Ideas for The Perfect 4X Historical Game

[Sostratus]

6. Loyalty & Disloyalty
I think a concept of loyalty is needed to represent a variety of historical forces, such as a failing state getting picked apart by neighbors, the effects of religious or ethnic blocs that transcend borders, etc.

Where I think civ6 came up a little short was not extending their system beyond the diplomatic arena into empire management by having a lack of loyalty be disloyalty or revolt instead of "loyalty to someone else." In a vacuum, the loyalty system we have means that the only thing that fights your loyalty is another empires. You can be the worst ruler ever and as long as no one else is within 9 tiles they will never split. It is a linear system of You vs All your neighbors instead of a "polar" system of all empires vs free state/anarchy. As an example of what i mean, imagine if not managing a city well - unemployed pops, negative amenities, overcrowding - gave you a negative loyalty number on its own. But instead of this meaning some other empire would take the city, the city would simply revert to independent status. You would need to convince such a settlement to join you and your wonderful empire. So this means that settling the frontier and letting them be neglected could lead to some settlements going independent. It could mean that encampments of other people - the idea mentioned in this thread that there really aren't "empty" tiles, there are people there - that evolve into settlements might be swayed to join you. It also means there is a real penalty to bad management and this sort of scheme can be used to generate larger scale rebellions if desired. IE, when one city goes, nearby disloyal cities may join them.

There are a ton of things in this game and previous games, like the cultural ties from civ4, or ideological pressure from civ5, or amenities in 6, that can all be rolled into +/- modifiers on a loyalty/disloyalty scale. You could even include things like empire level effects (perhaps your nation is bankrupt, or you have decided to be a rogue state in defiance of World Congress resolutions.) By having this condensed figure, designers have an expandable system that can accommodate almost anything. And players have a simple rating they can keep an eye on and understand what will happen when you don't keep it together.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

6. Loyalty & Disloyalty
I think a concept of loyalty is needed to represent a variety of historical forces, such as a failing state getting picked apart by neighbors, the effects of religious or ethnic blocs that transcend borders, etc.

Where I think civ6 came up a little short was not extending their system beyond the diplomatic arena into empire management by having a lack of loyalty be disloyalty or revolt instead of "loyalty to someone else." In a vacuum, the loyalty system we have means that the only thing that fights your loyalty is another empires. You can be the worst ruler ever and as long as no one else is within 9 tiles they will never split. It is a linear system of You vs All your neighbors instead of a "polar" system of all empires vs free state/anarchy. As an example of what i mean, imagine if not managing a city well - unemployed pops, negative amenities, overcrowding - gave you a negative loyalty number on its own. But instead of this meaning some other empire would take the city, the city would simply revert to independent status. You would need to convince such a settlement to join you and your wonderful empire. So this means that settling the frontier and letting them be neglected could lead to some settlements going independent. It could mean that encampments of other people - the idea mentioned in this thread that there really aren't "empty" tiles, there are people there - that evolve into settlements might be swayed to join you. It also means there is a real penalty to bad management and this sort of scheme can be used to generate larger scale rebellions if desired. IE, when one city goes, nearby disloyal cities may join them.

There are a ton of things in this game and previous games, like the cultural ties from civ4, or ideological pressure from civ5, or amenities in 6, that can all be rolled into +/- modifiers on a loyalty/disloyalty scale. You could even include things like empire level effects (perhaps your nation is bankrupt, or you have decided to be a rogue state in defiance of World Congress resolutions.) By having this condensed figure, designers have an expandable system that can accommodate almost anything. And players have a simple rating they can keep an eye on and understand what will happen when you don't keep it together.

Instead of a Loyalty - Disloyalty duality, I'd like to propose a continium:

Loyalty - Apathy - Disloyalty

And, boy, can this be expanded over the current limpid Civ VI system!

First, 'Loyalty" effects can modify almost everything else you do:
1. Most obviously, the effectiveness of your military Units: Apathetic troops are never going to rise above a mediocre level of effectiveness, Disloyal troops may either march home (desert) or, in relatively rare but potentially catastrophic cases, join your enemies. Disloyalty or Apathy would also increase the cost of raising/building new Units - by 1813 after 20 years of war, the French government had to send troops into the countryside to physically round up new recruits because nobody was voluntarily responding to draft notices any more!
2. Economy. We tend to forget how much of tax collection and positive response to the government is based on voluntary cooperation. When people don't care or are actively disloyal, that cooperation disappears, and Gold collected by the government can drop dramatically. Your merchants operating trade routes to other political entities may manage to hide all their taxable profits (Smuggling springs to mind) or 'squirrel them away' in the other countries, so even your Trade Route income drops. Disloyalty can diminish Income until your Civ is, effectively, Bankrupt - which is not going to increase Loyalty at all, and may precipitate Revolt or Civil War.
3. Type of Government. To a certain extent, coercion can replace or simulate Loyalty, but some Government types coerce better than others. A Democratic government with a Disloyal population will see a change of government. A 'democratic' government that resists that change will likely have its military declare for the opposition and crumble to nothing - to make the coercive forces effective, 'democracy' almost has to become something else, like an Ideological government that can claim legitimacy outside of popularity. And, of course, having a large military to keep the Apathetic - Disloyal population in line only works so far: see the tax collecting and military recruiting problems outlined above.
One likely result of Apathetic - Disloyal population and a government that insists on its 'right' to govern is the hiring of Mercenaries - either as foreign individuals or entire groups. This, of course, opens up another box of troubles: the Islamic caliphates invited the Turks to serve as mercenary soldiers and ended up with Turkish Sultanates running the caliphates, and the Romans recruited heavily among German tribes and ended up with German Generals running their army - and then their state.
4. Population Loss. This is largely an Early Game phenomena, but there is strong archeological and even some early written evidence that entire populations 'voted with their feet' and simply moved away when their government/chief/civil state failed them. In other words, the government that fails to deal effectively with Natural Disaster, invasion, raids, religious upheaval, Crime In The Streets, etc will see the population lose Loyalty and migrate - in Neolithic and Ancient periods, leading to the voluntary abandonment or depopulation of entire cities.
5. New Civics/Social Policies. Disloyalty can spawn entirely new Social systems. Basically, these start as opposition to the current system that has, for one reason or the other, Failed to deal with problems, but can quickly evolve into something else entirely. Best historical example, in 17th and 18th century Europe the 'Divine Monarchies' in England, France and other countries proved increasingly unable to deal with the social and civic problems of Enlightenment thinking, incipient industrialization, and the economic disruption caused by colonial ventures (like, farmers back home being turned into Processors of colonial raw materials and forced off their farms). That resulted in Anti-Monarch movements culminating in Regicides in both England and France - and the restoration of the monarchy in a new form in England, and an entirely new form of, first, Imperial Monarchy in France, followed (after military incompetence provided the Impetus) by a Republic. You have to look long and hard to find serious Anti-Monarchial movements in either country before increasing dissatisfaction and then Disloyalty provided the impetus to try Something New.
On a different level, increasing dissatisfaction with the disruption of the Industrialization and concentration of wealth among Industrialists led to a host of 'new' Social/Civics: Communism, National Socialism, Social Democracy, the Progressive movement in the USA, and all the political, social, 'civic' manifestations of those that are still with us.

In a nutshell, Fail to deal with problems or Needs of the population will increase Disloyalty. Once it crosses the threshold to Apathy, without radical measures the 'slide' will normally increase as it gets harder to get a positive response out of the population. Once it hits Disloyalty, you are looking at a change in Social Policy or Civics and/or a change in government.

