How to use Production, Gold, and Faith in Civ 7?

[xehgre]

Production, Gold, and Faith are the major currencies for purchasing unit, building, and districts. Personally, I feel gold right now is just bankable production and faith is something you either really need or you can completely ignore. I would prefer that each civilization tries to find a balance between them. Assuming we keep all 3 currencies in Civ 7, how would you like to see each of them used?

Currently I am thinking.

Production: Production is your foundation for building city infrastructure and military might. You also have multiple project types where some are geared towards city with few districts and low production(Base district projects) and other reward high production stats (special projects, great people)

• Build districts, building, Wonders and military units.
• Base district projects now provide a per turn modifier to the chosen yield without the great people points.
• Create separate projects that award Great People Points after completion.
• Create special projects that requires a city to produce X amount of production per turn in order to run the projects.

Gold: Maintaining your cities and armies isn't cheap, but if you got some money left over visit your local barbarians or city states to buy units, levy armies and increase your standings. If your vault is looking really wealthy slot in some policy cards that requires you to spend gold per turn.

• Use it for maintenance cost (which should be higher than Civ 6).
• Purchase military units,
• Use it for interacting with Barbarians camps and City-States
• Use it as a cost on some Policy cards.
• Use in trade between Civilizations
• Use for Unit upgrades.
• Use it for Unit healing (not sure on this one)
• Use it to buy great people

Faith:
Civ 6 Faith isn't just a religious currency it seems to be more of a culture currency (rock bands, naturalist, archaeologist) so i would expand on it. I also think we could fold the diplomatic favor currency into it.

• Purchase civilian and Religious units.
• Use it to change policy cards (no free policy changes on completing a civic)
• Use it to change government types
• Use it to buy great people.
• Use it as a cost on some Policy cards.
• Use it to enact Policies against other Civs (tariffs, etc)
• Use for voting in world congress (please, please be better than Civ 6 Congress)
• Use in trade between Civilizations

 

[rocksinmypath]

I've recently been thinking about this topic because things are really hairy with the different currencies in Civ 6, and I think it's important they're re-defined in the next game.

With regards to gold, I'd redefine it as a way of manipulating other yields through taxation and subsidization. For instance, imagine a campus is a place of business, teaching students in exchange for tuition. You can tax the campus for income, but you can also choose to forego this income to encourage learning, because it benefits your civilization. In game, this can be implemented as a policy card that improves science output at the expense of (significantly) increased campus maintenance. If you're building a wonder, you can pay workers more to increase their productivity. In the game, this will just be the Corvee policy card but with a gold cost equal to some multiple of production added by the policy. By the way, I'm not saying we should add sliders to policies because that'd just be too painful. Corvee would still always add 15% production toward wonders, and the game will just calculate how much gold needs to be subtracted per turn while the policy is enacted.

If you're losing money, say, due to high military maintenance, you'll have to raise taxes to make up for the deficit. This will make your citizens unhappy, leading to reduction across all yields. Conversely, if you're running a surplus, you can reduce taxes to make your citizens happy, increasing yields. In the game, this can be implemented like this. There will be no stockpiling mechanism for gold. Instead, every turn, based on how much gold you're making or losing per turn, a modifier to yields like food, production and science in each city will be set. This modifier will be equal across all your cities and the whole mechanism will be separate from amenities. I emphasize this because, in Civ 6, negative gold income with zero balance translates to amenity reduction (-1 amenity for every city for every -10 gpt). The more gold you lose per turn, the heavier the yield penalty, until you reach a point where you will start losing units (similar to how it's done in Civ 6). There will be a limit on how much yield you can gain from making a ton of gold per turn (e.g. 20%), and because stockpiling isn't a thing, you'll have to budget carefully to avoid excess surplus.

