How should builders work?

[legalizefreedom]

I prefer builders. Workers were sort of stupid. The return on investment with them was massive.

The worker cost itself wasn't the primary investment, it was the time to construct various improvements and the fact the worker was tied up with the building process.

 

[ZubieMaster]

builders (which replace the old workers) are just one of those Civ tropes. It just wouldn't be Civ without them.

I think you hit on something very underrated here with a special franchise like Civ. Many have spent their entire life growing up playing Civ, so we get certain expectations of what Civ feels like. In past versions I always enjoyed looking over my vast lands at all the little workers toiling away, many gathered from the far reaches of the globe from all the different civs that were assimilated along the way to make up my epic empire that stood the test of time and won. Of course the gamey aspects of workers was flawed but I still miss their permanence. I use the automate workers mod to get some of that feel back but it's not the same.

 

[Disgustipated]

introduce railroads back as one of the main features of the 2nd expansion.

I actually think a good theme of the 2nd expansion would be things like railroads, corporations, and other late game stuff like united nations.

Speaking about workers, or other models like CTP. I wouldn't be completely opposed to going workerless. I only played CTP2 briefly, and didn't like it (though I keep meaning to try it again, but doubtful it would work on windows 10), my main problem was I kept forgetting to allocate public works resources.

 

[Aristos]

Screw sliders though.

Very elaborated and convincing argument. In fact, I am pretty sure that was the argumentative line of the likes of Shafer when he started to "plan" Civ 5. Congratulations.

 

[acluewithout]

Very elaborated and convincing argument. In fact, I am pretty sure that was the argumentative line of the likes of Shafer when he started to "plan" Civ 5. Congratulations.

I really don’t like sliders either. As I said above, I think one of Civ VI’s strengths is how much it feels like a boardgame. Sliders are a complete anathema to that. Sorry.

That said, I do think there is a gap in the market for a “lowercase c” civilization game that is focused on being a more sim-like / skylines-like game than a boardgame. No builders, no settlers, maybe no units, no immortal rulers, probably still districts and improvements, and way more complex governance, diplomacy, tech etc. Hopefully still with a random map and still turn based (I can’t stand real-time). I think EUIV and a few other 4X are in that space, but don’t quite have the scope or historical perspective.

 

[Aristos]

I really don’t like sliders either. As I said above, I think one of Civ VI’s strengths is how much it feels like a boardgame. Sliders are a complete anathema to that. Sorry.

That said, I do think there is a gap in the market for a “lowercase c” civilization game that is focused on being a more sim-like / skylines-like game than a boardgame. No builders, no settlers, maybe no units, no immortal rulers, probably still districts and improvements, and way more complex governance, diplomacy, tech etc. Hopefully still with a random map and still turn based (I can’t stand real-time). I think EUIV and a few other 4X are in that space, but don’t quite have the scope or historical perspective.

See? THAT is an argument. I disagree with it, but at least it is, well, argumentative.

 

[Cerilis]

Very elaborated and convincing argument. In fact, I am pretty sure that was the argumentative line of the likes of Shafer when he started to "plan" Civ 5. Congratulations.

You sound pretty salty over someone not liking sliders. Please stop!

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

The problem for me with sliders in civ (3 and 4) was that the largest portion of science, especially in the begin of a game, came from your commerce income. So if you had a bad economy (commerce), you had low science output too or you would had to balance out between gold or science. Now in civ 5 and 6 you can have bad economy but at the same time a proper science output or both proper economy and science output.

As long as a slider mechanic is not going to couple an essential part of one yield to another, I don't think it would be a big problem. Since the system of CTP2 used a slider for converting production to public works it is essentially not different than the mechanic of civ 6. Builders are produced with production and use their charges for building improvements.

 

[acluewithout]

CivVI also makes trading one yield against another a lot more interesting precisely because you don’t have sliders. If you want science, you can get it with production (eg projects) or gold (buy buildings). If you want to turn science into gold, research commercial buildings or select policies that favour gold over science. Sliders make it too easy.

 

[Ryika]

I think both systems have their benefits.

Ultimately, I would prefer to get rid of workers completely and have improvements be constructed directly by the city.

But that doesn't really fit Civ V's design of having "entities" that you control to develop your stuff. Overall, I think builders fit the "theme" of Civ VI very well.

 

[Forster]

I find it interesting that people keep comparing civ to a board game. I would really like to know who would play a board game where every turn the player had to compute the science, gold, culture, religion and production, not to mention the influence the player's culture and religion have on other cities. Civ is definitely not like a board game.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I find it interesting that people keep comparing civ to a board game. I would really like to know who would play a board game where every turn the player had to compute the science, gold, culture, religion and production, not to mention the influence the player's culture and religion have on other cities. Civ is definitely not like a board game.