This could be tied neatly into a Fame or Happiness score for Victory: any Civ that has gone through multiple violent changes of government, policy, social structure will be taking negative modifiers to any cumulative Happiness score every time, unless the resulting changes produce near-Ecstacy among the majority of your people.

Also, Random Events (which I think are needed besides Natural Disasters in the game) can include lots of plus and minus events to the Loyalty-Apathy-Disloyalty axis and recovery from Disloyalty. Timely or Untimely assassinations, writings, unforeseen interactions between religion, politics, social systems and fanaticism in varying degrees can keep the game from ever becoming entirely predictable, a condition from which late-game Civ VI suffers at the moment.
As an instance, Guy Fawkes and his Plot in England was a product of politics and religion. Its failure pretty much discredited violent assassination for a while and resulted in a new Vacation/Celebration in the United Kingdom. Had it succeeded, it would have, at least, disrupted the current government, and (very low probability) might have resulted in changing political, civic, or social policies in the Civ.
Read up on the effects of the writings of Tom Paine in both the incipient USA and England and France: an excellent historical example (along with K. Marx later) of the truism that Words Matter: the right (or wrong) writer at the right time can have the effect of a Random Event.

 

[Sostratus]

Instead of a Loyalty - Disloyalty duality, I'd like to propose a continium:

I was thinking something like this:

Where the city would move from the outside of the circle to the inside, or vice versa, and could exist in a Free State status wholly outside of any other civ's influence. There could be some debate about whether cities need to cross to the free state zone from apathy to actually rotate to someone else. And of course, being able to simply grant a block of cities their independence to dispense with the petulant whiners.
A measure of good game design would also include some hysteresis so that you avoid one big pitfall of what we see with loyalty now, which is a city flipping back and forth constantly. That really shouldn't happen.
I suppose taking certain modifiers and attaching them to loyalty - instead of putting all the chips on amenities - would be a good way to get those things like tax efficiency etc. The only thing to avoid is a empire level death spiral - those should stay localized so that if you're overextended, you'll lose the vulnerable spots and the remnant will be closer to sustainable. A cascading failure like "Random event reduces loyalty and thus tax income"->"citizens everywhere are mad about empty treasury"->"all cities become unhappy and provide less income"->repeat is not going to be a fun time.

With that said, i do think just committing to having each empire's free cities as a faction, aka Gudenof Empire has "Gudenof Secessionists" or "Gudenof Rebels" that inherit certain diplomatic concerns from their home country would be far superior to the free for all barb towns we get now. A free State that had very high disloyalty to their home country could be solely antagonistic to their home country and no one else. Other conditions could give rise to something else, IE inverted diplomacy (enemy of my enemy is a friend) or a religious separation or some other thing.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I was thinking something like this:
View attachment 546920
Where the city would move from the outside of the circle to the inside, or vice versa, and could exist in a Free State status wholly outside of any other civ's influence. There could be some debate about whether cities need to cross to the free state zone from apathy to actually rotate to someone else. And of course, being able to simply grant a block of cities their independence to dispense with the petulant whiners.
A measure of good game design would also include some hysteresis so that you avoid one big pitfall of what we see with loyalty now, which is a city flipping back and forth constantly. That really shouldn't happen.

I suggest that once a City 'flips' from one status to another: Working part of Empire - Free City or Part of Empire - Revolting City or even Revolting City - Part of Empire it should 'reset' so that it doesn't go into a constant cycle. If nothing else, this can be justified on grounds of simple exhaustion: everybody is tired of all the revolutionary/rioting/unrest drama and wants time to make a living

I suppose taking certain modifiers and attaching them to loyalty - instead of putting all the chips on amenities - would be a good way to get those things like tax efficiency etc. The only thing to avoid is a empire level death spiral - those should stay localized so that if you're overextended, you'll lose the vulnerable spots and the remnant will be closer to sustainable. A cascading failure like "Random event reduces loyalty and thus tax income"->"citizens everywhere are mad about empty treasury"->"all cities become unhappy and provide less income"->repeat is not going to be a fun time.

IF there is one thing that would bring the game closer to my "Perfect 4X Historical" it would be more interaction and interconnectivity between Culture, Civics, Social Policies, Military, Loyalty, Politics, Taxes, etc. So, there should be elements of Social Policy and Religion that will cause unrest/disloyalty, and others that may increase Loyalty but also may have other nasty side-effects. Some things are obvious: reduce the amount of Gold that you, the government, is leaching out of the economy, and people will love you - until their defensive walls start falling down, the harbor silts up, and plague breaks out because you stopped training doctors. (Almost) Everything should be a Trade Off, and the gamer should be in a constant Balancing Act, not a steady Upward Plod as in Civ games now.

I would make it a Principle that Loyalty Is Local: what pushes one city into open revolt will merely annoy another one. There should be very few actions that would have a uniformly Negative Effect across an Empire - unless, of course, that 'empire' is composed of a single city!

With that said, i do think just committing to having each empire's free cities as a faction, aka Gudenof Empire has "Gudenof Secessionists" or "Gudenof Rebels" that inherit certain diplomatic concerns from their home country would be far superior to the free for all barb towns we get now. A free State that had very high disloyalty to their home country could be solely antagonistic to their home country and no one else. Other conditions could give rise to something else, IE inverted diplomacy (enemy of my enemy is a friend) or a religious separation or some other thing.

No City that has been in existence for any length of time will start a new political entity as a Blank Slate. At the very least, they start with many of the Social/Civic/Religious attributes of the 'Mother Country', and although they may have an entirely new Political structure or government (or an Old One: "The True King Has Returned!" sort of thing) they will remain very close culturally to the Homeland. BUT the longer they are Independent, the more they will diverge. What they diverge to, however, should remain modifiable by all kinds of Other Factors - who are they trading with, who has a similar government or Social structure/policy or Religion or cultural/diplomatic similarities. The Single Track in Civ VI, where city rebells, becomes Free City, joins Other Empire every time ad nauseum is Not Optimal.

 

[nauberry]

Instead of a Loyalty - Disloyalty duality, I'd like to propose a continium:Loyalty and migrate - in Neolithic and Ancient periods, leading to the voluntary abandonment or depopulation of entire cities.
5. New Civics/Social Policies. Disloyalty can spawn entirely new Social systems. Basically, these start as opposition to the current system that has, for one reason or the other, Failed to deal with problems, but can quickly evolve into something else entirely. Best historical example, in 17th and 18th century Europe the 'Divine Monarchies' in England, France and other countries proved increasingly unable to deal with the social and civic problems of Enlightenment thinking, incipient industrialization, and the economic disruption caused by colonial ventures (like, farmers back home being turned into Processors of colonial raw materials and forced off their farms). That resulted in Anti-Monarch movements culminating in Regicides in both England and France - and the restoration of the monarchy in a new form in England, and an entirely new form of, first, Imperial Monarchy in France, followed (after military incompetence provided the Impetus) by a Republic. You have to look long and hard to find serious Anti-Monarchial movements in either country before increasing dissatisfaction and then Disloyalty provided the impetus to try Something New.
On a different level, increasing dissatisfaction with the disruption of the Industrialization and concentration of wealth among Industrialists led to a host of 'new' Social/Civics: Communism, National Socialism, Social Democracy, the Progressive movement in the USA, and all the political, social, 'civic' manifestations of those that are still with us.

