Civ 6 seems to have had a design philosophy that you can mostly ignore the parts of the game you want to. The amount of faith you have or produce doesn't really affect the amount of gold or production you have. I like your idea that you pay a faith cost to use policy cards and the policy boosting production. Now rather than faith directly buying units - and doing the same thing as gold - your faith production effects your gold or production production.
"Gold" is kinda needed as an overflow ressource pool though. In the end though, both ways work, it only depends on your preferred focus.
I agree also with @Boris Gudenuf that the ressource types need to be distinct in their use and effects and preferrably s low in their number as possible. Not like now. ;-)
I'd also like to abolish science and go to a actions + probabilities system. Here, the things you do would unlock new technologies (like eureka). Scientist specialists would increase the chance and you can also finish tech with an investment of gold or production (whichever there is).
So, how about looking at it from the Back End: what are the differences that require 'Production' and 'Religion' to be separate? I suggest that the differences are all in the acquiring of Points to be applied, not in the application. That is, you can 'build' almost anything using 'resources' acquired through religion or through secular economics and industry: the only difference in game terms is which system you used to acquire the resources.
From a gameplay perspective one of the reasons to have multiple currencies is to give players meaningful choices. Having multiple currencies should force a player to find a balance between those currencies, and that balance should help shape the gameplay in some way (quicken/slow progression in certain aspects of the game, providing/denying access to certain game pieces, provide a different game play experience etc.).
I do think the currency similarities and how Civ 6 implemented currency conversion mechanics are my biggest problems with the system. Currently in Civ 6, we could probably have a single currency and it wouldn't affect much of the game (I would guess a few more defensive National Parks, and Rock Bands would pop up.)
Sometimes it does, other times it does feel a little off. For Artillery, Bombard, tanks, mechanized infantry, all of the ships, etc. it makes sense. It can feel off for swordsman, archers, scout especially when you know your production value is coming from mines and lumber mills. This can also make projects feel a bit odd for the same reason. Production seems to be the abstraction of both materials and labor (someone is building those districts), so I think we are to assume the production in the case of certain units is just training time. For gameplay I think the decision to improve your city or build a military is important aspect.
Patheon: Change this to something more akin to a Cultural traditions. It is unlocked by researching a specific civic. The traditions available to you are based on map features within a 10 hex radius around your capital.
Religion: remove the creation of this away from the player. Religions could come from city-states and passively spread to your cities. Religious Beliefs provide bonus to your city for have x followers or being the major religion in that city. As you gain more followers in your city, religious units, buildings, and policy will be unlocked.
Convert Great Prophets to Great Theologians: these would be used to cause major changes to a religion. Examples Add/Change beliefs, schism, Set/move the religion's holy city. I am not sure how the game should display or select what religion you affect. Maybe a popup box or when you activate an ability you affect the major religion in that city. As you gain more followers in your city, religious units, buildings, and policy will be unlocked.
Holy sites: now provide culture and increase the passive spread of religions in the city. They are also a prereq for purchasing/building religious items in that city
Civic Tree: I am leaning toward folding it back into the Tech tree. This open up culture to be used for other things. I like the idea of Civics being a large web of options but I don't think it makes sense to do that to just civics. Making the tech tree a web may be difficult/expensive to pull off. Certain techs are to universal and every path would need to contain military units for balance reasons. This would increase the number of units overall adding development and art cost.
Faith: As a yield is removed, replaced by Culture.
Update Gold ability to buy military units so it can only buy units from barbarian camps and city states. This can be done once every x turns per camp or city-state. These unit should get tagged as mercenaries and have a modified maintenance cost compared to your produced units.
Even on those units, production include time spent forging swords and crafting spears and arrowheads and shields and armors and all the other equipment they may use, along with any training time. Mines, quarries and lumber mills are very relevant to all those.
Even on those units, production include time spent forging swords and crafting spears and arrowheads and shields and armors and all the other equipment they may use, along with any training time. Mines, quarries and lumber mills are very relevant to all those.
Even the most primitive military units have three components: People (usually young adult males, but not completely)
Weapons/Equipment - which MAY be supplied by the 'State', but only long after the game starts, even in 4000 BCE. Early military provided their own weapons and equipment, and from a fairly limited list: spears carried or thrown, clubs/maces/axes, slings and/or bows. All of these date back to Neolithic and earlier. Everything else comes later. Having some kind of Authority or state provide them on a uniform pattern comes much, much later. From Pre-Start of game, some of those weapons were made by 'specialists' - really good stone or wood workers, fletchers, bowyers, etc. - division of labor according to Expertise is prehistoric in almost all human activity. That means, effectively, virtually every Unit requires an input from Production as measured in output of labor/materials beyond the individual.
Leadership and Organization - a bunch of individuals is not a Unit. To quote one of the first regular students of military psychology/sociology, Ardant du Picq: "Four individual men will not dare to attack a Lion. Four men, used to working together and under experienced leadership, will attack a Lion and (win every time)." This component becomes increasingly complex, formal, and systemized as human society 'progresses', but it is of primary importance from the start. For one thing, the quality of Leadership is also a primary component of Morale = Willingness to Fight, and Training = Ability to fight both as an Individual and as a Group/Unit.
Training Time is going to almost have to be an Abstraction in any game with Civ's scope and time scale. Even the modern (last 2 centuries) German armies, probably the most rigorous trainers of military units in history, didn't think it took more than a year or two to train a unit as well as it could be without sending them into combat. In the game, that is usually a fraction of a single turn!