With regards to faith, I'd aim to completely eliminate overlap with gold in terms of use. I like the idea of having religions as city state-like entities (proposed in this post). In this framework, it would be more appropriate for each religion to have a distinct faith currency players can use to interact with it. I'm imagining religious entities as a sort of stores that sell certain goods like worship buildings (used for generating faith toward a specific religion + some other yield benefit similar to how they are in Civ 6) and add some character to believers (manifested as similar to how some founder beliefs in Civ 7 are implemented; e.g. Choral Music adds culture proportional to number of believers added to the city where believers live). I think faith eventually expanded to become a cultural currency of sort as you mentioned as an attempt to buff it, but I'd just like it stay purely a religious currency and instead see religion become more powerful and expand how faith can be used to harness the full power of religion.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

Part of me liked Civ 4's approach where gold was essentially your "profit" after you spent money on science. You could choose to lower your research rate for more gold for buyouts, or vice versa. But I don't know how many people would prefer having an actual budget for the next civ game like it was Sim City or something.
Me I don't like the idea that science or monetary gold comes out of the ground like it now does.

 

[xehgre]

@rocksinmypath Your examples of policy cards it basically what I was imagining. I hadn't thought about removing the ability to stockpile gold. It's something that could add some meaningful choices. As for the Faith comments. I do like the idea of religions being city state-like entities, but I worry about adding 4-8 currency per game for the more casual play. I think with careful map scripts if they could ensure you only find say 2 religions near the start of the game and the numbers slowly expand as you explore that could work.

 

[DeckerdJames]

I have never liked the religious aspect of the game. Not because it isn’t designed well, but just from a conceptual point of view. Faith as a currency seems dumb. Not as a game mechanic, but as a model of civilization, as if faith were something like gold.

If religion were not included in Civ 7, I wouldn’t be bothered. Give me a better spy game. Theological units exist in their own space, for the most part, in Civ 6. Let spy units be like that and let us have a spy unit early and earn more through the eras. Perhaps like great people are earned, but perhaps another way. Spy and recon units are about intelligence gathering. Intelligence gathering, about the world and its inhabitants, is a major thing. They could enhance that aspect.

They probably will include religion. A lot of people like it.

 

[Xandinho]

Does it make sense to use production to create military units? I'd like a special yield for generating units.

As far as faith is concerned, unless they integrate faith and culture into just one yeld, I don't think it makes sense for faith to be used to change policies and governments. Also, faith in Civ6 is used to buy rock bands, but that doesn't make sense, gold should be the yeld for it, or buying rock bands should take part of the culture generation by turn.

 

[Evie]

Faith and culture should definitely be integrated into one currency.

Social "techs" (currently civics) should go back to the main tech tree, researched using Research (rather than Science). Culture should instead be taking over Faith's role as the alt-currency, representing how strongly people believe in your nation and its ideals (including, but not limited to, its religion), expendable in a variety of different ways including to purchase tiles and to rush units, as well as to purchase civics/policies/beliefs (a mix of policy cards, civ V civics, and religious beliefs).

 

[Zaarin]

I have never liked the religious aspect of the game. Not because it isn’t designed well, but just from a conceptual point of view. Faith as a currency seems dumb. Not as a game mechanic, but as a model of civilization, as if faith were something like gold.

If religion were not included in Civ 7, I wouldn’t be bothered. Give me a better spy game. Theological units exist in their own space, for the most part, in Civ 6. Let spy units be like that and let us have a spy unit early and earn more through the eras. Perhaps like great people are earned, but perhaps another way. Spy and recon units are about intelligence gathering. Intelligence gathering, about the world and its inhabitants, is a major thing. They could enhance that aspect.

They probably will include religion. A lot of people like it.

Making a historical game without religion is rather like making a first-person shooter without guns. They might as well leave out cities and military units at that point. Religion does need an overhaul, though. The system as it exists now is fun but not particularly religious-feeling.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Making a historical game without religion is rather like making a first-person shooter without guns. They might as well leave out cities and military units at that point. Religion does need an overhaul, though. The system as it exists now is fun but not particularly religious-feeling.