Based on that and the discussion on how people don't want to have purely negative effects I got an idea. What if having disloyalty/displeasement on the current goverment could lead to two outcomes. The first outcome would be that a rebellion occurs and a new state emerges, as eas discussed here before. The second outcome would be, that a rebellion occurs, but letting it win would allow you to gain a reformed goverment, which would not be available otherwise. For example if a country with a communist goverment rebels and wins, a more democratic government emerges, such as after the soviet union. However this new government could be an oligarch led modern oligarchy government with unigue benefits and social policies.

 

[Gedemon]

Great discussion, lots to digest.

Not going into details, I do that in my project's forum, but here is a draft for the 4X historical game I'd like to play :

Economy

• Stockpiling resources in cities, not globally
  
• Raw resources -> Refined resources -> equipment (units "healing"/upgrade) / goods (citizen for amenities) / food (citizen, units)
• Internal and external trade routes (sea, rivers, roads, rails, air...) to move resources from cities to cities, with different efficiency per resource and per route type (change with tech/era)
• Population classes (lower, middle, upper) : effects linked to city yields, production, stability (needs), military, trade, governement, etc...

Dynamic Civilizations

• Prefilled map with Ethnic groups : linked to stability and migration mechanisms
  
• Change both way from/to Tribes <-> City States <-> Civilization
• True (or Dynamic) Spawning Dates (including ethnic groups)
• Ability for the player to switch to another Civilization mid-game (on True Spawn Date or when splitting an Empire on collapse for example)
  
• Asymetric rules and dynamic difficulty : Applying the same rules to the human and the AI has been tried long enough, but IMO it always fails to provide constant challenge, for example see how the Barbarian (using asymetric rules) in civ6 are the main opposition in the early game. But that's tricky to implement (see again civ6 Barbarians with early rushes being too penalizing and too dependent on RNG), the player must not feel "obvious cheat" and the game should still reward "good players" without always punishing them by dynamically raising the difficulty when they succeed.

Diplomacy

• Multiple type of alliances, possibility to have more than 2 players in an alliances
• Tributary states, proxy wars, embargos
  
• possible alliances with multiple (ie more than 2) players

Combat

• Limited stack, return to an "Army" mechanism which allow to stack multiple units on one tile (and unstack on adjacent tiles), with combats opposing armies, not individual units.
• Supply mechanism to limit stacking, changing with techs/eras
  
• Supply lines from cities/fort to units, moving frontlines mechanism during war (territory capture)
  
• No "archer unit" firing over a 100km wide tile, limit ranged attacks to late era, but use support mechanisms (with animations) in armies combats (preparatory fire, counter-fire, opportunity fire, ambush, flanking, etc...)

Research

• Multiple fields for research (science, military, production, economy, culture...)
• Prerequisite could be something else than another tech (resources, location, combats, shared knowledge from another civ, ...)
• Separation between research and application, with "local knowledge"
  
• Research points can be gained based on your actions, situation, resources, ...
• Tech diffusion mechanisms

Victories

• No game-stopping victories, but victory points on intermediate objectives

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Great discussion, lots to digest.

Not going into details, I do that in my project's forum, but here is a draft for the 4X historical game I'd like to play :

Economy

• Stockpiling resources in cities, not globally
  
• Raw resources -> Refined resources -> equipment (units "healing"/upgrade) / goods (citizen for amenities) / food (citizen, units)
• Internal and external trade routes (sea, rivers, roads, rails, air...) to move resources from cities to cities, with different efficiency per resource and per route type (change with tech/era)
• Population classes (lower, middle, upper) : effects linked to city yields, production, stability (needs), military, trade, governement, etc...

All agreed, with the one modification: rather than trying to model society by Social/Genetic Classes, I'd have an overall population number (as now) but also a number of Specialists. That number would almost always be different from the base population, because it represents that percentage of the total population that actually does the work: the technicians, craftspeople, farmers, priests, scribes, scientists, government book-keepers,. IF you have a society in which women are excluded from the industrial workforce (NO society completely excluded them from farming and craft work, like clothmaking, brewing, and pottery decoration) and the aristocracy doesn't get their hands dirty and the bulk of the population are Illiterate, you may have a relatively small number of Specialists that can be applied to your Craft Workshops, Factories, or Administration positions in your Palace to make everything else run smoother. Since Specialists also represent the healthy young males that go into the military, raising lots of military Units would cut into your available Specialists, which I think would neatly show the problem to a state of military versus industrial/civil manpower. It would also neatly show the 'advantages' of slave labor or mercenaries - Specialists imported from Elsewhere, but arriving with their own inherent problems attached.

Dynamic Civilizations

• Prefilled map with Ethnic groups : linked to stability and migration mechanisms
  
• Change both way from/to Tribes <-> City States <-> Civilization
• True (or Dynamic) Spawning Dates (including ethnic groups)
• Ability for the player to switch to another Civilization mid-game (on True Spawn Date or when splitting an Empire on collapse for example)
  
• Asymetric rules and dynamic difficulty : Applying the same rules to the human and the AI has been tried long enough, but IMO it always fails to provide constant challenge, for example see how the Barbarian (using asymetric rules) in civ6 are the main opposition in the early game. But that's tricky to implement (see again civ6 Barbarians with early rushes being too penalizing and too dependent on RNG), the player must not feel "obvious cheat" and the game should still reward "good players" without always punishing them by dynamically raising the difficulty when they succeed.

All good stuff.
I already have a list in my Historical Timeline/Database of over 50 Neolithic/Prehistoric groups that could be applied as 'Tribes' to populate the map, and that number is just A Start.

I think divorcing Victory from any necessity to play the same Civilization from start to finish of a game would go a long, long way towards making the game more Dynamic. IF you should manage to keep a civilization intact from 10,000 - 4000 BCE to 2020 CE that should be a major source of Bragging Rights/Victory Score - but it should also be almost Impossible in any normal game (Hint: NO civilization has historically ever even come close)

Applying Asymmetric Rules may be an answer to the Incompetent AI, but always feels like 'cheating'. A more subtle way of doing this might be the inclusion of Random Events in the game: the birth of a Genius to boost science, technology, military, religion - or disrupt your entire Civ with a new Technology, Religion or Social Movement - or do the same to your AI opponent(s), including the Minor States/Factions. Unpredictability should be part of the game, because it's just about the only way we have to offset the Human ability to know what should be happening next that is inherent in any historically-based game.

Diplomacy

• Multiple type of alliances, possibility to have more than 2 players in an alliances
• Tributary states, proxy wars, embargos
  
• possible alliances with multiple (ie more than 2) players[/QUOTE

Definitely. With the proviso that keeping an Alliance of several states going should be really, really Hard, as it has been historically.

Combat

• Limited stack, return to an "Army" mechanism which allow to stack multiple units on one tile (and unstack on adjacent tiles), with combats opposing armies, not individual units.
• Supply mechanism to limit stacking, changing with techs/eras
  
• Supply lines from cities/fort to units, moving frontlines mechanism during war (territory capture)
  
• No "archer unit" firing over a 100km wide tile, limit ranged attacks to late era, but use support mechanisms (with animations) in armies combats (preparatory fire, counter-fire, opportunity fire, ambush, flanking, etc...)

Stacking, with limitations imposed by Command and Control, Supply, and Terrain has so many advantages: it puts the armies back in ground scale with the map, or at least closer to it; it keeps the range of ranged troops down to manageable, because the ranges (except for modern, very long range weapons) would be within the Tactical Battle ONLY, not on the 'strategic' or game map; and it speeds up Mouse Time moving units around the map immensely by gathering into fewer individual 'units/armies' that have to be moved.