But
'Training' takes Resources. Not only the time of the people involved, but also the chance of damaging a certain percentage of the men, weapons and equipment and having to replace them, and as time goes on, increasingly large and complex training facilities: Campus Martial drill grounds, regular exercise grounds for men, chariots and horses - and later, much, much bigger grounds for Artillery, Tanks, and mechanized units - Fort Hood, Texas, one of the US Army's primary combined arms maneuver areas, covers over 300 square miles, and so is larger than most multi-million-population cities.
I suggest, then, the following:
Let's add a Fundamental Attribute of all military units: a division into Amateur and Professional.
Amateurs are Cheap. They don't use the expensive Training Resources - or at least, don't use them for more than the minimum needed to keep them from hurting themselves with their own weapons. They also go home as soon as the war is over, so don't accrue any specialized skills ("Promotions" in Civ VI terms). Professionals are Expensive, and take both Resources and Population out of the rest of the Civ and have to be maintained (expensively) All The Time. BUT they are required to use some weapons and equipment (you do not want an Amateur firing HIMARS or flying an attack helicopter, or for that matter trying to swing a sword at someone while riding a horse at full speed: he will probably, at the least, fall off the horse) and they become Named Units with special skills.
So, over time, the Professionals get better and better (realistically, though, each successive Level of Better is more and more expensive: the difference between merely Trained and Experienced is much less than that between Experienced and Veteran or Veteran and Elite, if we want to get that detailed).
For much of history and in many societies, 'Professional' will have a special definition: they will be the full-time warriors who train and equip themselves because that is not only their profession, but also their defining identity as an Individual and as a Class - think Feudal Knights, Chieftain's Bodyguards (Comitatus), the Warrior Societies of the native Americans, or every adult male and many females of the pastoral nomadic groups in Central Asia, where combat skills were required to protect the herds.
That does NOT mean these groups and 'Units' don't suck up Resources - it just means that the resources are so automatically expended that you, the Gummint/God King/Grandiose Rotundity never see them: a certain percentage of what your Pastoral Nomad Civ or Feudal France would normally produce in resources disappears into a large percentage of the population without you being able to ever mobilize it for anything else - unless you fundamentally change your entire society, and getting all those Knights to give up their swords and lances will require a lot more than 'just' Eloquence and Persuation . . .
A lot of things that "governments didn't do" are simplified in the game as under the player control, because, again, the player is not the government. The player sits at a much higher level, where they do determine the fact that the nobles are training for war and purchasing weapons privately, and to what level the people of the civilizations are providing them the needed resource.
I see very little gameplay benefit to hiding production and resource costs of units from the player here...
- DENIZENS, or popopulation unit. Every one have three identity values Heritage (ethnocultural), Belief (religion) and Class (profession equivalent to specialist but for every citizen included farmers, laborers and warriors).
- FOOD, as population sustentation and growth. The population consume each turn X amount of food and the surplur determines the rate of population increase. Deployed armies have a higger rate of comsumption. If food production is under consumption the population stop growing, lost bonus provided, immigrate to other civs and finally revolting.
- PRODUCTION, is your cities capacity to transform resources and turn them into infrastructure, vehicles, equipment and manufactured goods. So production come from your laborers denizens and their efficiency is determined by their number, their satisfaction, your technologies, raw materials avaibility, industrial facilities and policies. So production is not "consumed" but "used" each turn (time) by a number of queues per city, this would help for a viable "tall gameplay" of efficient high production capacity cities.
- WEALTH, the true currency in-game, used as common unit to pay for most units and buildings, also to buy resources, territory, techs and others diplomatic actions like war reparations. Taxation, trade routes and corporations are the regular source of wealth, natural resources and manufactured goods are part of it but the number of the ones that gives you wealth directly should be limited (like Gold mines).
- CULTURE, as a influence measurement, linked to specific heritages/beliefs/ideologies to compare the appealing between different civs. The use of culture is multidimensional, for example spended to reform goverment/religion with new Ideologies, to attract immigrants, tourists and great people, to gain the affinity from denizens and leaders(AI players), and in the most extreme case as the way to convert others denizen>cities (like CIV4) to your heritage/religion/goverment.
- KNOWLEDGE, the more you acumulate the more routes to Research it allows, these from a least linear Tree with more intertwined brances and denser the most you advance. Because this in early game you have just one Research Line, but later new sources (universities, great scientists, etc.) are needed to allow more simultaneous lines. Of course each Research unlock new units, buildings, ideologies and technologies (now as unit/building upgrades) but there is the option to put some of your Research Lines to work in an area of specialization (school/academy) that provide bonus to X or Y discipline like Sociology, Agronomy, Engineering, Economy, Theology, etc. For direct bonus that only apply when the line is working on it.
- KNOWLEDGE, the more you acumulate the more routes to Research it allows, these from a least linear Tree with more intertwined brances and denser the most you advance. Because this in early game you have just one Research Line, but later new sources (universities, great scientists, etc.) are needed to allow more simultaneous lines. Of course each Research unlock new units, buildings, ideologies and technologies (now as unit/building upgrades) but there is the option to put some of your Research Lines to work in an area of specialization (school/academy) that provide bonus to X or Y discipline like Sociology, Agronomy, Engineering, Economy, Theology, etc. For direct bonus that only apply when the line is working on it.
Just a quick comment on this part, because I've been wrestling with Tech Tree ideas for several weeks now, and so have some ideas to add.
At no time did anyone have only one 'route' or path of knowledge they were exploring. Technologies like Animal Domestication, Pottery, Weaving, Fermentation (Wine and Beer making) Agriculture, all pre-date the 4000 BCE nominal game Start Date, some of them by 1000s of years. And while some are related a bit, some are distinctly separate: Weaving is first associated with weaving fibers (cotton or flax) into fish and bird traps and fishing nets - the 'third food source' along with domesticated animals and agriculture, while one of the early uses of fired pottery was to make fired figurines widely identified with Religious beliefs as well as the usual use for making Containers - so the relationship between early technologies and religion is also probably more explicit than we've been led to believe.
