Ideas for The Perfect 4X Historical Game

[Lord Lakely]

So about culture.

I would like to commend Civ for introducing Great Works as physical objects in Brave New World, as well as tourism, for it is one of the most realistic, close-to-home mechanics to be found in that game. Each of us has been a tourist on at least several occasions and it feels like a genuine mechanic to shove into a late-game situation. Whether it should by directly tied into a victory condition is another matter - as of 2020, nobody has won an irl culture victory.

(the closest irl thing that one can compare to a culture victory would be the Anschluß, Austria's spontaneous annexation to the Third Reich in the late 1930s. Cultural unity, or brotherhood/sisterhood, has always been the driving cultural factor, not having more incoming tourists than outgoing ones, but I disgress)

Regardless this post will be about Great Works and where they come from.

1) There are three overarching types of "Great Works"
Like i said in the previous post, I do feel like we must distinguish between the various types of art

- Contemporary Art: Fine Art, reflecting the zeitgeist of the artist: paintings, sculptures, architectural marvels and motion pictures all fall under this.
- Written Art: All forms of literature: prose, poetry, plays, musical compositions, scientific papers, religious tenets, and the like.
- Historical Art: Objects and trinkets that rediscover a culture's roots and origins. So basically, Artefacts

2) There are two types of art.
Simultaneously, I think we must divide these three categories underneath two umbrella's: cultural art and religious art. History supports this distinction: For the largest part of the classical era up to the industrial era, commoners rarely left their home countries. One of the exceptions was to commit a pilgrimage to a holy site of their religion. Pilgrimage really was the ancestor to modern tourism and was practiced on a massive scale, across the entire world. Each self-respecting religion has places of pilgrimage, where the faithful flock to observe the Relics (Historic), Holy Scriptures (Written) and intricate decorations of the religious buildings (Contemporary).

3) Religious Tourism is strong early, Cultural Tourism is strong late
By contrast, cultural art was mostly a means of entertainment and decoration until the early industrial era, when innovations refrigeration (sea travel), refining (land travel) and flight (air travel) allowed the common folk to travel to any place they so desired. Irreligious Tourism should start roughly around this area in the timeline if we're aiming for historical accuracy, while religious tourism should start as soon as religions are getting founded.

In short: in a game that uses tourism as a mechanic, religious civs should be getting a head start in tourism, which is later eclypsed by those with built-in cultural advantages. Further explanation will have to wait for a different post though.

Great Works should play a major role in tourism, for reasons that are obvious.

So this begs a question.

Where do these great works come from?

I believe the answer is simple: Great People

4) Great People and how they could function
* if and only if Great Works continue to exist as physical objects.

In Civ, the role of Great People in creating art is both absolute and laughably simple: Only GWAMs can create great works, and there are precisely three buildings which can store them.

If we want to aim for historical accuracy though, I think we should start by first defining which Great People we want in the game or not. s I noted in my above posts, there are four key types of Great people: Scientists, Leaders, Artisans and Managers. For a game like Civ, I think we would do well to split those categories up, one for each important concept.

- Great Scientists: Scientific Great Person: Researchers, Mathematicians, Philosophers, Educators
- Great Prophets: Religious Great Person: Apostles, Theologians, Archbishops, Evangelists
- Great Engineers: Industrial Great Person: Industrialists, Architects, Inventors
- Great Artists: Cultural Great Person: Sculptors, Painters, Directors
- Great Officer: Militaristic Great Person: Generals and Admirals
- Great Merchants: Commercial Great Person: Entrepreneurs, Explorers
- Great Statespeople: Legalistic Great Person: Stewards, Governors, Prime Ministers, Civil Rights Activists

I would also add Great Writers as a group. Literature and storytelling have always played an important part in education, initiation and formation, so while I do not believe Writers should necessarily be A Cultural Great Person Exclusive, they are historically important enough to include as a separate group. Great Musicians are considered Great Writers

Secondly we would need to define what each Great Person should be able to do. I would propose the following template

a) Personal Ability: Something the Great Person has been historically famous for
b) Passive Ability: Something the Great Person can do when garrisoned inside a city
c) Class Ability: Something all Great People of this class can do. We can have multiple class abilities.
d) Great Work Ability: Expend the Great Person to create a Great Work associated with its class
e) Start a Golden Age: Golden Ages should be, like Great Works, exist in multiple forms. A GP should be able to inspire one

Futhermore: I'd give each GP a lifespan, meaning that you have only a set amount of turns to use their abilities before they die. I like Ovid well enough, but the man did not live for 2K years preserved inside a siberian frost cavern until his Russian hometown finally built him an amphitheatre to perform in.