I would keep ranged effects, but, as stated, limit them for most of the game to strictly within the Tactical Battle. Only when you start fielding 20th century indirect fire artillery (range 15 - 40 kilometers) or rockets/missiles (ranges 35 - 700 kilometers) should any 'range' show up on the game map.

Research

• Multiple fields for research (science, military, production, economy, culture...)
• Prerequisite could be something else than another tech (resources, location, combats, shared knowledge from another civ, ...)
• Separation between research and application, with "local knowledge"
  
• Research points can be gained based on your actions, situation, resources, ...
• Tech diffusion mechanisms

We're working on most of this, even have a Tech Tree Thread started on it, but it is tedious work. Just starting to break down Technologies and their Applications and potential Non-Technical Prerequisites ('Needs', Resources, social/civic policies, etc) has already given me over 100 entries just for the Ancient Era, and it isn't done yet. Multiply that by 6 - 8 Eras, and then realize that the complexity increases dramatically after the Medieval Era, and we're looking at 1000 or more factors to juggle to produce a Tech Jungle - much more complex than a simple and linear Tree we are all used to.

Right now, my own Working Model is that the basic prerequisite is Need, represented by specific Events in the game. Have your population stagnate or go Hungry for a turn (Food = exact Population with no surplus) and you have a Need for better Food Supply, which, depending on terrain and Resources available, could lead to 'research' on Animal Husbandry/Domestication, Domestication of new plants, or Social Reorganization (the 'open field' system of semi-communal land use in Medieval Europe, for instance).
Don't have any coast, and you might be a long, long time coming up with any Need for boats, ships, sails, or anything in that Technological field.
Shortest historical book ever written: Sailing Ships of the Scythian Navy.

Victories

• No game-stopping victories, but victory points on intermediate objectives

AND the possibility of setting 'individual victories' for shorter or more focused games, for examples:
As America, build a Trans-Continental Railroad
As China, achieve Cultural Dominance over every State that borders you.

But aside from these 'sets', there should be no single event that Ends The Game - history is a continuum. One of the silliest Historical Movements (and shortest-lived) was the 'End of History' movement during the early 1990s - the Cold War was over, so history was over. Nope, not even close. The best you can realistically hope for is a momentary bask in the glow of your 'victory' before the problems ignored while you concentrated on that victory rise up and bite you on the butt.

This is why I am intrigued by Humankind's 'Fame' mechanic for victory. A lot depends, of course, on what constitutes Fame Points or 'advances' in a game, but it is potentially a mechanism for giving the gamer a constantly-shifting set of 'mini-objectives' throughout the game and even, again potentially, of allowing a 'victory' completely divorced from all the usual artificial game conditions of military, scientific, religious or cultural 'superiority'.

 

[nauberry]

Since Specialists also represent the healthy young males that go into the military, raising lots of military Units would cut into your available Specialists, which I think would neatly show the problem to a state of military versus industrial/civil manpower. It would also neatly show the 'advantages' of slave labor or mercenaries - Specialists imported from Elsewhere, but arriving with their own inherent problems attached.

How about a mechanic, that would buff the specialists, the longer they have been assinged to the same building/slot etc. This would simulate, that people, who spent their whole lives in the military, don't have the time to become experts in their professions. For example, the specialists would gain 1% increase to their yields per turn, until a total of 50% is reached in 50 turns. If you then take this specialist to the military, it would have to start all over again.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

How about a mechanic, that would buff the specialists, the longer they have been assinged to the same building/slot etc. This would simulate, that people, who spent their whole lives in the military, don't have the time to become experts in their professions. For example, the specialists would gain 1% increase to their yields per turn, until a total of 50% is reached in 50 turns. If you then take this specialist to the military, it would have to start all over again.

Right now I am contemplating (without having had time to pursue it too much) the idea that Specialists would be specific and have separate titles, based on the Social, Civic and Religious characteristics of the Civ, the Technology and Administrative level, etc.

So, for example, the Specialist Slot in an early Craft Workshop (Ancient Era) could be filled by a Craft Worker that boosts the output of the Workshop.
By the Medieval Era (roughly), that Specialist may be 'upgraded' with things like Apprenticeship programs and Guild Memberships into an Artisan - still a Specialist in a Craft Workshop, but now adding some research factor to improve the Craft production.
With the advent of Powered Machinery and the 'Industrial Revolution', the 'craft specialist' , by application of Literacy and possibly Technical Colleges, becomes a Machinist, who, in a Factory Slot, can boost the industrial output enormously.
BUT none of these Specialists can be easily replaced or used elsewhere: take the Craft, Artisan, or Machinist Specialist out of the Workshop, Guild Hall or Factory and make him, say, a soldier to form a new Millitary Unit, and it may be several turns before he can be replaced as an "Production Specialist".

Many Structures could take more than one type of Specialist.

For examples, the Palace would start with several Slots for Specialists: at least 2, maybe more based on later developments.
Those Slots, early on, could be filled by a Priest Specialist, because much of the early 'leadership' was both religious and civil/military. You'd want to move him into a Religious Structure as soon as possible, unless you intend to become Theocracy. Another Slot or the first Slot could be occupied by the Craft Worker described above or an Artist, because the Palace was always the best market for Luxury Goods of all kinds.
Once you get Writing, you would want to fill at least one Slot with a Scribe, a primitive Administration Specialist, who will make everything else in your City or Civ work a little more efficiently. Later that Scribe could be 'Upgraded' to a Bureaucrat and then a Minister, each upgrade improving the Bonus he gives to all the other activities in the City/Civ.
A Temple Slot would be filled by a Priest, but later might get a second Slot that you could fill with an Artist or Craftsman/Artisan to decorate the Temple edifice - the Church was always another good market for Sumptuous Decoration, at least as good as the Palace.

In a Library, the Slot could be filled initially by a Scribe, but this one literary instead of administrative. His Upgrade Path would be to Natural Philosopher and then Scientist.

The Market would start with a Merchant Specialist, who could eventually become a Banker and then an Entrepreneur - both of the latter could also influence the availability of Gold to produce new Factories, Guild Halls, Workshops, Trade Routes, etc - and if you, the Government, wants to get your Taxes out of them, you'd better have a Bureaucrat or Administrator slotted to keep an eye on them!

 

[AsH2]

A small update since this thread was transfered to a darker place of civfanatics forum..

Info about Soren Johnsons Old World gave me reason to try evolve my thoughts as there are some conceptual similarities - especially Orders and Legitimacy; see history through a dynasty aspect has crossed my mind, though would not fit well with the Civ concept (I think it would split focus).

Spoiler from Old World :

Old World is an epic, historical turn-based strategy game from Soren Johnson, Lead Designer of Civilization 4 and Offworld Trading Company. Set in the classical era, Old World gives players the chance to not just build an empire but to found the greatest dynasty of its age. The game has many innovative features that are worth describing in detail:

Orders
Orders are a resource used to issue commands across your nation. Instead of moving every unit every turn, as is traditional in 4X games, each unit can be moved as many times as desired, until the player runs out of Orders. There are many other ways to spend this resource: Combat, Construction, Events, Diplomacy, and so on.

Legitimacy
Each ruler must prove that they are worthy of the throne. As you accomplish Ambitions, finish Wonders, and gain renown (as “the Wise” or “the Avenger” or “the Peacemaker”), your Legitimacy increases, granting additional Orders each year and improving your standing with the people.