Long, long ago (in Forum Time: it was actually last year) I worked up a scheme of Technologies and Applications to show the specialization from basic discoveries. In that scheme, for example, Agriculture might have had the Applications of Irrigation, Brewing (leading to Beer/Wine and exploitation of the Wine Grape Resource), Selective Plant Breeding (leading to the exploitation of the Potato and Maize resources).
I've come around to the conclusion that such a scheme is just too Damn Complicated to implement (Yes, Virginia, there are Game Mechanics too complicated even for Boris). For one thing, it at least doubles the number of decisions you have to make about Research and potentially results in some very basic technologies being left behind or relegated to getting from diffusion from other Civs, City States, or Barbarians, which puts some of your Research into the realm of Chance, never a good basis for a competitive game.
Instead, may I suggest the application of a mechanic already in Civ VI, but so far relegated to a few selected instances in the Late Game: Projects. Like the current Manhatten Project and Launch Earth Satellite, these would be specific instances where you apply resources to solving or achieving certain specific Goals related to a given Tech (or Techs/Civics/Social Policy combinations).
Most Projects would be repeatable, and the difference between a Project and construction of a District or Building would be that resources from the rest of your Civ could be applied to a Project in a given city. Of course, the amount and type of resources you could apply might be extremely limited early in the game because of the communications/transport technology available, or the Civic, Social, Political situation in your Civ.
But, to take Agriculture technology for an example again, once you get Agriculture the following Projects might become available: Flood Irrigation - which allows an Irrigation system to be built in one city (this, obviously, would be a Repeatable Project). Depending on your government type, you can use Resources (general) or Gold (specific Cash to pay for the work) from other cities in your Civ for this. Selective Breed for ____ - IF you have access to the proto-resources of Maize, Potato, or Rice (on the map but not exploitable), you can breed them into (very) useful Food Crops (which they aren't so much at first: early Maize was nearly impossible to harvest and early Potato relatives were poisonous). Separate Project for each one, but because the actual work amounts to planting, selecting and replanting samples, it can use almost any type of Research, Production, Gold points to complete, taken from almost anywhere in your Civ (subject, of course, to the ability of your Society and/or Government to get its hands on those resources, which may be severely limited early in the game)
Still more complicated than the simple linear Tech Tree, but the Tech Tree itself would need only about half the Technologies to cover everything that needs to be developed, which is a savings in complexity over all, and allows the actual research to be more comprehensively influenced by other things in the game, like Resources available to drive research and Projects to use them, social and civic policies, even religion (like the fired clay votive objects mentioned above - a potential bonus from Religion for Fired Pottery)
Just a quick comment on this part, because I've been wrestling with Tech Tree ideas for several weeks now, and so have some ideas to add.
At no time did anyone have only one 'route' or path of knowledge they were exploring. Technologies like Animal Domestication, Pottery, Weaving, Fermentation (Wine and Beer making) Agriculture, all pre-date the 4000 BCE nominal game Start Date, some of them by 1000s of years. And while some are related a bit, some are distinctly separate: Weaving is first associated with weaving fibers (cotton or flax) into fish and bird traps and fishing nets - the 'third food source' along with domesticated animals and agriculture, while one of the early uses of fired pottery was to make fired figurines widely identified with Religious beliefs as well as the usual use for making Containers - so the relationship between early technologies and religion is also probably more explicit than we've been led to believe.
Long, long ago (in Forum Time: it was actually last year) I worked up a scheme of Technologies and Applications to show the specialization from basic discoveries. In that scheme, for example, Agriculture might have had the Applications of Irrigation, Brewing (leading to Beer/Wine and exploitation of the Wine Grape Resource), Selective Plant Breeding (leading to the exploitation of the Potato and Maize resources).
I've come around to the conclusion that such a scheme is just too Damn Complicated to implement (Yes, Virginia, there are Game Mechanics too complicated even for Boris). For one thing, it at least doubles the number of decisions you have to make about Research and potentially results in some very basic technologies being left behind or relegated to getting from diffusion from other Civs, City States, or Barbarians, which puts some of your Research into the realm of Chance, never a good basis for a competitive game.
Instead, may I suggest the application of a mechanic already in Civ VI, but so far relegated to a few selected instances in the Late Game: Projects. Like the current Manhatten Project and Launch Earth Satellite, these would be specific instances where you apply resources to solving or achieving certain specific Goals related to a given Tech (or Techs/Civics/Social Policy combinations).
Most Projects would be repeatable, and the difference between a Project and construction of a District or Building would be that resources from the rest of your Civ could be applied to a Project in a given city. Of course, the amount and type of resources you could apply might be extremely limited early in the game because of the communications/transport technology available, or the Civic, Social, Political situation in your Civ.
But, to take Agriculture technology for an example again, once you get Agriculture the following Projects might become available: Flood Irrigation - which allows an Irrigation system to be built in one city (this, obviously, would be a Repeatable Project). Depending on your government type, you can use Resources (general) or Gold (specific Cash to pay for the work) from other cities in your Civ for this. Selective Breed for ____ - IF you have access to the proto-resources of Maize, Potato, or Rice (on the map but not exploitable), you can breed them into (very) useful Food Crops (which they aren't so much at first: early Maize was nearly impossible to harvest and early Potato relatives were poisonous). Separate Project for each one, but because the actual work amounts to planting, selecting and replanting samples, it can use almost any type of Research, Production, Gold points to complete, taken from almost anywhere in your Civ (subject, of course, to the ability of your Society and/or Government to get its hands on those resources, which may be severely limited early in the game)
Still more complicated than the simple linear Tech Tree, but the Tech Tree itself would need only about half the Technologies to cover everything that needs to be developed, which is a savings in complexity over all, and allows the actual research to be more comprehensively influenced by other things in the game, like Resources available to drive research and Projects to use them, social and civic policies, even religion (like the fired clay votive objects mentioned above - a potential bonus from Religion for Fired Pottery)
One route at one time is the traditional CIV model, so start with one but allow more along the game is an improvement and mimic the growing importance of specialized research. The historical curve of knowledge accelerate exponentially in a way that CIV cant represent with the almost identical number of tech in each era.