Abilities I had in mind were

4.1 Great Artists
A) Personal Ability: Create an Artwork the Great Artist was famous for [2-3 charges]
B) Inspiring Presence: [passive] +25% Culture in the city, +1 Tourism from all sources
C) Restore to New Glory: Permanently increase the culture output rating of the chosen Wonder or Building [Expend]
D) Immortalize: Create a Portrait Artwork of another Great Person currently alive in your empire (self-portraits are possible) [2 charges] (nb: this should always result in a bust, portrait or picture of the Great Person)
E) Artistic Manifesto: Start a Cultural Renaissance [expend]

4.2 Great Engineers
A) Personal Ability: Depends on which Great Engineer you've recruited.
B) Arctitectural Marvels: [passive] +25% Production in city
C) Landmark Engineering: Finish construction of a World Wonder in the city. [expend]
C) Modernization: Instantly upgrade all buildings in a city to a higher tier [expend]
D) Experimental Invention: Create an irreligious Artifact for your Civilization [2 Charges]
E) Industrial Innovation: Start an Industrial Revolution [expend

4.3 Great Generals
A) Personal Ability: Depends on which Great General you recruited
B) Natural Born Leader [passive]: Friendly military units on or adjacent receive +25% to damage and movement.
C) I Want You!: Instantly finish recruitment of the current unit [3 charges]
C) Weaponization: Upgrade all obselete troops [expend]
D) Major-General: Write a Memoir Manuscipt [expend]
E) One True Banner: Start a Wave of Nationalism [expend]

4.4 Great Merchants
A) Personal Ability: Depends on which Great Merchant you recruited.
B) Economic Wonder [Passive]: +20% Gold and Growth in the city
C) Generous Donation: Instantly receive a generous amount of gold [expend]
C) Trade Expedition: Gain access to the other player's resources for the next 30 turns. [expend]
D) Pulp Fiction: Write a Bestseller manuscript [expend]
E) Brilliant Investments: Start an Economic Boom [expend]

4.5 Great Prophets
A) Personal ability: Depends on which Great Prophet you recruited
B) Eye of God: [passive]: +20% Faith in the city, +50% Religious pressure.
C) Word of God: Found a religion OR Discover a religious tenet of your state religion [expend]
C) Hand of God: Convert all citizens in the city to your religion. This city ignores all religious pressure and conversion for 20 turns [expend]
D) Body of God: Create a Relic Artefact or a Holy Scripture Manuscript [2 charges]
E) Will of God: Start a Religious Reformation [expend]

4.6 Great Scientists
A) Personal ability: depends on the Great Scientist you recruited
B) Inquisitive Nature [passive]: +25% Science in the city, +1 yields from specialists
C) Eureka!: instantly discover and unlock a tech you haven't discovered yet [expend]
C) First Aid: Permanently increase the city's Hygiene by +5 [expend]
D) Groundbreaking Dissertation: Write Scientific Paper [expend]
E) Earth-shattering Discovery: Start Scientific Revolution [expend]


4.7 Great Statesmen
A) Personal Ability: Depends on the Great Statesman you recruited.
B) Charismatic Ruler: [passive] +25% Prestige/Diplomatic Capital in the city, +1 Amenity.
C) Diplomatic Mission: Receive extra votes/Diplomatic capital from the player. [expend]
C) Simplify Bureaucracy: Permanently increase the City's yields by +10% [expend]
D) On The Art of Statecraft: Write a Political Treatise [expend]
E) Coup d'État: Start a Golden Age of choice [expend]

4.8 Great Writers
A) Personal Ability: Write a manuscript they were famous for [2-3 charges]
B) Open Air Performances: [passive] +2 Amenities in the city
C) Advertisement Campaign: Permanently increase your Tourism rating with all Civs you exert cultural influence towards [expend]
D) Ghostwriter: May write the associated manuscript of any Great Person currently living in your empire. [2 charges, doesn't expend]
E) Wave of Creation: Inspire Cultural Renaissance [expend]

5) Artworks, their requirements and display options
Art should, clearly, only be created by GAs. However, Civ 6 defines several different types of Art: these include Portraits, Landscapes, Religious Art, Sculptures and Paintings.

