BackseatTyrant
Queer Anarcho-Transhumanist
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2013
- Messages
- 526
Browsing through some recent discussions, I felt I needed to create a separate thread explaining how I feel civilian units should be done. If I have to be honest, I really dislike the very concept of Great Person units (which have existed in every single game if you include the wonders that are just straight up named after historical individuals) since it represents a very outdated and eurocentric view of history. Yeah no, get rid of the unique abilities, get rid of the historical names, get rid of the 'Great'; history doesn't consist of great men, but of regular people. On top of that, I wish civilian units were something the player more regularly and consistently interacted with, instead of there being one generic villager unit doing 90% of everything and everyone else only being brought out once like they're wonders of their own. So here are the more general changes I propose:
- Units are accrued through population growth rather than city production. Every time a new citizen born, you can choose whether they stay at home, or appears on the map as a unit
- Civilian units have a limited lifespan, rather than a limited amount of action charges
- At the start at least, only one civilian unit per type per civilization can exist on the game's map at once, though the cap can be raised by building educational buildings, thus raising the civ's literacy level
- Same literacy level could also determine if a civilian unit is even available in the first place. Like, sorry, but no one is educated enough yet to become a scientist or engineer etcetera
- For similar reasons, specialists are uncommon until the late game, with the emergence of mechanized agriculture, mass urbanization and compulsory education
- The builder/worker unit is removed. Poof! Gone, because...
- ...rural infrastructure (known as 'tile improvements' in Civ6) are instead built via the city building queue, and...
- ...the city distance requirement, and the concept of working surrounding tiles, are removed as well. Instead, each tile has sub-tiles that you place one building each on, though it'd now be likely that most 'cities' will now just be farming villages, consisting of a granary completely surrounded by farms
- General – unlocked at Tactics
- Form battle plan – Provide overlapped unit with a new tradition (which is what I think promotions should be renamed to). I propose this action can only be performed once for every battle the General unit has been involved with
- Recruit soldiers – Convert one population to a new military unit, alternatively boosting the manpower amount of existing unit, if such metric were to be introduced
- Admiral – unlocked at Shipbuilding
- Form battle plan – See above
- Recruit sailors – See above
- Philosopher – unlocked at Natural Philosophy. I'm only suggesting this unit because scientists weren't a thing until the formation of the scientific method; their predecessors were known as 'natural philosophers' and their research would often involve them looking at a thing, go 'hmm...' and come up with a conclusion that made sense to them. And they would sometimes make actual discoveries, just not at the same pace or as reliably
- Study nature – When outside of any civilization's borders, performing this action would provide a minor boost towards researching a certain tech, with mainly terrain determining which one. This would arguably be the main way to tech up for most of the game, with the science rate being practically zero until the late game
- Study society – Same principle as above, except it'd be performed on foreign settlements and is for boosting a given non-tech advance (I would personally call them 'social constructs', as it would mainly involve politics, art, philosophy, religion, organization, economic systems etc)
- Scientist – unlocked at Scientific Method. Would mostly replace the philosopher unit for the late game
- Conduct experiment – Basically the same as 'Study nature' except considerably more effective and targeted, and the unit would have to be on top of a laboratory instead of out in the wild
- Found faculty – Would provide an otherwise generic university with a unique bonus of the player's choice. I would personally limit this action to once per unit and university
- Join space mission – You kind of need do need a science degree to be even remotely useful for any space mission, at least for as long as space travel is still in its infancy. Personally, I would say somewhere between one and three scientists should be needed per space mission, depending on each respective mission's nature
- Physician – unlocked at Anatomy. Optional. This unit would of course only be relevant if the game has a prominent health mechanic
- Treat the sick – Would provide a boost to city health and also maybe protect against discreet diseases if those are going to be a thing as well. This action could start out only lasting a handful of turns, but become more potent and eventually permanent as the player techs up
- Treat the wounded – Heal a wounded unit, should be self-explanatory
- Engineer – unlocked at Engineering. A merge between Great Engineer, Military Engineer and Builder/Worker
- Upgrade weaponry – Could refer to not just upgrading a military unit, but also helping siege units undermine the enemy's defences