Succession
Every turn in Old World represents a year, and the rulers are mortals who won’t last forever. They will need to get married and produce an heir to continue their line. When a ruler dies, the heir who takes the throne chooses a new Ambition to make a new name for him/herself.

Events
Old World has a powerful and deep dynamic event system that generates a procedural story for your nation based on your decisions, your accomplishments, and your characters. The game has over 1,000 unique events, many of which are inspired by historical events from the period. These events give characters Memories, Traits, and Relationships, which can then trigger later events, so be careful what you choose.

Ambitions
Your dynasty achieves victory by fulfilling 10 Ambitions, each one more difficult than the last. These Ambitions are dynamically generated from the Events of your game and the desires of your characters. No two games will ever play out the same way, and the wise ruler will know when to change direction.

Politics
Each nation has four noble families who can be granted stewardship of your cities, with each one providing unique and powerful bonuses. You’ll want to balance how to distribute cities among your families carefully as those with too many will begin to think they deserve the throne while those with too few will grow envious of their rivals. Pleased families will keep their citizenry under control while angry ones will incite revolts.

Territories
Cities form cohesive blocks of territory, with an urban center and rural hinterlands. Each improvement occupies a single tile, including Wonders and urban buildings, such as Shrines, Amphitheaters, and Garrisons. This territory grows based on where the player constructs Improvements and trains Specialists on the map.

Resources
Resources in Old World, such as Food, Wood, Stone, and Iron, are stockpiled as they are produced, to be spent on units, improvements, Wonders, and so on. Borrowing some algorithms from Offworld Trading Company, a dynamic marketplace allows players to buy and sell the resources at any time, with the prices fluctuating based on supply-and-demand.

Technology
The technology tree borrows mechanics from card-building games to add variety and create interesting decisions. Each technology available to research is added to the player’s deck, and when it is time to choose the next technology to research, the player draws four cards, chooses one, and then discards the others, which will not reappear until the deck is reshuffled. Thus, choosing between two desirable technologies is a difficult decision as the player knows they will not see the card they just passed over for many more turns.

Old World is available for pre-purchase on the Epic Games Store and will launch as an Early Access title before Summer 2020.

The perfect 4X historical game (according to me) should attract almost everyone (and then my spent time would be less of an issue for me). How to make it happen:

Lure and catch with an arcade game feeling
in a reasonable big web of options,
to put and keep in a deep dungeon of possibilities (*1)​

- kind of what Firaxis already is trying to do (but bad UI, AI, et c and halfbaked concepts will never make a total success *2).

Spoiler 1*Lure and catch, to put and keep :

arcade game feeling - You know, that intuitive feeling when trying a new game that don't need to be explained.
reasonable big web of options - You know, just enough to get and keep focus.
deep dungeon of possibilities - You know, just one more turn and then just one more game..

Spoiler 2*Firaxis faults :

User Interface - Are Firaxis letting script kids putting things together? To move things in Production queue: Click and then click again; To move things in Great works: Hold-click, drag and release. There's no excuse for inconsequential chosing techniques.
Artificial Intelligence - 'Nuff said, but they'd better get back to basic and make sure AI is working as intended.
et c and halfbaked concepts - Don't get me started.. Just hope they will give civ6 a great finish.

From Sid Meier's Civilization: The game's objective is to "Build an empire to stand the test of time".

Here I would like to have a nomadic start and let us define our civ through game instead of using presets. That is,

an empire founded and built on organization and leadership to deal with more than just threats to cities,
while exploring the world and what perks it may attribute you​

- let presets of civs in campaigns/scenarios hint players of what cultural identities (and ethnicities) are in the (main) game and what they are about, just to attain some specific (hidden) accomplishment to be able to add that to the player/AI civ's defined identity (You know, so we can wonder about who's the netherlander, the hollander and the dutchman).

To keep Micromanaging - for fun, but optional I would use an Authority system that (similar to Old World's Orders) would limit and make you valuate the choices -

give Authority (free hand) to a commander or
use Authority to intervene (micromanage) or
just let it be by either

reject (stop) or
approve (execute) what's been suggested..​

Your choice will both directly and indirectly affect your organization and further leadership.
(to be continued)

So to comment my initial post..

Leaders - I think we'll be stuck with them, but perhaps in some better ways..

The historical leaders (as we know them) should not allways be there in the main game, but may do grandiose presence during right circumstance - most of the time we'll just face anonymous/generic leaders.

Instead of civ6 preset city governors, I'd like to have a rough variety of characters to present different departments in a civ's organization and factions in general.
Those characters would be the department/faction keeper of whatever experience and knowledge they gain
- eg the military commander-in-chief would hold long lasting "promotions" while troop units may gain themselves temporary buffs during an event (in-between turns).

Add the Grievance system to this and a chart over relations could turn into a dense shrubbery. Though the relevance of factions will fluctuate and major events (like revolutions) will shake the chart like an etch-a-sketch - minor factions may unite in a common enemy or turn idle and built up tensions between major factions will be released in events..

Turn-based - of course, but perhaps having strategical decisions and tactical moves separated in ordinary turns and in-between turns.

(to be continued)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Just a few comments to specific points of an excellent overview:

From Sid Meier's Civilization: The game's objective is to "Build an empire to stand the test of time".

I think this captures the crux of the problem with Civ VI - there is no Test, not even a Pop Quiz of Time. Not only is there no real challenge from the AI, there are no unexpected challenges from the game itself. Once you know your own Civ and your opponents and the map, there are few if any surprises left in the game - you plod to victory 500 turns or so later along a path set in stiffening concrete with almost all digressions from the path left to the Gamer's discretion - the game itself throws no surprises, tests, or questions at you.

At the very least, any improved 4X Historical game HAS to include an element of surprise and uncertainty - "Random Events" or situations that you have to React to, not that you can choose at will.

Here I would like to have a nomadic start and let us define our civ through game instead of using presets. That is,

an empire founded and built on organization and leadership to deal with more than just threats to cities,
while exploring the world and what perks it may attribute you​

- let presets of civs in campaigns/scenarios hint players of what cultural identities (and ethnicities) are in the (main) game and what they are about, just to attain some specific (hidden) accomplishment to be able to add that to the player/AI civ's defined identity (You know, so we can wonder about who's the netherlander, the hollander and the dutchman).

More especially, make any 'presets' or Cultural/Civilization-specific factors a product largely of what that Civ faces in that particular game. So, whether a Civ is the England that develops and exploits Steam Machinery first or the England that produces gunpowder-armed infantry of special prowess or the England that develops the largest naval and merchant fleets in the world - Depends on what happens to England, what England does, and where England is in your particular game. And if your Nomadic Starters start in the middle of the continent, then without a lot of wandering, you ain't playing any recognizable England at all! (i.e., in most cases, you won't pick a historically-recognizable Civ to play until some time after the start, after you settle down)

To keep Micromanaging - for fun, but optional I would use an Authority system that (similar to Old World's Orders) would limit and make you valuate the choices -

give Authority (free hand) to a commander or
use Authority to intervene (micromanage) or
just let it be by either

reject (stop) or
approve (execute) what's been suggested..​

Your choice will both directly and indirectly affect your organization and further leadership.
(to be continued)

To make it even simpler: Reduce Direct Control unless you Pay For It. In other words, especially before 'Instant Communication' in the Atomic/Information Era, in most cases you can send a unit or units off, but what happens after that may or may not be possible for you or your 'government' to affect. To fall back on my military history background, you will give "Mission Type Orders" to your Units: "Go to X and Build/Destroy/Attack/Negotiate Z" - and off they go, and sometime later you learn what happened and what you can do to modify the outcome - if anything. Pre-Modifications should be available, as in giving them all the resources possible to accomplish the goal, attaching a Great Leader as appropriate (General, Envoy/Diplomat, Merchant, Engineer, Apostle. etc) or other available modifications as defined, possibly, by your Technology, Social/Civic Policies, Government, Religion or Random Events in effect at the time.