I like these distinctions, but I think the categorization is a bit off. Religious art should be its own category, for instance. There are a couple of other factors one would consider, including:

5.1) Materials and quality
Another thing with Art is the material they are made from. A sculpture made from Marble or Bronze should automatically be more valuable than those made out of clay. Luxury pigments such as crushed lapis, tyrian purple and lead white should provide better quality paintings. Civs that have access to these resources should excel at making better Art (not counting innate abilities), making their empire better at culture and tourism in the long run. Italy's marble deposits absolutely helped ancient Rome and Duchy of Tuscany to become two cultural mastodonts during the Classical and Renaissance era respectively.

The qualty of Art art should also be improved by better technology (see it as civs developing better techniques), which is supported by my earlier point about modular research (see previous posts above)

Sculptures should be the first type of art made available for players. Access to a nearby Quarry or Mine is mandatory. Marble, Ivory and Copper should be the three resources that boost art quality here. During the classical era, sculpures served decorative or ceremonial purposes, as opposed to touristic ones. Their primal yield should therefore be culture for irreligious art and faith for religious art (e.g: statues of deities).

Paintings should unlock somewhere during the Late Classical and Early Medieval. I would split them up in Landscapes (irreligious) and Fresco's (religious) Unlike sculptures, it is very easy to get the necessary materials since all you recruite is a pigment and a canvas. Instead, I'd posit quality is determined by the place of painting. Putting you Great Artist on a tile with great appeal and letting them sketch their surroundings should result in prettier paintings. Like Sculptures, the main yield should be Culture for landscapes and Faith for fresco's.

With the advent of photography I would also add films as a late-game category (with no religious equivalent). (this would allow us to include early directors such as Orson Welles and Ingvar Bergman into the game)

As I wrote in (4), Portraits I should be a special type of artwork created by Artists only when there's a Great Person living in their lands; Self-portraits are allowed in this case, and there is a myriad of examples of artists painting or sculping themselves. The Portrait itself could take the form of a bust in the Ancient-Classical, a painting in the Medieval-Renaissance and a picture from the Industrial era onwards.

5.2 Displaying Art
Displaying art should influence the effect the art has on your civ's culture. An artwork that is put on display in a Palace for instand increases the ruler's prestige, while a public statue beautifies the settlement, providing an amenity.

The way I see it, there are several buildings that could increase the yields of artworks including:

- Palace / Wonders: +Diplomatic Capital
- Town Square: +Amenity/+Appeal [Sculpture only]
- Garden/Park/Zoo: +Culture [irreligious only]
- Shrine/Temple/Grand Temple: +Faith [religious only]
- Library: +Science
- Auctioneer: +Gold
- Museum: +Tourism
- Vault: No yields (private collections, stores spare art)

Theming is a very good mechanic in Civ games and is one I would prefer to see unchanged. Theming represents owning a set or collection and it makes sense that if the set is complete, the artworks should be more valuable.

6) Artifacts and Relics
Unlike Art, I don't believe Artifacts and Relics should be created by Great Artists. They don't represent artistry as much as they represent a memento mori of the past. In Civ 5 and 6, Artifacts can only be dug up by Archaeologist, where they'll be given an era and go-to civilization. Relics can only be created via losing an apostle with the Martyr promotion in theological combat, though you will occasionally discover one in a tribal village. Whatever the case, it would make sense that these two are intertwined with Relics being the religious counterpart to the Artifact.

So All Artifacts and Relics should be aqcuired via

- Tribal Hut reward [Relics only]
- Archaeological dig site [Artifacts only]
- Created by the right Great Person [Prophet for Artifact, Engineer for Artifact]

Otherwise, I see them as a rare form of "Super Art" having increased culture/faith and tourism/pilgrimage yields, yields which scale with age. The older an artefact the more valuable it is.

7) Literature
This is where I feel Civ has dropped the ball because in many ways Great Writers not only feel second fiddle to the Great Artists, but they are functionally more powerful than Great Artists. In Civ 6, it is the Great Works of Writing that win you culture victory and that does feel somewhat counterintuitive. Not every great piece of literature sparked a cultural revolution, though they are never the less important.

Furthermore, literature isn't just a written medium. Speeches are written before they are performed. Symphonies are composed on paper before they turn into musical art. For that purpose, I also consider composers to be great writers.