- Upgrade defences – Temporarily providing a defensive structure and/or garrison with a unique bonus to help thwart any imminent invaders
- Hurry production – Would basically replace what the Worker/Builder unit has been doing in previous iterations, when it comes to rural infrastructure like farms, mines, mills etcetera, which I think should be moved to the city construction menu
- Construct road network – Would work pretty much identically to previous instalments, with maybe more emphasis on it only being sometimes essential, as most civilian travel in the pre-modern world happened by boat, rather than horse-driven carriages, horseback or even by foot
- Construct rail network – See above, except the locomotive should be depicted as the game-changer most of like to think the automobile was. This action could be rendered unnecessary, though, if train stations became available in the game to build
- Construct telecommunications – Laying down copper cables, and later on, optical fibre cables & cellular antennas. Again, this action could be rendered unnecessary, depending on what the buildings list looks like
- Repair infrastructure – For when something has been pillaged by enemy troops or damaged by natural disaster
- Merchant – unlocked at Coinage
- Establish trade route – Personally, I wouldn't have an upper limit to trade route capacity. I would much rather have a unit go to a city, and have this action create a trade route between it and the city they came from, and just let it run for the rest of the game, while the same merchant travels around to establish more trade routes elsewhere. If merchants available isn't enough of a limitation, I would also suggest that international trade routes can only be established between two cities with at least one commercial and/or maritime building each
- Establish corporation – Honestly unsure how to implement this mechanic, or how limited this action should be. It would honestly depend on whether or not there's a victory condition that involves economic dominance
- Buy property – Pay money to own a building in a foreign city. City owner receives a reduced yield, but the player gets a new stream of income, being the colonizer landlord. Cheaper if the player already has a corporation of theirs established there
- Performer – unlocked at Mysticism. Basically the Rock Band unit, except made available way earlier and would have a domestic use as well
- Entertain the crowds – For increasing city happiness, cultural export and/or cultural defence
- Boost morale – I would personally have this action increase the amount of XP gained from battles, though there is probably a better purpose for the battle bard
- Writer – unlocked at Theatre
- Write a poem – Unsure what this action should do mechanics-wise, but I want it included nonetheless. Could simulate everything from historical epics to national anthems to rap battles
- Write a stageplay – Would create the equivalent to Great Work of Writing in previous titles, and thus have similar effects. The only thing I would change, is probably to have the player choose between an amphitheatre or a theatre house to place the stageplay in, with the two having differing effects
- Write an essay – Basically the same as the 'Write Political Treatise'-action in Civ5. I could see this option not be available until around the time philosophers are rendered obsolete
- Painter– unlocked at Aesthetics
- Paint a portrait – As they would most likely be of political leaders, these paintings would provide a diplomacy-related boost
- Paint a landscape – I would probably have these paintings provide a raw culture/tourism boost
- Paint religious art – For the clergy, faith bonus
- Paint a public mural – For the people, happiness bonus
- Sculptor – unlocked at Aesthetics. The main reason I'm having this be a separate unit type, is because the word 'artist' is a really loaded term, and the discourse around who is or isn't an Artist™ can often turn very toxic
- Sculpt political leader – Meant to instil glory, authority and patriotism, military bonus
- Sculpt religious figure – For the clergy, again faith bonus
- Sculpt communal art – For the people, again happiness bonus
- Composer – unlocked at Music Notation. A more suitable name than 'Musician' in my opinion, since 'Musician' more often than not implies someone who is more about playing music than making it
- Compose a hymn – Another means of faith production, due to its religious nature
- Compose a symphony – Works commissioned by the aristocracy, so they'll probably have a bonus representing the old ruling class reinforcing its prestige & authority
- Compose a ballad – Put this in a city's concert hall (or whatever else the music-related building is supposed to be called) to make performer units from the same city more effective
- Filmmaker – unlocked at Photography. Cinema has played an extremely important role in the history of soft power, plus there would finally be a reason to have photography as an unlockable tech
- Make a documentary – Denotes any film of educational and/or journalistic value. Should probably have a science and/or literacy-related bonus
- Make a blockbuster – The stuff that's filmed to make money from entertaining the masses. Gold and/or happiness bonus