The role of enviroment for new research (especially prehistoric and early historical ones) can be covered by direct boost (Eureka like), some examples:
- Agriculture, 0.5 knowledge/turn cost if Wheat, Maize, Rice, Sorghum, Potato, etc. are in your "city" range.
- Husbandry, 0.5 knowledge/turn cost if Horse, Goat, Sheep, Llama, Camel, etc. are in your "city" range.
- Sailing, 0.5 knowledge/turn cost if Shellfish, Fish, Whale, Coral, etc. are in your "city" range.
About Selective Breeding:
- Agree, sound good as Projects using a Research Line to create copies of X crop or Y livestock that you can introduce in a new city. This adds strategic value, for example introduce Coffee in another tropical continent (like America) to change the trade balance of that resource.
- Maybe, I would like to highligth that every crop or livestock needed a lot of time and work to turn the wild forms into the usefull resources we have now, this is why most of them were domesticated only in one or few regions and then spreaded by trade, but sadly I doub most players would find this entertaining.
- Never, is true that historically some crops needed more time and work than others but limit the use of X crop behind additional steps would be a nuisance. Futhermore, every crop or livestock needed some degree of selective breeding, then restrict only some is an historical trivia with negative gameplay value.
On Irrigation, make it a direct improvement for cities and/or farms unlocked by Agriculture. There are examples of irrigation canals from the earliest agrarian societies (especially in too arid or wet regions) so a simple but useful way to represent it is upgrade tiles with them. Knowledge(Science) should not be used in an infrastructure that could perfectly spend Wealth(Gold) and occupy Production capacity to be built.
Concerning Brewing, fementation for alcoholic drinks is a thing in neolithic societies so Brewery can be one of the options of Workshops that produce Manufactured Resources. Brewery can be unlocked by Pottery and/or Agriculture, using crops to produce the Beer manufactured resource. The Research that to me is more significative is Distillation, since it comes later as a more complex process that allow not just liquors but also medical and industrial applications. For example the Destillery improvement for Plantations.
More details about Workshops. They are not part of the later Industrial district but a traditional way to produce Manufactured Resources, these serve both as Amenities and also produce Culture representing the prestigious traditions portrayed on them. Examples:
- From Workshops, Textiles (use Cotton, Wool, Silk), Ceramics (clay, quartz), Beer (Wheat, Maize, Rice), etc.
- From Factories, Cars (iron, rubber, oil), Electronics (copper, quartz), etc.
- From Studios, Albums, Movies, VideoGames (use Great Works)
One route at one time is the traditional CIV model, so start with one but allow more and more along the game is an improvement and mimic the historical growing importance of specialized research. The historical curve of knowledge accelerate exponentially in a way that CIV cant be represent with the almost identical number of tech in each era.
Trying to understand how routes would play, please let me know if my assumptions are completely off. I am assuming each route is like a mini-tech tree and we just select which tree we are working on.
Does every route 'research' at the same speed and I use Knowledge to open up more routes? So once I collect enough Knowledge I am doubling my research speed, it just split between 2 techs.
OR
Does Knowledge determine how fast I research and as I play the game I open up more routes. Forcing me to split my total knowledge between those techs?
In my first example, Gameplay wise I would be aiming for just enough knowledge to unlock routes. Any more knowledge is wasted until the next route it open. Optimal game play, I want to open just enough routes for that part of the game, and then when it's time to increase my routes go on a knowledge bender and focus everything on it until I get a new route.
In the second example. I would want to aim for my knowledge to be just shy of the next route until I have the techs I want. Since Civ is a game of snowballing splitting my research between 2 techs and receiving my rewards later isn't the best plan. Of course when it's time to get more knowledge I need to go on a bender and get just shy of the next route.
Trying to understand how routes would play, please let me know if my assumptions are completely off. I am assuming each route is like a mini-tech tree and we just select which tree we are working on.
Does every route 'research' at the same speed and I use Knowledge to open up more routes? So once I collect enough Knowledge I am doubling my research speed, it just split between 2 techs.
OR
Does Knowledge determine how fast I research and as I play the game I open up more routes. Forcing me to split my total knowledge between those techs?
In my first example, Gameplay wise I would be aiming for just enough knowledge to unlock routes. Any more knowledge is wasted until the next route it open. Optimal game play, I want to open just enough routes for that part of the game, and then when it's time to increase my routes go on a knowledge bender and focus everything on it until I get a new route.
In the second example. I would want to aim for my knowledge to be just shy of the next route until I have the techs I want. Since Civ is a game of snowballing splitting my research between 2 techs and receiving my rewards later isn't the best plan. Of course when it's time to get more knowledge I need to go on a bender and get just shy of the next route.
First thinking about @Boris Gudenuf points about Projects I decided to change some names, included Learning for Science(CIV6) and Knowledge for Technologies/Civics(CIV6).
Each Research Line is a queue that should be asigned with a project, each project have a goal measured in Learning, these project are usually (but not only) a new Knowledge. For example Sailing need to achieve a goal of 50 learning units, BUT this learning was not stacked and then expended to start the research, the learning would start to be accumulated by developing the project. So the global learning is never spent but accumulated to achieve milestones that unlock additional Research Lines and even Advance Era.