To my knowledge, no religion was ever started by a Government. Governments (Leaders) and Religion were certainly enmeshed and intertwined with each other, and many a leader/government adoprted a religion or religiousity to boost their legitimacy and power, but I don't know of any case in which, as is required in Civ VI, you the Government get to start a religion - and then pick and choose almost everything about the religion you want.

This alone makes Religion as presented in Civ VI an utter fantasy and fantastically Immersion-Breaking.

For me, Religion is something that happens to your Civ - kind of like Tornados or Hurricanes and Volcanoes: you have to adapt to the Religion, and possibly the adaptation will be entirely useful to you - but don't bet on it.
Religion, then, should be handled very differently from other 'currencies': you can accumulate 'Religious currency' and change the rate at which it accumulates, but your choices for how to 'spend' it may be very limited, and may not have the results you expected. Classic example, the fanatic religious followers that greatly increase the capabilities of your military units, but then split the country into pieces fighting over interpretations of the tenets of the religion, or alienate all parts of the country who are NOT religious fanatics.

On the other hand, Religion and Ideologies, in game terms, are virtually identical. The difference on the map and in the game between the Death Squads of a militant religion and those of the Red Guards of the Communist Revolution (or the Nazi SS units) is of little consequence, and the leader who tries to ride either a religion or an ideology to power is riding a Tiger in either case.

As stated, Religion is an inescapable part of history and therefore has a place in any Historical 4X game, but it has to be rendered with some faint aspect of accuracy or it becomes a cartoon of religion representing something that never existed. In the case of Civ VII, a good start would be to throw away every aspect of Civ VI religion and start over - maybe keep a few Tenets, but how you get them must change completely.

 

[Zaarin]

To my knowledge, no religion was ever started by a Government. Governments (Leaders) and Religion were certainly enmeshed and intertwined with each other, and many a leader/government adoprted a religion or religiousity to boost their legitimacy and power, but I don't know of any case in which, as is required in Civ VI, you the Government get to start a religion - and then pick and choose almost everything about the religion you want.

This alone makes Religion as presented in Civ VI an utter fantasy and fantastically Immersion-Breaking.

For me, Religion is something that happens to your Civ - kind of like Tornados or Hurricanes and Volcanoes: you have to adapt to the Religion, and possibly the adaptation will be entirely useful to you - but don't bet on it.
Religion, then, should be handled very differently from other 'currencies': you can accumulate 'Religious currency' and change the rate at which it accumulates, but your choices for how to 'spend' it may be very limited, and may not have the results you expected. Classic example, the fanatic religious followers that greatly increase the capabilities of your military units, but then split the country into pieces fighting over interpretations of the tenets of the religion, or alienate all parts of the country who are NOT religious fanatics.

On the other hand, Religion and Ideologies, in game terms, are virtually identical. The difference on the map and in the game between the Death Squads of a militant religion and those of the Red Guards of the Communist Revolution (or the Nazi SS units) is of little consequence, and the leader who tries to ride either a religion or an ideology to power is riding a Tiger in either case.

As stated, Religion is an inescapable part of history and therefore has a place in any Historical 4X game, but it has to be rendered with some faint aspect of accuracy or it becomes a cartoon of religion representing something that never existed. In the case of Civ VII, a good start would be to throw away every aspect of Civ VI religion and start over - maybe keep a few Tenets, but how you get them must change completely.

Yep, I have been arguing this for a long time. Religion needs to be divorced from player control and made something bigger than civs that exists outside the civs, something that civs respond to be embracing, rejecting, reforming, spreading, persecuting, tolerating, but not founding.

 

[Evie]

Of course the idea that we play *as the government* has always been questionable.

We play in my understanding as the civilization/culture, more so than any state within it. And religion is very tied to that.

 

[Zaarin]

Of course the idea that we play *as the government* has always been questionable.

