic, distinct identity from very early on.

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.

Two interesting points here. First, the idea of integrating local traditions into heritage is a nice balance between Suzerain Bonuses as resulting from sovereignty vs. cultural identity. Second, yes, something parallel has definitely occurred to me before. If I chase tourism and lightly turtle, when my neighbor invades, how exactly do I have the practical experience to train a force out of thin air? Civ VI models this perhaps unintentionally, in that the industrial burden of cultural and scientific victories can make it easy to neglect defense, whereas grievances can alienate the player in pursuing a cultural victory. I must say, I prefer how ideology in Civ V opened up multiple paths to victory through social policies. On the whole, however, I would like player actions (perhaps extended through a Heritage/Tradition mechanism) to have greater impact on future possibilities.

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

This is another great idea. I just cannot imagine our getting anything akin to this granular degree in Civ VII, but one can dream. On a side note, and I am positive it has been brought up before, but nonrenewable resources have been on my wishlist since Civ IV.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

This is another great idea. I just cannot imagine our getting anything akin to this granular degree in Civ VII, but one can dream. On a side note, and I am positive it has been brought up before, but nonrenewable resources have been on my wishlist since Civ IV.

i will PAY fraxis to do this

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

i will PAY fraxis to do this

It has occurred to me the past couple weeks we might even need a poll or thread devoted purely to ideas that fall beyond the practical scope of Civ VII. Of course, it remains that they could still surprise me yet...

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

It has occurred to me the past couple weeks we might even need a poll or thread devoted purely to ideas that fall beyond the practical scope of Civ VII. Of course, it remains that they could still surprise me yet...

yes we should

 

[Krajzen]

The problem in civ5 was that a lot of factions had extremely narrow scope or insignificant bonuses so you just played most of them almost identically. But it was still better than civ4 where all civs shared the same small pool of enormously boring passive +10% style bonuses. I hate passive "+% to whatever" bonuses to facrions so much. Pls attach some interactive mechanics and conditions unlocking interesting powers, not spreasheets in the background.

Civ6 went much further into making civs feel more different, their bonuses being stronger and wider and more impactful, so you actually clearly feel different gameplay (and landscape) for many factions. However it became way too bloated with too damn many individual bonuses for each civ. There are some factions in Civ6 that have like 12 separate bonuses if you count all of their stuff (hello Mali, Maori etc). Or English ability which is like random 6 separate bonuses with a vague common theme. This is messy, hard to grasp and many of those bonuses are insignificant anyway. But overall civ6 is still a great progress.


So my dream for civ7 would be. Cut out all those tons of tiny separate bonuses civ6 style. Kill as many boring passive yield modifiers and possible. Instead try to give each civ few ways to mechanically, interactively change the game in their favour, which are strong and can adaptive to some degree, but require some strateg to fully exploit.

For example make China have a Golden Age system somewhat different from everybody else, make India have a unique religion system where you found multiple religions and benefit from them all, make Ukraine have a special Cossack democratic stratocracy governments types, change the way infrastructure is built by Romans etc.

Plus unit and infrastructure for each civ, although honestly I would be fine with exceptions from that rule, such as archeological civs with no special unit or nomadic civs with no building. Attach a little minigame to each building, which makes them less braindead than "library but +2". Give more creative vonuses to militsry units instead of bonus power/speed/loot/discount/XP (seriously civ5 mod unique units were so much more interesting).

 

[awesome]

You could have maybe one or two unique great people per civ and the rest are generic.
So, for example, if Zulu get a great general, they could pick from the same list as everybody else, but also Cetshwayo. China can get all of the same Great Writers as everybody else, but also Luo Guanzhong.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

You could have maybe one or two unique great people per civ and the rest are generic.
So, for example, if Zulu get a great general, they could pick from the same list as everybody else, but also Cetshwayo. China can get all of the same Great Writers as everybody else, but also Luo Guanzhong.

It's been noted before that Civ-Unique Great People simply narrows further the number of Civs in the game.
Now we can't have Civs that have no well-attested language, named Leaders, and/or City Lists (Harappas, Olmecs, Minoans, etc). Add another limiting factor, and we narrow our options for the game and the Civs even more - how many Great Writers can you name working in Shoshoni? How many Great Scientists from Scythia or Mongolia?.

On the other hand . . .

Great People could be Unique to the Civ you have built in the game.
That is, adopt certain Civics, Social Policies, writing styles, architecture, and get access to certain Great People - or lose any access to certain Great People.

To use the Chinese example, if at Writing we have a choice: adopt an idographic/aesthetic style of writing or an alphabetic style.
Alphabetic would give you a bonus for mass literacy, because it is easier to learn 20 - 40 individual alphabetic symbols than 3000 - 30,000 ideograms. But aesthetic style, whether it is with ink and brush or stylus and wax or some other medium, gives you access to Great Writers/Artists like the calligraphers Wang Xizhi and Yan Zenging which are not available if you adopt an alphabetic style of writing.

In addition to outright prohibitions, bonuses and maluses to Great People could be part of what you adopt in your Civ: Each Trade Route increases your chance of producing a Great Merchant, each war/battle fought your chances of getting a Great General, each higher-level Religious Building (Cathedral, Stupa, Gurdwara, etc) increases your chance of getting a Great Theologian or Great Artist specializing in Religious Art. Have no Religion founded, and the chances are good that a Great Artist specializing in Religious Art will go to another Civ - even he were born and raised in one of your cities, he's going to migrate to find work and a patron . . .