So Research Lines are like cities production queue when working on Projects, but this time the Projects can be:
- Knowledge Research, those are part of a Knowledge Tree (close to a net) that again include together the Techs and Civics (for @Evie approval I guess).
- Academic Grant, attract Great people like Scientists, Engineers, Philosophers and Artists.
- School Specialization, provide temporal bonus to certain areas like Agronomy to Food, Economy to Wealth, Theology to Religion, etc.
- Selective Breeding, improve and/or create copies of crops and livestock resources.
- Build parts of the Science victory mechanism.
Finally like the production rate of every City come from their different modifiers, each Research Line would have their modifiers that provide them different rates of Learning (for example the improvements of X Campus and terrain features of that city). So we should choose the best ones for the proper project.
I think that production should stop being a yield and become split into resources and manpower, with infrastructure and energy being other components.
Like, lumber mills and mines don't give production, but timber and iron. Maybe stuff like textile, leather, steel, and brick can also be important resources.
Citizens assigned to production provide manpower. Producing weapons, buildings etc. require both a certain number of resources and a certain quantity of manpower.
Infrastructure like specialized workshops and factories can provide a efficiency boost for certain items, and are a pre-requisite for making other items. Each production building can take a certain number of workers (like is already the case with specialist slots), but you can increase production in a city by making multiple copies of the same workshops and factories, then fitting more workers into them. For factories, energy (from access to a large river or a steam turbine or having a power line) would increase efficiency further, and be a requirement for special items.
I think of this as a somewhat simpler variant of the production system in anno 1800, which felt much more immersive to me than the civ system where lumber mills can churn out tanks and aircraft.
The problem here is that it‘s quite impossible to create such a economic system for the whole of history. It‘s just very complex for a game. I do nevertheless that this would be the right direction and I do have my own idea how to do that.* But that would probably not work either. The key is to have something simple, but elegant. Like the production yield is. I still don‘t like it.
For the nerds, here‘s my general idea:
SpoilerMy idea :
The game is tile based. Every tile has food value, a „manpower“ value and maybe a ressource. You can improve them with improvements or districts housing specialists. Each tile has to feed itself. There is a trade network overlay which allows tiles to feed other tiles nearby. The better you build your tradenetwork, the more you can grow. If it‘s cut: famine starts. This is calculated automatically - we are in a computer game after all.
Ressources are on/off per tile. Either it is produced and brought there - or not (trade network again). Resources may have a limit of uses (say 4) and are used up in certain tiles. Timber may be a common resource and most resources can be moved. But the key is that everything get’s calculated automatically. You can buy and sell the resources on a market. Taking one off the market (say iron) or boycotting another player takes up „manpower“ of the state. You can do it, but you must chose to do so.
Manpower is not local, but pooled (for simplicity). It is the catch all resource that you can invest any way you want: Buildings, Units, expeditions, stability, civics. It‘s basically your task to set the budget. (resources are conditions for being able to do x at tile y). Manpower allows you to have specialists. Specialists don‘t generate yield, but increase the chance for story elements happening. Scientists give you tech, priests religion, military ones unlock promotions, and so on. There can be some direction, but it‘s the amount of specialists you can feed that propel you forward.
There are districts and city centers, but the focus in on the tiles. You conquer tiles, not cities. You buy new ones with „manpower“. It takes time and can be disputed by other players.
On second thought, I just did incorporate a resource system like I advised criZp against. Oops, sorry. I do stay with my point of having to make it simple and clear. IF we can incorporate a resource tree / system, I do feel the game would gain a lot of realism by it.
The problem here is that it‘s quite impossible to create such a economic system for the whole of history. It‘s just very complex for a game. I do nevertheless that this would be the right direction and I do have my own idea how to do that.* But that would probably not work either. The key is to have something simple, but elegant. Like the production yield is. I still don‘t like it.
For the nerds, here‘s my general idea:
SpoilerMy idea :
The game is tile based. Every tile has food value, a „manpower“ value and maybe a ressource. You can improve them with improvements or districts housing specialists. Each tile has to feed itself. There is a trade network overlay which allows tiles to feed other tiles nearby. The better you build your tradenetwork, the more you can grow. If it‘s cut: famine starts. This is calculated automatically - we are in a computer game after all.
Ressources are on/off per tile. Either it is produced and brought there - or not (trade network again). Resources may have a limit of uses (say 4) and are used up in certain tiles. Timber may be a common resource and most resources can be moved. But the key is that everything get’s calculated automatically. You can buy and sell the resources on a market. Taking one off the market (say iron) or boycotting another player takes up „manpower“ of the state. You can do it, but you must chose to do so.
Manpower is not local, but pooled (for simplicity). It is the catch all resource that you can invest any way you want: Buildings, Units, expeditions, stability, civics. It‘s basically your task to set the budget. (resources are conditions for being able to do x at tile y). Manpower allows you to have specialists. Specialists don‘t generate yield, but increase the chance for story elements happening. Scientists give you tech, priests religion, military ones unlock promotions, and so on. There can be some direction, but it‘s the amount of specialists you can feed that propel you forward.
There are districts and city centers, but the focus in on the tiles. You conquer tiles, not cities. You buy new ones with „manpower“. It takes time and can be disputed by other players.
On second thought, I just did incorporate a resource system like I advised criZp against. Oops, sorry. I do stay with my point of having to make it simple and clear. IF we can incorporate a resource tree / system, I do feel the game would gain a lot of realism by it.