I 100% agree, but for the most part religion is also bigger than the civilization. (Ethnic religions like Judaism are the exception--but even Judaism had its brief day in antiquity when it teetered on the edge of being more than ethnic, when the Greeks were fascinated by it and the Aramaic kingdom of Adiabene converted to it--before ultimately it drew back into itself.)

 

[Evie]

Fair, though even when sharing a religion may civilizations still managed to have quite different versions of it.

Hence my suggestion to fold beliefs into policies/civ V civics, to represent these cultural takes on religions, while the actual religious denomination can be more removed from the civs.

 

[Zaarin]

That's why I think we need reformation and schism mechanics to represent, e.g., Council of Nicaea, Council of Chalcedon, Council of Constance, Council of Trent, heresies, Protestant-style reformations and counter-reformations, etc. (Using Christian examples because that's what I'm most familiar with, but Twelver Shi'a Iran and post-Islamic religions like Druze also come to mind.)

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I found the shift from Civ IV to Civ V very exciting in terms of religion. The former was rooted in deterministic flavor with set religions triggered by designated technologies, often with predictable results. The addition of a faith currency in Civ V evoked for me that sense of organic development of pantheons that proved such a relief. That new yield came with limited uses: religious units, belief-supported buildings, and civic/belief-determined great people. I think faith works in Civ V because it is abstracted such that waiting for enough faith to pick a pantheon or saving up faith for a Great Musician falls in a sweet spot.

While Civ VI may sound similar in terms of pantheons and faith-purchasing, I agree it has gone overboard on treating faith as a currency. I would say faith thresholds for pantheons help restrict player agency and give the sense of beliefs crystallizing around the world. A problem with early beliefs totally out of the player's control would be a strong incentive to restart/reload (though maybe not more than other early-game elements). I have suggested before that offering a choice of pantheons based on nearby features could help early religion feel more organic. Whereas the faith economy in its present form makes religious elements quite relevant to the game, it also breaks the illusion and falls almost entirely under player control. Restricting faith spending and weakening player agency would have to be balanced to maintain integration.

 

[dagriggstar]

Faith in civ VI feels more like "Inspiration" rather than faith. I generally agree that it's function should be mostly folded into gold and culture.

Where I like "culture" as a yield are situations where
1) Culture influences borders, civ IV I think did this best.
2) Developing an Ideology. My preferred method of a cultural victory would be to pressure all your opponents into adopting your ideology AND adopting all of their policies (No limits on how many policies can be adopted)
3) Buying wonders with culture, as opposed to making them with production. Especially if you have to choose between a nice juicy wonder to enhance one city OR a policy that is a small buff to all your cities.

Gold I view as the currency that can do everything, but you should never feel like you have enough of it.
Science (Research I like better) I'd prefer more of an "everythings a leaf tech" approach, rather than a tech tree. Like, you enter a new age by "ageing up", you automatically get new basic units, then you can go a research "Halberds" or "flintlocks" or "Compound Bow" and the new technologies boost said units.

Gold/Science/Culture/Faith (if present) shouldn't come out of the ground either, I'd like to see specialists play a big role here. Like, this city has a lot of extra food, do I want to invest that into Gold/Science/Culture/Faith or Production ? Do I simply want to grow bigger ? Imagine it actually being a choice to advance to the Classical era first (All excess food goes into feeding scientists), Medieval era (trying to maintain a balance) or Renaissance ("Booming", so early game going behind due to just making lots of farmers and food, to be able to support massive amounts of scientists later to catch up and overtake everyone).

 

[mitsho]

I agree with regards to Culture versus Faith - versus all the other yields added in by expansions. It's hard to keep track of them all. Combining Culture and Faith makes sense, and I like the civics tree. I'd do it a a little bit differently and combine it with previous games system: The civic side shouldn't copy the Tech Tree, but be a net where you invest your culture points "wide or deep". Revolutions, or Schisms, or Modern notions of separation of church and state would allow you to get back points and reinvest them. Makes sense, no?