 

[Zaarin]

To use the Chinese example, if at Writing we have a choice: adopt an idographic/aesthetic style of writing or an alphabetic style.
Alphabetic would give you a bonus for mass literacy, because it is easier to learn 20 - 40 individual alphabetic symbols than 3000 - 30,000 ideograms. But aesthetic style, whether it is with ink and brush or stylus and wax or some other medium, gives you access to Great Writers/Artists like the calligraphers Wang Xizhi and Yan Zenging which are not available if you adopt an alphabetic style of writing.

I'm skeptical whether an alphabet could be invented independently. The acrophonic principle was already present in Egyptian hieroglyphics when Canaanites in Sinai adapted demotic symbols to write an early Canaanite dialect (which grew into the Phoenician alphabet and, from there, every other known alphabet, whether directly or as a model). Likewise in the New World Maya syllabic writing grew out of earlier hieroglyphic writing. The evidence available pretty strongly suggests that logographic writing precedes phonetic writing systems like alphabets, abjads, and abugidas. Incidentally, syllabaries/abugidas have the same advantage as alphabets or abjads--but only if the language in question has a very simple syllable structure like CV(C). Thus cuneiform (sort of a hybrid logographic/syllabic writing system) worked great for Sumerian and Akkadian but terribly for Old Persian and Hittite--and there's really no guessing how badly it fit other languages like Hurrian/Urartian or Elamite.

So I like your suggestion, but I might make discovering logographic writing or encountering another civilization with a phonetic writing system prerequisite for developing phonetic writing.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I'm skeptical whether an alphabet could be invented independently. The acrophonic principle was already present in Egyptian hieroglyphics when Canaanites in Sinai adapted demotic symbols to write an early Canaanite dialect (which grew into the Phoenician alphabet and, from there, every other known alphabet, whether directly or as a model). Likewise in the New World Maya syllabic writing grew out of earlier hieroglyphic writing. The evidence available pretty strongly suggests that logographic writing precedes phonetic writing systems like alphabets, abjads, and abugidas. Incidentally, syllabaries/abugidas have the same advantage as alphabets or abjads--but only if the language in question has a very simple syllable structure like CV(C). Thus cuneiform (sort of a hybrid logographic/syllabic writing system) worked great for Sumerian and Akkadian but terribly for Old Persian and Hittite--and there's really no guessing how badly it fit other languages like Hurrian/Urartian or Elamite.

So I like your suggestion, but I might make discovering logographic writing or encountering another civilization with a phonetic writing system prerequisite for developing phonetic writing.

Thanks for the clarification.

It means, as I understand it, that the in-game Tech of Writing needs the same kind of Tech - Application system I've been hypothesizing for the rest of the Tech Tree: a basic discovery , which in this case might be called Record Keeping: a combination of numerical notation of some kind and an ever-increasing collection of mnemonic notes to indicate what is being counted/recorded, which leads to Applications which are more specific Writing technologies. I'll leave it to you, being more expert in this, to give us a suggested list of 2 - 4 Most Basic systems, because I think that is the range of Applications that should be applied to each Basic Technology. I'd add the proviso that once a writing system is adopted, it is very difficult to change without Outside Influence or some new social, civic, or technological development.

 

[Zaarin]

Thanks for the clarification.

It means, as I understand it, that the in-game Tech of Writing needs the same kind of Tech - Application system I've been hypothesizing for the rest of the Tech Tree: a basic discovery , which in this case might be called Record Keeping: a combination of numerical notation of some kind and an ever-increasing collection of mnemonic notes to indicate what is being counted/recorded, which leads to Applications which are more specific Writing technologies. I'll leave it to you, being more expert in this, to give us a suggested list of 2 - 4 Most Basic systems, because I think that is the range of Applications that should be applied to each Basic Technology. I'd add the proviso that once a writing system is adopted, it is very difficult to change without Outside Influence or some new social, civic, or technological development.

This seems to be exactly how it works: people start making pictograms and marks as a reminder "the temple has ten sheep and fifteen cows"; gradually this mnemonic proto-writing starts to get generalized to formulate more complex ideas, at which point you have logograms; over time you need an abstract word A that sounds like concrete word B (or B + C), at which point you have the acrophonic principle where logograms are applied for their sound rather than their meaning, at which point you are just a hair's breadth away from a syllabary (worth noting that all known logographic systems--Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mesopotamian cuneiform, Chinese script, Mayan syllabic script--use acrophonic glyphs alongside logograms). So if we want to expand the Writing tech I might suggest something like this:

...........................................................................Mass Literacy (Phonetic Script)
........................................................................../
Record Keeping => Logograms => Acrophony
..........................................................................\
...........................................................................Professional Scribes (Advanced Logograms)

Logographic scripts require a professional scribal tradition, which 9 times out of 10 will be connected to the temples (the 1 instance out of 10 is, of course, the Chinese civil service...). This promotes the existence of a highly educated, highly intelligent, and often secretive elite group of scribes who likely wield extraordinary power. In China, this "class" drew from middle as well as upper classes, and in Egypt it was open to women. The advantage is that it keeps the "rabble" from having dangerous ideas, and it also promotes the development of a highly sophisticated if somewhat inaccessible cultural tradition. By contrast, alphabets and abjads allow much higher literacy rates (as happened among Jews and in Greece), allowing more people to participate in the intellectual life of the society and the cost of the kind of "received tradition" that accompanies professional scribes. Incidentally, this can also allow bold ideas to spread like wildfire: the high rate of Greek literacy in Rome was a major contributor to the spread of Christianity, for instance. (These two ideas are not completely exclusive: e.g., most Western European societies in the Middle Ages had the Latin alphabet but also professional scribes, i.e., monks.) I wouldn't tie Calligraphy specifically to the choice of script. I think of the rich tradition of calligraphy in Arabic, for instance, as a result of Islam's aniconism.