The historical leaders (as we know them) should not allways be there in the main game, but may do grandiose presence during right circumstance - most of the time we'll just face anonymous/generic leaders.

Instead of civ6 preset city governors, I'd like to have a rough variety of characters to present different departments in a civ's organization and factions in general.
Those characters would be the department/faction keeper of whatever experience and knowledge they gain
- eg the military commander-in-chief would hold long lasting "promotions" while troop units may gain themselves temporary buffs during an event (in-between turns).

Add the Grievance system to this and a chart over relations could turn into a dense shrubbery. Though the relevance of factions will fluctuate and major events (like revolutions) will shake the chart like an etch-a-sketch - minor factions may unite in a common enemy or turn idle and built up tensions between major factions will be released in events..

NO Pre-Determined Leaders/People!

Or, more precisely, no Guarantee you will get a specific Great person/Leader, as Civ VI does now only for Great People. Why should you know in 4000 BCE that your 'England' will be magnificently led by Alfred the Great 4800 years later? Or wretchedly run by Charles II a few hundred years after that?
There should be a 'pool' (a Large Pool) of Historical Special People in all kinds of fields, but whether you get a specific one, and when, and how useful they are, will depend, again (all together now) on In-Game Events in your specific Game.

And, absolutely, the majority of 'Special People' that appear will be either generic or so obscure you cannot be sure what their effect will be. As in golf, you gotta play the ball where it lies or the Person based on the situation in which they appear.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

[...]

I think this captures the crux of the problem with Civ VI - there is no Test, not even a Pop Quiz of Time. Not only is there no real challenge from the AI, there are no unexpected challenges from the game itself. Once you know your own Civ and your opponents and the map, there are few if any surprises left in the game - you plod to victory 500 turns or so later along a path set in stiffening concrete with almost all digressions from the path left to the Gamer's discretion - the game itself throws no surprises, tests, or questions at you.

At the very least, any improved 4X Historical game HAS to include an element of surprise and uncertainty - "Random Events" or situations that you have to React to, not that you can choose at will.

I think the way to go is if the player has to constantly fight against civilization collapse / empire collapse. The form of that collapse therefore has to be an evolving, changing problem, to keep you on your toes throughout the game. I have actually already experimented with some things for it, but those are ideas that belong to a more fantastical game that is not tied to the historical reference points of Sid Meier's Civ.

Just to think though, we could imagine some things for each era of the game. . . . Early on you have to show strong leadership with food and health, and money. Later when ideologies emerge, you have to not become so ideologically possessed that you leap into total war. Somewhere inbetween religious influences may threaten to sunder the nation if you cannot either adopt true religious freedom or stamp out the heretic viewpoints. Things roughly like this.

The whole game should have at its core, a fight against the natural unwinding of the empire's fiction of community. Rival players will be a second contest for you to pass, if you can keep a handle on the problems at home. This should satisfy for a Pop Quiz of Time. (Of course, a few things like Random Events can co-exist too, as the demand for them is high.) The emergence of Great People could be analysed like a random event, if we could design that system.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think the way to go is if the player has to constantly fight against civilization collapse / empire collapse. The form of that collapse therefore has to be an evolving, changing problem, to keep you on your toes throughout the game. I have actually already experimented with some things for it, but those are ideas that belong to a more fantastical game that is not tied to the historical reference points of Sid Meier's Civ.

Just to think though, we could imagine some things for each era of the game. . . . Early on you have to show strong leadership with food and health, and money. Later when ideologies emerge, you have to not become so ideologically possessed that you leap into total war. Somewhere inbetween religious influences may threaten to sunder the nation if you cannot either adopt true religious freedom or stamp out the heretic viewpoints. Things roughly like this.

The whole game should have at its core, a fight against the natural unwinding of the empire's fiction of community. Rival players will be a second contest for you to pass, if you can keep a handle on the problems at home. This should satisfy for a Pop Quiz of Time. (Of course, a few things like Random Events can co-exist too, as the demand for them is high.) The emergence of Great People could be analysed like a random event, if we could design that system.

Entropy as an Opponent in a 4X Game: I like it!

Some overall concepts by Era (Not that I like the Eras as a hard and fast system in the games, but they seem to be here to stay, at least for now)

Ancient Era
The problem is lack of bureaucratic mechanisms and skills to manage anything. All loyalty is still family, clan, tribe, or very local city/polity. Making anything work for you from far away is nearly impossible, making even a second city work takes a lot of effort.
Classical Era
You can have an Empire, even multi-cultural, but Random Events are Deadly: Plagues (look up the Antonine or Justinian Plagues that hit Rome/Byzantium, for instance) Barbarian Migration/Invasion, Sudden New Religion - and these are mere additions to the constant problem of running a large polity with a hereditary king and a bunch of other governors/satraps/aristocrats who also think they should be running the whole schmear
Medieval/Early Modern Era
Contrary to the pop history view, this Era was full of technical/social/'civil' progress, and progress brings disruption: that means internal conflicts between feudal or other aristocrats and newly industrial/commercial cities and their middle class and workers, changing agricultural techniques that directly affect how 80% or more of your population lives, and the on-going conflict between Regionalism and Central Authority
Industrial Era
Before 1750 nobody could even spell 'capitalism': after 1800, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, and a host of other Isms were the Major Concern of every political and civic entity. This is the Era of Popular Revolution, which is a perfect mechanism for Internal Events That Appear To Be Random but in fact, are caused by every government's imperfect reaction to rapidly changing social, civil, and economic conditions.
Modern Era
Being cynical and having lived through too much of it (more accurately, Cynical Because I've lived through too much of it), I'd characterize the Industrial Era as impacted by Economic Ideologies, the Modern Era as impacted by Ideologies that used to be Economic or Political but now are simply Irrational and Fixed. Whether it now is Capitalism that really means Every Man For Himself or Communism that now means Everything For Me and My Little Group Of Rulers or Socialism that means whatever the ideologue of the moment wants it to mean.
Post Modern/Contemporary Era
Mass decentralized communication turns out to mean Mass Delusion, and Mass Opposition to the government/civil leaders based on whim and meme. Basically, this Era should throw practically anything at the gamer with no real advance warning (in game time frame, a belief or opposition position can 'go viral' or a real virus can start spreading at pandemic rates in a fraction of a Turn)

 

[Myomoto]

I didn't read the entire thread yet, so apologies if this is too much repetition of already established ideas, but the following is more or less a stream of consciousness of some ideas I've been thinking about lately.

Civ VI seems to have made the map the star, by unstacking the cities and military, and tile yields in general seem to be as crazy as ever. I would like to see the pendulum swing back the other direction. The people and the population of your empire should be the star of the game. Right now there are not really many dangers to your population, it generally just goes up with surplus food, and that food comes in at a fairly predictable rate. Even a drought doesn't seem to affect more than your growth, it's rare to see actual population shrinking from famine.