Well I mean it's directly derived from one.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71/civilization

and the base "boardgamelike" concepts are still there, even if RL end of turn resource management in a game of (new) civ would be insufferably long

 

[Ryika]

I find it interesting that people keep comparing civ to a board game. I would really like to know who would play a board game where every turn the player had to compute the science, gold, culture, religion and production, not to mention the influence the player's culture and religion have on other cities. Civ is definitely not like a board game.

Would you say Hearthstone does "not resemble a card game" just because they make use of the fact that the virtual environment allows them to do things that would not be possible (or at least not at all sensible to do) in real life? Such as, generating random cards, casting a random spell out of all spells that exist, duplicating minions, etc?

What people mean when they say that (or at least, what I mean when I say that), is that the game uses design and a(n intentional) level of abstraction that is similar to a real-life board game would.

To name a few examples: You plant improvements immediately like you would place a token on a game board (a house in monopoly for example) instead of developing a tile over a period of time like it would happen in a more "immersive" game, you have literal Policy cards, you have governors that are not only "Predesigned Personalities" like they would be in a board game instead of having more "generic" governors that are resemble people in your Civilization, you have adjacency bonuses that don't really make any sense in real life, etc.

That's all fine of course, there's nothing wrong with designing a game to resemble a board game, and Civ VI does a good job at it (even though I personally don't enjoy playing it for that exact reason), but if they choose to design the game that way, then things should remain consistent within that framework. Sliders for example, would be a very weird addition.

 

[Duuk]

I find it interesting that people keep comparing civ to a board game. I would really like to know who would play a board game where every turn the player had to compute the science, gold, culture, religion and production, not to mention the influence the player's culture and religion have on other cities. Civ is definitely not like a board game.

Civ is very much a board game. It's a board game with an insane amount of calculations that would be a massive pain to keep track of on paper, but it could be done.

And as someone who still has his copy of Avalon Hill's original Civilization board game, I can tell you that Sid Meir is a hack

 

[Forster]

I didn't say it didn't resemble a board game. I said that it is not a board game and couldn't I don't believe it could be played as one. you would need a program to run all the calculations necessary to play Civ 6. Insane is the correct word. Calculations for production within a city are probably not that difficult, but the interrelation between one city to other cities, or multiple cities to your city would be astronomical.

 

[Ryika]

I didn't say it didn't resemble a board game. I said that it is not a board game and couldn't I don't believe it could be played as one. you would need a program to run all the calculations necessary to play Civ 6. Insane is the correct word. Calculations for production within a city are probably not that difficult, but the interrelation between one city to other cities, or multiple cities to your city would be astronomical.

But nobody claimed that it is a board game in the first place. The only post that could come close to that claim is this one:

Second, Civ is basically a boardgame. I don't see how a "boardgame" could have sliders.

And there, the "basically" very much suggests that the poster is aware that it does not resemble an actual board game, and instead just fits the "archetype" of a board game in terms of design.

 

[acluewithout]

And there, the "basically" very much suggests that the poster is aware that it does not resemble an actual board game, and instead just fits the "archetype" of a board game in terms of design.

For what it's worth: yes, that's more or less what I mean. Civ VI is not actually a boardgame; it's a computer game. But it uses boardgame design logic, and deliberately tries to feel like a boardgame.

I don't know if you could actually play Civ as a boardgame "in real life" but you could probably come close to most of it in principle - it's mostly just the scale that would kill you, although there are certain game systems that are very "video game" in places (e.g. Allocation of luxes, warweariness).

 

[Aristos]

You sound pretty salty over someone not liking sliders. Please stop!

No. What makes me "salty" is people that state something without arguing in favor or against. Please start using arguments to support your statements, it will enrich any debate and possibly will make you look better.

Anyways, this thread is about builders and how they should be implemented. I made my point (with arguments), so no need to repeat it. We should probably go back to the OP topic before a mod forces us to.

 

[Cerilis]

No. What makes me "salty" is people that state something without arguing in favor or against. Please start using arguments to support your statements, it will enrich any debate and possibly will make you look better.

Anyways, this thread is about builders and how they should be implemented. I made my point (with arguments), so no need to repeat it. We should probably go back to the OP topic before a mod forces us to.

Well, so did I, and then I added that I don't like sliders in a jokey way. No reason to get cranky about.

 

[dagriggstar]

I dislike sliders more than I dislike having a worker\builder unit on the map. Neither system is ideal so probably something better exists.

I would like to see a system where specialists generate the vast majority of science/culture/faith/gold. In turn that would put greater emphasis on generating food (At the expense of production).

What I did like was the cottage mechanic from civ iv. Which made me think about what if when a citizen works a tile long enough (say 20 turns in the ancient era, 15 classical etc) the game automatically puts a (example) farm on that tile?

If you want to take it a step further, the citizen gets "locked" to that tile once the improvement is down. Generally I dislike hard rules like that (1UPT) but in this case it would decrease micro by alot. You can then say if that improvement is pillaged that citizen dies, adding another layer to warfare. Also means you have to keep growing your cities.

Put a district on the tile they become a specialist. Change the improvement takes say 20 turns again.