- Make a propaganda film – Made either to energize the in-group, or demoralize the out-group, so I would probably have these films provide a negative modifier to enemy civilizations
- Make a niche film – From arthouse to grindhouse, everything that flies under the radar, made out of love and for the culture. Given their avant garde nature, I would have these films provide a bonus to all future movies made by filmmakers from the same civilization
- Diplomat – unlocked at Snail Mail
- Establish embassy – Would place an embassy as a physical building in the city. I would personally have this action required to make diplomatic contact with other civilizations, to simulate just how tedious long-form communication used to be, but players generally dislike when things in a game are tedious, and would probably miss how instant it used to be in previous games. I don't know, maybe it's just me
- Manage relations – This option would be nice to have, to placate CPU-controlled players you pissed off against your will
- Insult hosts – Conversely, there should be an option to deliberately worsen relations with another civ, in case you want to accrue an easy casus belli
- Spy – unlocked at Cryptography. For the most part, I'm content with how espionage works in Civ6, except I would personally replace the dice rolling with something more akin to a hacking minigame, though I have seen others be vehemently be against this idea, which took me by surprise
- Steal battle plans – If I recall correctly, this is what most historical espionage entailed. Mechanically, I would have it temporarily lower the advantages of the enemy civ's promoted units
- Steal classified research – Roughly the same as 'Steal Tech Boost' in Civ6
- Stage art heist – Same as 'Great Art Heist' in Civ6
- Incite coup – Same as 'Recruit Partisans' in Civ6
- Rig elections – Introduces a fifth column to the local political process, and would in major civs cause a drop in loyalty/stability/integrity, and in city states sway the local leadership's support towards you
- Assassinate governor – Probably the same as 'Neutralize Governor' in Civ6, depending on whether or not that game's governor system will make a return
- Sabotage infrastructure – Would destroy an existing building of choice
- Lawyer – unlocked at Jurisprudence. Optional unit, and its use would be quite apocryphal. Still, I would like to see more than one unit designed for halting the momentum of bigger civs, plus it's funny
- File lawsuit – Would siphons the funds of the enemy civilization
- Support workers' strike – Would pause all ongoing construction in the city for a handful of turns, longer if living conditions in said city are below acceptable
- Fabricate religious discourse – This one would be funny to imagine happen IRL, and it's basically what I'd have stealing another civ's faith as
- Slaver – unlocked at Slavery. Slavery is one thing I've been missing from the game's main series, if for no other reason than that it would give me a legitimate reason to attack other civilizations. Yes, it did technically exist in Civ4, but chattel slavery in real life is something that never got exterminated, only outlawed (though even that statement comes with an asterisk or two) and I just prefer how slaves were something you could physically see on the map in CtP
- Take criminal slave – Would convert a citizen in one of the player's cities into a slave
- Take war slave – Would kidnap a citizen from an enemy civilization, which would then be installed in one of the player's cities as a slave
- Abolitionist – unlocked at Emancipation. The flipside to the slaver, first appearing in the mid-to-late game
- Free slaves – Would as the tin says, free one or more slaves from the enemy civ's clutches How many would depend on the circumstances
- Aid uprising – The more extreme measure, as it would make the slaves take over the city and declare itself an independent state. Think Haiti or Mamlukean Egypt
- Naturalist – unlocked by Theory of Evolution. Optional. Honestly unsure if this needs to be their own unit, or if these are action which could be covered by scientists
- Designate nature preserve – The naturalist would have to stand on a tile the player has claimed, but has no buildings in it. All sub-tiles within said tiles would then be occupied by the Nature Preserve building, which would function similar to how National Parks do in Civ6
- Promote naturalism – In cities with at least one museum, the naturalist could teach the young to be more respectful of nature, using the knowledge gained from the Nature Preserve they created. This action would provide immunity against tourism from less environmentalist civilizations
- Archaeologist – unlocked by Archaeology. Optional. Not too dissimilar from what's been seen before, except artefacts no longer take up space on the map, and can be dug from any tile (though with varying degrees of value)
- Extract historical artefact – Mostly refers to items created by humans. Each artefact would provide a varying amount of culture, depending on how rare the find is, ranging from trivial ("these are found everywhere") to legendary ("this changes everything")
- Extract prehistoric artefact – Mostly refers to items from before humans existed; think dinosaur bones, fossils and the like. Would work just like historical artefact, except with science instead of culture