I would like to see food become a lot more of a stockpiled resource. We've already discussed how food and other resources could be exchanged between cities in a city connection system in the other thread, and I would like to see food become more of s global stockpile that needs to be distributed over an empire, where population consumes it locally. Penalties for lack of food would be much more severe than now, with almost instantaneous population loss due to starvation.

To complement such a system, I would also like to see a health system of disease epidemics emerging if you're near the housing limit of a settlement, potentially killing off your population. In the same vein, an event/climate system like the current one, with devastating storms, draughts, floods, etc that can disrupt the food production and potentially cause a negative spiral of consequences that need to be dealt with.

Additionally, population should be consumed for generating military units. Each military unit trained would consume one population, and the unit could be 'retired' back into a city to recover the population. Mercenaries would be an alternative to get military units quick and without population loss, but there would be a finite 'pool' of mercenary units available per continent, depending the total population size of that continent. Armies and fleets would consume food and have supply management (probably meaning a return to stacks - maybe with some ceiling for number of units that is gradually increased with tech level).

Finally, citizens should have more 'stats'. Right now they're mostly the same, but I would like to see an ethnicity, religion, ideology (later), and education level stat tied to each citizen. Public order in a settlement would be calculated based on these stats, with displeased citizens potentially even refusing to work. Specialist assignments would be gated by levels of education, with later levels of specialists requiring higher levels of education.

Emigration would feed into such a system as well. In the early game, immigration would mainly be due to war weariness (which should become a local effect - citizens near the front lines of battle would escape as refugees) or religion. Later, people would immigrate due to low amenities/education opportunities, and finally, people would immigrate due to ideology later in the game.

Anyway, the point is that all of the above systems should ideally feed into each other. Do you accept religious refugees because they are highly educated, even if they will create a public order problem for you as well? Do you resettle people from conquered territory into the heart of your empire and resettle their lands with the soldiers who just took it to improve public order in your new holdings? Does your two neighbors' war send a stream of refugees to you that eventually cause a plague and famine if you accept to take them? Will you shut down your people's ability to immigrate out of your communist bloc to maintain productivity and able fighting men in case of an invasion by your democratic neighbor?

 

[Baladon]

I would like to see a couple of major changes in Civ VII. First, we need to include the Battle Map as an option for fighting battles. This would implement a map that matches the area of the battle, which is 2 hexes, to create a working map for the battle. It would be about 15 x 15 hexes, maybe up to 20 x 20, and allow maneuvering, realistic artillery ranges, flanking, city walls, woods, lakes, etc as taken from the strategic map. Algorithms to make such expansions should not be very difficult. To make this work right, you might need to include limited stacking (within reason given the scale of the map) and late arrival of units nearby. Of course, it would be optional on a per battle basis. Scout vs. scout -- who cares, just do it.

Second, it would make sense in historical context to limit the scale according to the era. At first, it would be town vs. town in the ancient era, with a limited ability to move/scout outside the current area. The scale would be smaller and the map would have to fold in to the larger map in the next era. This idea would eliminate the problem of the game bogging down in the later part of the game. Because the game remains the same and, even after you have long since won, the game must to on to maximize score, it can get tedious. With each era change, there would be a wider area to explore and people/cultures to meet. [My way of dealing with late game bog is to go after the quickest win possible. Using the Terra map I have defeated all other civs by 1100 BC]

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

@myamoto: You have touched on some things that have been discussed here, but also have expanded on them a bit; Thank you!

A couple of notes:
Plague and Disease are tricky to implement in the early Eras of the game, because they were virtually Universal. Rome, the city that we probably have the most information on, averaged a major disease/epidemic outbreak every 20 or so years - in other words, Every Turn in the Classical Era!
On the other hand when Food got scarce or other disasters hit a city, people were much more likely to pack up and leave the city than now: many early (Neolithic-Ancient) cities were simply abandoned, and recent archeological research has shown no evidence that they were 'sacked' or razed - the people just abandoned it when food got scarce. That means a population fluctuation based on food supply can be in the game without invoking a largely artificial or exaggerated Plague Mechanic.

Mercenaries need to be in the game. They were too much a part of warfare from at least the Classical to Early Modern times, and such a mechanic ties in neatly with using population to form Units. Ordinary Units would require Population, but Mercenaries would not and their availability could vary with the amount of warfare going on on your continent - long wars produce people who have done nothing but fight for years/decades and don't particularly want to go back to peasant farming, so the 'pool' of mercenaries increases. This could also tie in with the differentiation of Units between Militia - amateurs called up for the duration - and Professionals, that train all the time and therefore have to be expensively Maintained. Mercenaries would be Professionals that you don't have to maintain any longer than you need them, but of course with the potential Downside that if you aren't maintaining them someone else can Hire them to fight against you.

The amount of detail put into differentiating Population has to be very carefully considered - and tested. Too much simply turns the game into a Chore. Virtually none, as now in Civ VI, leaves out a lot of potential Problems and legitimate Civic/Social Policy decision making on the part of the Gamer, and gives a whole new set of problems for him/her to solve. Since right now the late middle game and after have very few real problems for the gamer to solve, adding some that are outside the usual "what Wonder do I pursue now?" or "How many units can I churn out per turn?" would be very, very good for the game.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I'm on my phone, but I'll float a few brief ideas:

- Modular units: all units are designed with weapons and armor unlocked via technology. Unique units are ready-made templates that use civ-related weapons (the Greek sarissa spear and aspis shield, the Zulu iklwa, the Dutch Katrouwe cannon)

- upgrades: enabled by changing the design of a unit type. Once a unit has been made obselete, mark it for upgrade (select which template you want to upg it too), and put it in a city. Upgrades use prod and gold per turn , but not construction time.

- experience & proficiency: experienced regiments are better at using the weapons they are equipped with. Upgrading a unit's weapons reduces proficiency, depending on the weapon. (Upgrading a spearman into a pikeman reduces proficiecy by a lower amount than upgrading into a crossbowman would). Regiments may have retinues (officers, medics, supply wagons, small siege units, and later things like sappers and AA guns) which are retained upon upgrading.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Ideas w/r/t technology:

1. Splitting up the tech tree even more: Technology is an important centrepiece to the Civ franchise but I feel like its current implementation is lacking. Science is too linear, too uniform and too important. This creates imbalances where Civs that specialize in science will always beat (or rather: win sooner. Lol Civ 6) than Civs which don't specialize in science. This isn't an entirely accurate representation of science in the game either, as there are plenty of examples of less advanced empires grinding irl scientific tech leaders into a pulp on the battlefield.

Furthermore technology doesn't advance linearly. Most discoveries are stumbled upon by accident and usually not within the projected timeframe.

So maybe a few things we might consider:

2) Technological categories: Instead of choosing a tech,I feel like players should choose a category they wish to research. Categories would include things such as "Natural Science", "Engineering," "Warfare", "Agriculture", "Society", etc. When a certain amount of time has passed, you "Discover" a tec. Players should be able to either accept the tech, completing research or seek further tech paths, which might unlock a more advanced tech instead.

For my Civ7 vision, i put together a beta tech tree which looks like this:

(Names & orders are tentative, as you can see by several double names)

Discovering a higher numbered tech would require to you to research several lower numbered techs first (to slap an arbitrary number to it, let's say you'll need five Level 1 Techs to unlock any Level 2 tech, etc).

Effectively, I feel like technological advancements should be modular and blind on principle. Tech trees should only become open if you have an ally or trade partner who has already discovered the tech.