Literature played different roles throughout the ages: the most common of those were education and entertainment. "Entertainment" itself is a very broad term, which includes public performances such as plays and concerts, but also private entertainment in the form of a good novel. Holy scriptures were very important in spreading both religion and literacy. Sun Tzu's Art of War modernized the way the chinese looked at battle tactics, etc. All written media, all with very different effects

Hence why I propose we attach literature to different great person types and give each type of literature (see 4)

for the purpose of semantics, "Manuscript" will be the term I'll use to describe a single piece of literature. "Literature" is the generalist term. Just to be clear.

7.1 Types of literature
As with Art, I would make a distinction beteen Cultural Literature and Non-Cultural Literature. The former, obviously, has culture as the primary yield. Cultural Literature is artistic in nature and should be performed in these buildings:

- Theatre (Poetry, Plays)
- Cinema (Plays, Music)
- Concert Hall (Poetry, Music)

Clearly, manuscripts should provide Culture and Amenities (and later, tourism) when stored inside these buildings

Important to note is that I would make these the ONLY types of literature fully exlcusive to Great Writers. Non-Cultural literature can be created by Great Writers, but the primal source should be other Great People

- Scientific Papers: Provide Science, created by Great Scientists, stored inside Schools.
- Bestsellers: Provide Gold, created by Great Merchants, stored inside Libraries
- Holy Scriptures: Provide Faith, created by Great Prophets, stored inside Temples
- Political Treatises: Provide Efficiency, created by Great Statesment, stored inside Courthouses.
- Memoirs: Provides Prestige, created by Great General, stored inside Military Academies.

Libraries should be able to store all Literature, where they will provide fewer base yields than in the usual.

8. Tourism for Great Works
If Tourism is implemented as a mechanic into a 4X game, then it makes sense that the Great Works would make contributions. I also believed distinctions have ot be made between religious Great Works, which give tourism early, and cultural Great Works, which give tourism later.

8.1 Role of Religious Art
Religious Tourism, or Pilgrimage, should be available only to followers of the religion. So, a follower of Islam living in France, can visit Islam's Holy City of Istanbul inside the Ottoman Empire to admire the Sandals of the Prophet stored inside the Great Mandir, but a buddhist follower living in France or the Ottomans would not.

Because of the religious restrictions, early cultural juggernaughts should be the religious civilizations, who can win culture victory by spreading their religion everywhere (Religious victory, arguably the most accurate victory type in the game, is such a tedious bore that I would rather see removed or combined with CV ), patronizing religiosu art and fighting for Holy Cities and Relics.

8.2 Role of Cultural Art and Artefacts
Tourism kicks in later with the advent of the Steam Engine, Flight and Refrigeration. Because of how quickly tourism snowballed into a luxury only the rich could afford to something every does several times a year, This largely comes from the variety of ways tourism manifests itself:
> Ecological tourism (Natural Wonders, National Parks, Safari)
> Luxury tourism (Seaside Resorts, Ski Resorts, Shops)
> Cultural tourism (Wonders, Great Works, Public Spectacles)

In this case, we're interested in Great Works and Artefacts: Usually, Museums hold massive collections of either, but only put a fraction of them on display (usually replica's of the real thing). Everything that isn't on display is either researched or stored.

So in general, I would propose the following rule of thumb:

- Art on diplay = moderate yields, tourism equal to Culture
- Stored Art not on display = no yields, no tourism
- Artifacts on display = large yields, tourism equal to Culture
- Stored Artifacts not on display = small yields, no tourism

Artifacts are rarer in nature and therefore should have higher yields, scaling with age. Art should have higher yields when themed into a collection, scaling with quality. Civ 6's splits up Archaelogical and Art Museums. I don't think they should be. The type of exhibition determines the type of museum.

Generally, the impacts of Artifacts should on tourism be higher than that of Art, but both should be lower than that of World Wonders.

8.3 Role of Literature

Plays and poetry played a very important role in cultural development and identity, while books have always been paramount in education. In other words, Literature's role in a game which aspires to be historically accurate should be supportive and significant. Stored literature should provide Amenities, Culture and extra yields depending on which type. Tourism however? That role should be somewhat minimal, and limited only to live renditions of music, plays and poetry.

9. Tl;dr Conclusions

Great People
> Proposed Types: Artists, Writers, Prophets, Engineers, Scientists, Generals, Statesmen and Merchants.
> Fixed Great People abilities
>> A) Personal ability
>> B) Passive ability
>> C) Class ability (1 or more)
>> D) Great Work Ability
>> E) Golden Age Ability
> All Great People have a "lifespan", a fixed amount of turns before they are automatically disbanded.