Economics is complex, and there's no way around it. IMHO, No playable, enjoyable game can be designed that includes an economic system that actually models real economics. It would simply overwhelm everything else about the game. As complex as the production/trade/economic system in Anno 1800 is - and it dominates most of that game - it doesn't begin to show the real complexities of a late 19th century European economy, with inputs of such resources as Nitrates from guano, manufacturing machine tools in order to manufacture steel alloys in order to manufacture ironclads and railroads, etc. Trying to recreate that for 60 centuries instead of 60 years - Fergetit, there's not enough time left in any of our lives to design it or play it.
So the real question is, what level of abstraction an simplification do we want in the economics of a 4x game? That will have a different answer for almost everyone, but here are my 'general principles':
1. Dynamic Resources. That is, I don't like having Resources defined by their use before the game even starts: I'd rather their usefulness be defined by your Civ - it's technological level and possibly social and civic and cultural attributes. Copper, to take an example I've used before, was originally worked as a decorative ('Luxury') resource, then became a very important component for Bronze (Military/Strategic and Production resource) then, much later, a requirement for wiring to electrify cities and Civs in the Industrial Era (Amenity and Production). Cotton is an even more dynamic example: early use was for fishing nets and traps to feed cities, later cotton cloth drove the early Industrial Revolution's Textile Mills, but its most massive use was as a basic component for modern smokeless powders used in military weapons from 1890 CE on: major new cotton fields were planted all over the southwestern USA during WWII to feed the military with Resources - and the labor-intensive crops were worked largely by Axis prisoners because no other Population Resource was available - they were all in uniform or in the factories, which brings up:
2. Manpower as a Resource. And this means as much the Quality of the manpower as the Quantity. Tentatively, I think the way to do this is to add Specialists to the 'population points' of General Population. Putting a Specialist to work would not subtract from the general population pool, because they are a relatively tiny percentage of the total, but the total number of Specialists available would be limited by, say, the number of Schools, Libraries and Universities, level of literacy, degree to which your Social System elevates Learning as worthy of respect, etc. In general, Population would gather Resources from the land (mining, farming, herding, etc) while Specialists did Special Things with the Resources in the towns/cities (manning Workshops, Observatories, Mills, Universities, etc). In effect, every Tile would take a Population Point to get anything out of it, while every Building would take a Specialist to have any effect. And, of course, Military would take some of each, potentially setting up the age-old Guns Versus Butter conflict for your Civ.
3. The effects, efficiency, and flexibility (multiple uses) of all Resources, Population and Specialists would be heavily modified not only by Technology, but also by your Political, Social, Civic, and even Cultural situation in your Civ. As a relatively familiar modern example, Communism requires a strong and coercive government to direct all efforts in given directions. But, although it allows you to concentrate Technological Progress and Production, it also eats up Resources in organizations like police, militia, secret or special police, and similar coercive structures to control everything. By contrast, Capitalism has little central focus, but produces far more overall Wealth and End Product - it just may not be precisely the type of Product the government wants or needs. These descriptions are themselves simplified, but they are at the level that I think the game should operate to avoid becoming some Brobdinagian Political/Social/Economic Simulation of dubious accuracy and no fun at all.
4. Most Resources should be renewable and moveable. It is the Apex of the ridiculous to assume, as Civ always has, that ALL horses, grains, fish and other organic resources are still in the same places in 2022 CE that they were in 4000 BCE and ONLY in those places, and in the same quantities. With the application of proper Technologies, all of these can be moved, added, renewed. In addition, Substitutes Are Found whenever a resource runs out or is not available locally. This is, bluntly, the lesson of history if there is one, and should be in the game. Even before 4000 BCE, resources like Amber, Obsidian, Seashells, and useful animals like Cattle and Horses were MOVED by Trade or migration long, long distances as required/desired by human groups (for two of the most important examples to Human History, cattle were not native to the Central Asian steppes and horses to the Middle East until human groups moved both of them between 6000 and 2500 BCE.
5. Resources have to be looked and relooked for. Second only to the Permanent and Fixed Plant and Animal Life of Point 4 is the idea that magically all the Copper in the world appears as soon as the first human being stands up on the map in 4000 BCE, and all the Oil on land everywhere appears with a puff of black oily smoke as soon as you get the Technology of "Stepped In This Black Sticky Stuff". Hasn't anybody at Firaxis ever heard of Gold Rushes? Or the fundamental historical importance of Phillip of Macedon getting his hands on the new silver mines just south of Macedon? Resources should both deplete and run out and new ones appear, either because you sent someone to look for them or you developed new technologies for finding them. Archeologists are fine, but I want a Geologist to send out looking for more Silver, Iron, Oil, or whatever I suddenly develop a desperate Need for.
This all comes under the rubric of "My Perfect Civ Game" - for me personally and probably only me - but I think a game in which the resources available change throughout the game, and what you can do with them also changes, and the way you get them changes, would be far more interesting than finding all of a resource anywhere on the map all at once, slapping a Mine, Pasture, Plantation, Farm or Fishing Boat on top of the resource and then Forgetting About It for the rest of the game
1 and 2. I do like the idea of resources changing in importance and roles as the game progress, and an increased role for specialists. Civ VI, I feel, sidelined them too much, but the truth is, the specialists should be (and are not, the way the game managed them) the natural complement of the district system.
3. Sounds amazing but is probably at a level of complexity far beyond what can still discernably be called civ - even Paradox might balk at that one. Also, the communism/capitalism distinction seems to again be versed in the idea that the player is the government, which I still feel to be inaccurate. The player in civ is at a higher level than the government, and enjoys greater control accordingly. This probably would need its own game.