3) Scientific Breakthroughs: Scientific Breakthroughs (known as "Eureka's" in Civ 6) are the moments where you discover the technology and finalize research, either on the same turn or in several more turns. There are three ways to go here: provide a discount for the tech after doing a fixed action (Civ 6's implementation), a small chance every turn to outright discover a tech, scaling with the time and research/turn spent (this is how Master of Orion II did techs) or randomly discovering a tech after a set amount of time, scaling with your research per turn (this is how Alpha Centauri did it). Realistic science follows a combination of MoO's sudden discoveries combined with AC's blind research and that's the solution I would advocate.

4) Leaf techs/tech paths: unlocking a tech shouldn't yield the same result each time. The cartwheel was a direct follow-up to the potter's wheel, which traditionally is followed by Engineering in the tech tree. However, the Incans knew pottery and were highly skilled engineers, yet never discovered "The Wheel" as we know it in Civ. Unlocking a tech should allow you to choose its rewards, instead of rewarding you with 5-6 bonuses at once. Public Spectacles should let you choose between which Publich Spectacles you wish to specialize in: Threatre or Gladiatorial games. Unlocking both would either require you to reseach the tech again or by trading leaf techs with a trade partner. Things such as wonders, non-essential units and extra yields can be shoved into leaf techs as added bonuses. Basically, it would allow players to interpret techs exactly how they would like to, making their technology more customized and organic.

5) Techs shouldn't just cost science. That isn't to say that techs shouldn't cost science. I feel like *every* tech should cost science. However, i don't think Science should be the only yield with which techs could be acquired. One of my favourite things about Civ 6 is that Civics cost culture, making culture a very meaningful yield. (in theory. In practice Civics are weaker than Technology is, sadly enough). I feel strongly that certain techs should cost other yields as well. There should be an option to unlock Religious techs with Faith. There should be an option to speed up agricultural research if you have high food outputs throughout your empires. Splitting up the tech tree (2) enables this, and allows Civs to specialize in certain areas of technology based on their inate abilities and starting location. It would make the development of techs more organic for sure.
NB: However, science should still be the primary "Tech" yield. I would add that techs are cheaper when paid for in science and more expensive if you use another yield.

6) Discovering a Tech =/= Unlocking it: I'd like to posit the idea that discovering a tech and obtaining a tech aren't the same thing. For instance, the Zulu knew OF gunpowder when they fought the british, but still beat them with Impi's. Points (1-4) could just be dedicated towards discovering many different techs, but whether you take the tech is another matter entirely. Point (5) is about how you pay for it when unlocking it.

I feel that the odds of discovering a tech should depend on factors such as science per turn, trade with more advanced civs, specialists employed by your empire (an Artist *should* be able to passive boost artistic techs, just like how an Engineer or Scribe should boost Industrial and Administrative techs). After discovering the tech, you still pay an upfront cost in science or another yield, depending on the tech, in order to actually get it. To see how, see point (7)

7) Stockpiling Science, like one does with Culture and Faith: Explain to me why science shouldn't be stockpiled like Culture and Faith are? Records have keen kept for millennia in libraries and counting houses, Libraries should have the main function of storing Science, and increasing the amount of science that your empire can keep at once. Science costs for lowever level techs (1) can be passively decreased over time, to not punish players who neglect to build Libraries - players who do build them may be rewarded with faster teching however. Other buildings, such as Banks for Gold, Shrines for Faith and Musea for Culture can increase the maximum stockpile for those resources as well.

And finally,

8) Make secondary yields more meaningful and useful. Secondary yields are Science, Culture, Faith and possibly a government based resource (Old World uses "Orders", Ancient Egypt calls it "Authority", EU knows it as "Prestige" and "Legitimacy" and Civ 6 knows it as "Diplomatic Favor"). I call them "secondary" but really, they are more of an empire-wide thing, as oppose to the local resources of Food, Production and Gold. Give them more uses than just the "stockpile and spend" mechanic they're being used for.

Examples would be:
> Science can be used to improve specialists, specifically their ability to generate Great People
> Faith can be used to recharge religious units, fund religious tourism (or Pilgrimage as it SHOULD be called), and increase passive religious pressure emanated from cities
> Culture can be used to improve old buildings or art (especially their ability to generate tourism), beautify tiles, promote national parks
> Diplomatic Favor (or whatever) can be used to acquire land from other civs, quell unrest and negotiate better diplomatic deals (already *somewhat flimsily* implemented in Civ 6 - Adding a justified/unjustified demands layer and making unjustified deals COST diplomatic favor for the bully would be a step in the right direction), maybe even draft units.

k that's enough for now I'm out.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

@Lord Lakely: Wonderful work!
If you haven't seen them already, want to refer you to two Resources for Tech Tree development:

Timeline_Knasp_2019-03-24.pdf

and
Research and Tech tree

The first is just about the most complete compilation of 'tech tree' data by anyone, and represents a magnificant Starting Point for anyone trying to work up any improved Tech Tree, Bush, or Banyan.
The second is the discussion thread in Gedemon's complete rework project for Civ VI, in which a bunch of us discussed ways to massage the Tech Tree. Since most of what I posted there is what I'd post today, and it also includes a lot of interesting ideas from other people, I include it as a place to start thinking about tech research.

I'm sure you already know this, but the idea of choosing a Category instead of a specific Tech to research was used back in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri 4x Science Fiction game. In that I believe they used 4 categories corresponding roughly to the 4 Xes in the 4X game category . . .

 

[Lord Lakely]

Thanks, Boris, I'll definitely check it out to fill in the gaps ^__^

My tree is more based on Master of Orion's than Alpha's though. I like Alpha's system, mostly how the blind research semi-randomizes which tech you'll get. If you pick to research orange tech you're very likely to discover an orange tech, but you aren't guaranteed to! I quite like that. Scientific research is often based around accidentally stumbling across something useful.

MoO also has the aesthetic i had in mind for the research screen:



It's very simple yet elegantly organised. MoO has six categories and each tech had up to 3 rewards. Every race (except for 2*) would choose ONE reward per tech. That's it. As in Alpha, gaps in the tech tree had to be filled by making trades (often to the disbenefit of the player), offensive espionage (which was highly risky due to Moo's personality and strategy system. If a honorable or xenophobic leader caught your spy they wouldn't rest until you were exterminated) or capturing planets by landing troops.

I have other ideas as well. Particularly centered around Great People and Great Works, specifically which great person spawns what great work. It would make sense to me for instance that a Great Prophet should be able to create Relics. Or that Great Works of Literature come in different types, similar to how Civ 6's Art has been split up in Religious, Sculpture, Portrait and Landscape. Sun Tzu's "Art of War" isn't the same as Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations", Dante's "Inferno" and Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest". Yet Civ 6 treats them identically and that's sort of a no-no for me.

Generally speaking I'd say the following are roughly the overarching Great Person categories:

- Scientists (Doctors, Physicists, Chemists, Biologists, Mathematicians, Philosophers)
- Artists (Painters, Sculptors, Artisans, Writers, Composers)
- Managers (Merchants, Entrepreneurs, Engineers, Explorers, Governors)
- Leaders (Generals, Admirals, Politicians, Prophets, Diplomats)

Furthermore, these are the core 4 types of great works that I see

- Art (great artist dependent)
- Manuscripts (great person type depedent)
- Artefacts (culture & era dependent)
- Relics (religion dependent)

How much further you split them up I think is a matter of preference, but these four should be represented in one way or the other. I'll present my vision tomorrow if there are any takers. Until then, sleeptight