Great works of Art: moderate amounts of tourism, can be themed, scaling with quality
> Landscapes / Frescos: Midgame and higher, Bonus if made in high appeal tiles or cities
> Sculptures / Statues: Early game and higher, bonus if made with high quality materials (brone, marble)
> Portraits: Requires a Great Person, higher quality by default

Artifacts: high amounts of tourism, scaling with age, harder to obtain and theme. Requires an Archaeologist or a Great Engineer
> Relics: Religious artifacts, require a Great Prophet.

Great Works of Literature: Require a cultural building to provide tourism, otherwise provide a lot of extra yields. Obtained by Great Writers
> Plays, Poetry and Partitures: Provide tourism, culture and entertainment amenities, more when put inside the right building.
> Papers: Bonus science, obtainable via retiring Great Scientists (no tourism)
> Political Treatises: efficiency (bonus to all yields), obtainable via retiring Great Statesmen (no tourism)
> Memoirs: bonus Diplomatic Capital, obtainable via retiring Great Generals (no tourism)
> Bestsellers: Bonus gold, obtainable via retiring Great Merchants. (no tourism)
> Holy Scriptures: Bonus faith, obtainable via retiring Great Prophets (no tourism)

Tourism: Split up between Tourism and Pilgrimage
> Pilgrimage: early game, each Pilgrim is a religious follower, uses Faith as a base.
> Tourism: late game, no restrictions on who can become a Tourist, uses culture as a base.
> Tourism can be used to achieve a cultural victory, but it doesn't necessarily have to. There are alternatives.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Just a few random comments:

Writers/Great Literature have some other attributes:
1. They can Immortalize or 'enhance' another Great Person: Walt Whitman for Abraham Lincoln, Plutarch for several classical individuals (Caesar, Alexander, etc),
2. There are Great Works of literature that are themselves Iconic for a civilization: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for the classical and later Greeks, (and Macedonians under Alexander, for that matter) Shakespeare's plays for the English (and some of them had Immortalizing features for individuals like Henry V). In other words, these could have Loyalty or other 'political' effects as well as Cultural pressure.

Frescoes were by no means entirely religious. In fact, some of the best known (the Alexander mosaic from Pompeii springs to mind) are entirely Cultural and even Immortalizing (that mosaic is considered to be an iconic portrait of Alexander). Also, some early art that was or may have been religious still retains great cultural effect even after the religious component is forgotten: the Great architectural Temples come to mind, and some of the mosaics and frescoes which may have had some kind of religious meaning originally, but now are simply admired for their workmanship and beauty.

In Museums, a great omission in Civ VI is the Museum of Science and Technology, which displays artefacts of technology - obsolete ships like the USS Constitution, HMS Victory, or Sweden's Vasa, military uniforms and equipment, engines of all kinds. The Smithsonian/NASA Aerospace Museum is the most visited of all the Smithsonian's separate museums, and some collections like those of Kubinka or Aberdeen for military or the Deutsches Museum in Munich for industrial technology are as large as any purely art museum.

Art works of all kinds can also be displayed in Private Collections/chateaus from Classical Era on. Such should definitely not have the same impact as Publicly displayed art, but they are part of the 'cultural accumulation' of a Civ and some, like J.P. Morgan's private art collection, wind up being donated on their death and (in his case) starting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, one of the great public art museums of the world.

There are Great People that can 'appear' and function in several categories. Examples:
Pythagoreas - Great Scientist, Great Prophet
Han Yu - Great Writer, Great Administrator/Statesman
Leonardo da Vinci - Great Engineer, Great Artist, Great Scientist
Michelangelo - Great Sculptor, Great Artist, Great Architect
Sebastien de Vauban - Great Engineer, Great General
Benjamin Franklin - Great Scientist, Great Administrator/Statesman (he was ambassador, political leader in both Pennsylvania and the early United States)

 

[Sostratus]

Based on the thread regarding making food/farms more important...

7. Centralization
This is the idea that a layer of player agency could exist at the empire level. That is, some choices are made at the city level [most choices in civ games] but some are at the empire level. The idea is that as the game progresses and the empire grows, management can be simplified by increasingly moving "power" from the city level to the empire level. In some sense, units already exist at this level, as do choices like what religion to use, and civ5's version of spies. (IIrc they were managed from a central menu.)
However, formalizing this concept would allow for both historically inspired game mechanical variations over the course of play, and "macromanagement" as a solution to micromanagement.