4. I'm still very not sold on doing this for bonus resources in general (because to me these should represent areas that are particularly appropriate to growing or harvesting a specific resource, even if it is found elsewhere). But for non-bonus resource (including food resources, if we go back to the civ 4 model where food resources grant additional sanitation/housing), having a mechanism that let you build your own improvement that produce the resource would be neat. My instinct is that for game balance there would need to be a limitation on trading the new resource. but that would have to be tested and worked out.
5. The simplest way to do this might be a combination of a)a special prospector unit who can search an area for new resources, causing them to randomly appear in part of the area prospected, and b)randomized events ala civ 4 that can sometime spawn a resource in an area.
I agree. I don't want adjacency bonuses to go away entirely as some do, but I really think Civ7 needs to shift emphasis so that adjacency bonuses are less important than how many specialists you can dedicate to a district instead of (chiefly) farming/herding/fishing/generating food. This is actually one of the very few things I thought Humankind did okay with, but I think it could still be done better than HK did it.
1 and 2. I do like the idea of resources changing in importance and roles as the game progress, and an increased role for specialists. Civ VI, I feel, sidelined them too much, but the truth is, the specialists should be (and are not, the way the game managed them) the natural complement of the district system.
3. Sounds amazing but is probably at a level of complexity far beyond what can still discernably be called civ - even Paradox might balk at that one. Also, the communism/capitalism distinction seems to again be versed in the idea that the player is the government, which I still feel to be inaccurate. The player in civ is at a higher level than the government, and enjoys greater control accordingly. This probably would need its own game.
4. I'm still very not sold on doing this for bonus resources in general (because to me these should represent areas that are particularly appropriate to growing or harvesting a specific resource, even if it is found elsewhere). But for non-bonus resource (including food resources, if we go back to the civ 4 model where food resources grant additional sanitation/housing), having a mechanism that let you build your own improvement that produce the resource would be neat. My instinct is that for game balance there would need to be a limitation on trading the new resource. but that would have to be tested and worked out.
5. The simplest way to do this might be a combination of a)a special prospector unit who can search an area for new resources, causing them to randomly appear in part of the area prospected, and b)randomized events ala civ 4 that can sometime spawn a resource in an area.
1 & 2. My current working concept (subject to change at Any Moment) is hat Population Points would work the land (tiles, Improvements) while Specialists would work the City (districts, buildings). While at first each Population Point might generate 1 Specialist, the Specialist ratio could/should increase later as you add elements of technology or social/civic policy that encourage 'specialization' - Schools, Universities, Guilds, Workshops, etc.
3. The Complexity should be largely Invisible, and please note that while Communism is a government because the economic system requires Coercion on a vast scale, Capitalism is NOT a government type at all. They were mentioned to show that the amount of result you get from your resources should not be a fixed amount, but change based on other in-game factors like chosen government, economic system, (civic and social policies?) as well as Technology.
4. I would severely limit the tiles you could 'spread' a Resource to, because many are very demanding in their requirements, like Coffee, Tea, Cocoa, Spices, or Wine (grapes). And right now I'm leaning towards requiring a Project to be able to spread a given resource, so you will have to make a fairly hefty investment in other resources (production? technology? - depends on the currencies that Civ VII uses) in order to spread a resource.
5. I'm all for Random or what I've come to call Narrative Events in the game: a wandering prospector discovers Silver in the Tundra (NOT its usual biome/terrain), Sammy Saffron spreads a spice to a new area, the Court becomes enamored of the color from a new Dyestuff, vastly increasing its Trade Value for X turns, etc. The game should nearly continuously keep giving you reasons to Pay Attention and not just click Next Turn . . .
Economics is complex, and there's no way around it. IMHO, No playable, enjoyable game can be designed that includes an economic system that actually models real economics. It would simply overwhelm everything else about the game. As complex as the production/trade/economic system in Anno 1800 is - and it dominates most of that game - it doesn't begin to show the real complexities of a late 19th century European economy, with inputs of such resources as Nitrates from guano, manufacturing machine tools in order to manufacture steel alloys in order to manufacture ironclads and railroads, etc. Trying to recreate that for 60 centuries instead of 60 years - Fergetit, there's not enough time left in any of our lives to design it or play it.
So the real question is, what level of abstraction an simplification do we want in the economics of a 4x game? That will have a different answer for almost everyone, but here are my 'general principles':
1. Dynamic Resources. That is, I don't like having Resources defined by their use before the game even starts: I'd rather their usefulness be defined by your Civ - it's technological level and possibly social and civic and cultural attributes. Copper, to take an example I've used before, was originally worked as a decorative ('Luxury') resource, then became a very important component for Bronze (Military/Strategic and Production resource) then, much later, a requirement for wiring to electrify cities and Civs in the Industrial Era (Amenity and Production). Cotton is an even more dynamic example: early use was for fishing nets and traps to feed cities, later cotton cloth drove the early Industrial Revolution's Textile Mills, but its most massive use was as a basic component for modern smokeless powders used in military weapons from 1890 CE on: major new cotton fields were planted all over the southwestern USA during WWII to feed the military with Resources - and the labor-intensive crops were worked largely by Axis prisoners because no other Population Resource was available - they were all in uniform or in the factories, which brings up:
2. Manpower as a Resource. And this means as much the Quality of the manpower as the Quantity. Tentatively, I think the way to do this is to add Specialists to the 'population points' of General Population. Putting a Specialist to work would not subtract from the general population pool, because they are a relatively tiny percentage of the total, but the total number of Specialists available would be limited by, say, the number of Schools, Libraries and Universities, level of literacy, degree to which your Social System elevates Learning as worthy of respect, etc. In general, Population would gather Resources from the land (mining, farming, herding, etc) while Specialists did Special Things with the Resources in the towns/cities (manning Workshops, Observatories, Mills, Universities, etc). In effect, every Tile would take a Population Point to get anything out of it, while every Building would take a Specialist to have any effect. And, of course, Military would take some of each, potentially setting up the age-old Guns Versus Butter conflict for your Civ.