And I would even propose something further: Abolish Production. It's much cleaner to just buy stuff in your cities and it makes sense on a time-scale as well. Building a Unit shouldn't take so long. Wonders would need to be bought in several steps, and as we play on a computer, you can calculate the locally available amount of money to buy stuff based on your trade network. The distinctions between high-gold and high-production cities can still be there, but with a bigger focus on the actual resources. An Iron Industry needed to build Swordmen, Forests needed to build ships. Triggers for Events, Stories and Research then replace the yields.

I know I will get a lot of dislikes for that, but that's my answer to the question of the resources: Have fewer of them, make them more versatile and let that be the focus for the player, not the build up of perfectly specialized yield cities.

 

[Evie]

I was actually thinking of the exact opposite - abolish gold, keep production.

They do, at the end of the day, overlap a lot.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Last two posts show an interesting dichotomy, but really both addressing the same problem:
How many different currencies do we need in the game that are all, at one time or another, doing the same thing?

Specifically, how many different ways does the game need to 'get' Buildings, Districts, Wonders, Units or Improvements (assuming a similar system to Civ VI, in which Improvements are 'bought' indirectly by purchasing the Units required to build them)?

Especially since, as pointed out, Religion and Production overlap game terms. But I would add that they overlap in one fundamentally important way: both are abstractions to keep us from having to mobilize people, tools, building materials/resources and organize the infrastructure required to 'produce' a religious site, multiple hectacres of farmland, or a brigade of cavalry. Without these abstractions, the game would become a grossly complicated City Builder/Construction game hiding behind a 4X Facade - and likely unplayable (Once Upon A Time I was part of a project to 'replay' World War Two - pre-computer. To handle all the economical, political, resource, production - as well as military - decisions took teams of 6 to 9 people Per Country. Computers might simplify some of that, but expand it from 6 years to 60 Centuries and add another 40 - 60 countries and one suspects that it would be neither playable nor Fun to attempt)

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.

So, perhaps the way to reform the entire process for Civ VII is to establish for each Civ a single Pool from which Everything can be built: Districts, Buildings, Wonders, Improvements, Units and anything else that Civ VII wants to clutter the game map with.
That Pool could be 'filled' or refilled from Religious, Political, Industrial, or even secular Cultural activities, representing Religious Fervor, Economic Need, Political Activism, etc. There would be very different activities and actions in each area to obtain the 'Points', which might require religious, cultural, economic or political Structures, Districts, Wonders, or Great People, but once the points are in the pool, they are Identical - markers for the abstraction that all the categories represent.

A Cathedral and its followers might generate Religious Points - they might well apply towards the religious fervor or bent of your Civ that will manifest in other ways, as in Government Type or Cultural proclivities, but they will also generate 'Production' Points. A Factory, Workshop, Farm, Mine or Harbor might generate Industrial (old Production) points, a Bank, Stock Market, the government Tax System you adopted would generate Economic points - and all those Points become identical when counted for Production of anything.

And I agree, the time required to 'produce' anything in the game is grossly out of scale: except possibly for Wonders, everything else for most of the game should be buildable in 1 - 5 turns (late game 1 year turns would require multiple turns to build an Aircraft Carrier or Battleship, but, for example, submarines and destroyers could be built within a single turn by most industrialized countries. To keep gamers from not paying for any military until attacked, I suggest that no unit be allowed to move until the turn after it is 'built', despite the time-scale, just to keep everybody honest . . .

 

[Evie]

The time required to build thing is, and should always be, more a question of game balance than one of realism: making it too short result in large amount of units being produced, taking longer turns to move, and thus, slower games overall (without even getting into the One UPT problems that would also raise).

I'm really not sure about the "all resources can purchase anything" concept. I'd rather have fewer, more distinct resources than more resources that all do the same things. In my opinion, the ability to use one resource in lieu of another should largely be constrained to being an ability that is gained through building assorted improvements, wonders, or adopting government policies (thus, in all three cases, coming with an opportunity cost) - not something that is automatically granted.