A. Gameplay Efficiency provided by centralization mechanic
While many laud the enjoyable early game on civ6, and how many interesting decisions there are to make, the game struggles to in the later eras. There are reasons for this, but one of them is that a larger and successful empire becomes encumbered by how many small decisions still need to be made to do anything. One way to begin "consolidating" decision making is to take resources that have previously been strictly local (food, production) and create a framework for these yields to be utilized from an empire wide pool.

For example, at a certain point, suppose it was possible for a city to begin sharing some portion of its food surplus to other cities. One can imagine a city surrounded by farms taking the large growth boost and sending that to large cities with few tiles left to farm. In a simple example, if every city was connected, then all cities would grow and draw food from the same bucket. Thus, a farm anywhere is like a farm everywhere. One might even extend this at some point and allow the player to sell food from his empire pool to another player.

Food is straightforward; production is a case where things may need to be innovated. Consider, though, a case where cities are contributing a portion of their production to the empire pool. What would one use it for? Certainly, a few things come to mind - national projects like the manhattan program; World Wonders and national wonders; things like spies and archaeologists; perhaps eventually, the empire pool could be used to enhance a particular city to help construct infrastructure, or build things directly.
The goal is to eventually be able to have cities doing "background" things like "build wealth" or run a local project. Meanwhile, things that are more strategic would be focused at a higher level. If production had interesting options it would be pretty neat.

If you really wanted to be picky, you could even have things like resource benefits [amenities, health, etc] , scientific research, cultural progress, and even the effect of some policies be tied to being part of this empire network.

B. Historical Opportunities provided via centralization mechanic
In the case of something like food, this is an opportunity to make historical things like trade routes important. For example, one might require that a city be connected to the capital in order to receive from the empire pool. One might imagine that something like rivers and sea lanes being critical ways to enable contributions, with technologies like railroads, steam power, containerization, etc all helping the efficacy. As an example, one could allow Refrigeration to add a 25% boost to the food income of the empire pool. Or perhaps a policy could generate gold based on a percentage of the yields you are moving through your empire pools. Etc. Establishing these links with your neighbors would open up the full host of trade options and eventually allow very integrated economies for alliances.

But the concept of centralization need not be solely applied to yields. Units, as an example, could also be part of it. This would be a way to sneak in "levy vs professional" militaries. (The ability to summon units - perhaps at first just local defense, then a levy of units you can control for a limited time, and eventually just conscripting normal units.) Empires could have a sort of "Centralization" rating that varies over time and with choices such as their government type. Perhaps Authoritarian forms have higher innate centralization offset by something else (say, tighter control making people less happy.) This could be a gate for mechanical abilities of centralization as well as other game systems, like constructing a government plaza or a specific wonder or adopting certain policies.

C. Adherence to "modular" design
The upshot of all this is that a civ-style 4X game that includes this type of mechanic can always be adjusted to not have it; because the game begins without any of its features implemented. Thus, any mix can be achieved as desired by simply not allowing centralization mechanics to take hold at any point.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Just a few random comments:

Writers/Great Literature have some other attributes:
1. They can Immortalize or 'enhance' another Great Person: Walt Whitman for Abraham Lincoln, Plutarch for several classical individuals (Caesar, Alexander, etc),
2. There are Great Works of literature that are themselves Iconic for a civilization: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for the classical and later Greeks, (and Macedonians under Alexander, for that matter) Shakespeare's plays for the English (and some of them had Immortalizing features for individuals like Henry V). In other words, these could have Loyalty or other 'political' effects as well as Cultural pressure.

I'm covering Epics in a different fashion in my design. I use a system of cultural heritage points, which increase the reputation of the building, great work or wonder, adding more base yields and tourism."Epic" is one of the levels of Cultural Heritage one can achieve, so the Illiad would be an Epic-level Poem.

Generally the levels I would use are

Level 0: Unknown (nothing extra)
Level 1: Local Curiosity (<= Gains cultural yields, irrespective of base yields)
Level 2: Local Attraction (<= Domestic Tourism starts here)
Level 3: Tourist Attraction (<= international Tourism starts here)
Level 4: National Epic (<= +50% culture, gold from tourism, grants amenities)
Level 5: World Heritage (<= +100% Culture and Tourism, grants more amenities, capturing the city that controls it results in massive unrest penalties for the conqueror)

Heritage is accumulated passively by cultural and religious buildings, all great works, all world wonders, tile improvements that provide culture or faith, national parks, natural wonders, and high tier buildings (universities, banks, stadiums, etc), as well as all forms of unique infrastructure. The next level can be rush-bought or stimulated by spending culture.