3. The effects, efficiency, and flexibility (multiple uses) of all Resources, Population and Specialists would be heavily modified not only by Technology, but also by your Political, Social, Civic, and even Cultural situation in your Civ. As a relatively familiar modern example, Communism requires a strong and coercive government to direct all efforts in given directions. But, although it allows you to concentrate Technological Progress and Production, it also eats up Resources in organizations like police, militia, secret or special police, and similar coercive structures to control everything. By contrast, Capitalism has little central focus, but produces far more overall Wealth and End Product - it just may not be precisely the type of Product the government wants or needs. These descriptions are themselves simplified, but they are at the level that I think the game should operate to avoid becoming some Brobdinagian Political/Social/Economic Simulation of dubious accuracy and no fun at all.
4. Most Resources should be renewable and moveable. It is the Apex of the ridiculous to assume, as Civ always has, that ALL horses, grains, fish and other organic resources are still in the same places in 2022 CE that they were in 4000 BCE and ONLY in those places, and in the same quantities. With the application of proper Technologies, all of these can be moved, added, renewed. In addition, Substitutes Are Found whenever a resource runs out or is not available locally. This is, bluntly, the lesson of history if there is one, and should be in the game. Even before 4000 BCE, resources like Amber, Obsidian, Seashells, and useful animals like Cattle and Horses were MOVED by Trade or migration long, long distances as required/desired by human groups (for two of the most important examples to Human History, cattle were not native to the Central Asian steppes and horses to the Middle East until human groups moved both of them between 6000 and 2500 BCE.
5. Resources have to be looked and relooked for. Second only to the Permanent and Fixed Plant and Animal Life of Point 4 is the idea that magically all the Copper in the world appears as soon as the first human being stands up on the map in 4000 BCE, and all the Oil on land everywhere appears with a puff of black oily smoke as soon as you get the Technology of "Stepped In This Black Sticky Stuff". Hasn't anybody at Firaxis ever heard of Gold Rushes? Or the fundamental historical importance of Phillip of Macedon getting his hands on the new silver mines just south of Macedon? Resources should both deplete and run out and new ones appear, either because you sent someone to look for them or you developed new technologies for finding them. Archeologists are fine, but I want a Geologist to send out looking for more Silver, Iron, Oil, or whatever I suddenly develop a desperate Need for.
This all comes under the rubric of "My Perfect Civ Game" - for me personally and probably only me - but I think a game in which the resources available change throughout the game, and what you can do with them also changes, and the way you get them changes, would be far more interesting than finding all of a resource anywhere on the map all at once, slapping a Mine, Pasture, Plantation, Farm or Fishing Boat on top of the resource and then Forgetting About It for the rest of the game
A more complex game that incorporate these ideas would be great, as a player of historical City Builders, Grand Strategy, RTS and 4X games would love it. But I see unlikely some points to ever be at that level of detail in CIV franchise that shines by its "board gamey" mechanics and aesthetic. So each point should be adapted to CIV level.
1- Dynamic Resources. Changing labels is not needed most resources can show different aspects/moments of their historical role without lose their straightforward game classification. Your examples: * COPPER:
- Can be used by Workshop to produce the Manufactured GoodJewelry (Luxury history covered).
- Reduce the cost of Ancient Age militar units (Bronze weapons covered).
- Needed to produce in Factory the Manufactured GoodElectronics (Production and Amenity covered).
*COTTON:
- Bonus to Fishery
- Can be used to produce the Manufactured GoodTextiles.
- Reduce cost of Infantry units in the proper Era.
The average player in the average game length would be overhelmed by changes of dozens of resources every few turns. CIV abstract even the most basic elements of the chain of production of anything, in-game your civ basically works with raw natural resources. Add some bonus and just onelevel of transformation from Natural Resources to Manufactured Goods would be an improvement. The whole idea of have a couple of Strategic Resources each era even if is exagerated for some and reduced for others is to give players something to get hold of, the rest can be abstracted or just plain ignored (lets be honest we can have a very long list of strategic resources from the WW2 but the game should pick just a few to be accessible to everyone).
2- Manpower. I would use the term Denizen (is awkard to Research Citizenship if you have Citizens since start ), each Denizen with their own Class (social class/job/profession) that would add for the Social and Goverment mechanics. We can have all your population with a Class like Artists, Clerics, Farmers, Laborers, Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, etc.
3- Here give identity to your Population is also a key element, each Ideology the player incorporate would impact (mostly and greatly positively) X or Y social Class, Heritage and Religion. Of course some down side could be added to any choise but these should be lesser to not turn CIV in a management game.
4- Agree in general. Have crops and livestocks that can be propagated, depletable minerals and new synthetic replacement of natural resources would add to the dynamic of the game and shake the status quo each game. It just need to be ballanced.
5- Like the previous point is OK if it is ballanced to not need to change too much. A general Prospection Expedition could be one of the Research Line projects. you chose a territory (City) to be prospected and this reveals both Artifacts and Resources.
My mention of capitalism/communism and government is more in relation to the (accurate) notion that the government can or cannot do certain things under capitalism (like having much less control over what gets produced); I contend that since the player in Civ represents the society more than the government, capitalism shouldn't actually translate into much of a loss of control by the player (since the player is the businessmen as much as he is the government).
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), each Denizen with their own Class (social class/job/profession) that would add for the Social and Goverment mechanics. We can have all your population with a Class like Artists, Clerics, Farmers, Laborers, Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, etc.