Immortalization is a pretty neat trait would can become a second class ability for Writers ^_^ Biographies, too.

Frescoes were by no means entirely religious. In fact, some of the best known (the Alexander mosaic from Pompeii springs to mind) are entirely Cultural and even Immortalizing (that mosaic is considered to be an iconic portrait of Alexander). Also, some early art that was or may have been religious still retains great cultural effect even after the religious component is forgotten: the Great architectural Temples come to mind, and some of the mosaics and frescoes which may have had some kind of religious meaning originally, but now are simply admired for their workmanship and beauty.

Hmm maybe we can solve this by making art religious only when it is stored inside a religious building? That would create an incentive to fill temples with statues and paintings early on, and then move them to museums from the industrial era onwards. I'm also not opposed to making the Museum a toggable option for buildings with Great Work Slots, as opposed to being a separate building, as many temples now function as one.

[/QUOTE]

In Museums, a great omission in Civ VI is the Museum of Science and Technology, which displays artefacts of technology - obsolete ships like the USS Constitution, HMS Victory, or Sweden's Vasa, military uniforms and equipment, engines of all kinds. The Smithsonian/NASA Aerospace Museum is the most visited of all the Smithsonian's separate museums, and some collections like those of Kubinka or Aberdeen for military or the Deutsches Museum in Munich for industrial technology are as large as any purely art museum.

For shame to me because my fave museum is actually the Museum of Natural History in Brussels, which doesn't have a single artwork in it. I suppose we can split up Artefacts in different categories as well?

> Cultural: Heirlooms
> Religious: Relics
> Scientific: Fossils
> Commercial: Treasure
> Administrative: Records
> Industrial: Machines (the type of artefact an Engineer could create)
> Militaristic: Weapons

that would allow for theming and museum specialization.

[/QUOTE]

Art works of all kinds can also be displayed in Private Collections/chateaus from Classical Era on. Such should definitely not have the same impact as Publicly displayed art, but they are part of the 'cultural accumulation' of a Civ and some, like J.P. Morgan's private art collection, wind up being donated on their death and (in his case) starting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, one of the great public art museums of the world.

I agree with these ideas. I do believe the game should facilitate this either via either adding ways to store spare art in private collections (inside bank vaults, inside archives, inside manors and castles), or by allowing you to store art even if you don't have slots available (which would simulate as them being in a private collection)

Random events could also spontaneously give you art when a noble makes a donation to the state.

There are Great People that can 'appear' and function in several categories. Examples:
Pythagoreas - Great Scientist, Great Prophet
Han Yu - Great Writer, Great Administrator/Statesman
Leonardo da Vinci - Great Engineer, Great Artist, Great Scientist
Michelangelo - Great Sculptor, Great Artist, Great Architect
Sebastien de Vauban - Great Engineer, Great General
Benjamin Franklin - Great Scientist, Great Administrator/Statesman (he was ambassador, political leader in both Pennsylvania and the early United States)

The best solution for this imo, would be to assign them to one class and give them abilities similar to that of another. Franklin could be a Statesman with with a scientific ability. Grace Hopper could be a Great General/Admiral with a scientific ability, Michelangelo could be an artist with the ability to finish or improve wonders, etc...

Re: Centralization: I personally just like the idea of tiles inside the city' inner ring to be worked passively. Like, cities have a limited amount of workers available, but that doesn't mean their families can't work their owned land when the laborers are off toiling elsewhere. The simplest solution I can think of is for cities to receive 50% of the yields of unworked tiles next to the city centre/districts, and 100% of those worked by citizens inside their 3 tile ring.

I certainly would also like to the trade and cultural influence systems revamped to accomodate a more realistic, organic way to manage your cities.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Immortalization is a pretty neat trait would can become a second class ability for Writers ^_^ Biographies, too.

You could have a 'synergy' between the Great Person and Immortalization: sometimes the 'art work' enhances the 'fame' of the person far beyond their actual accomplishments, as did the Iliad for Achilles or Shakespeare's play for MacBeth. In other instances, the Immortalizing Factor is no more than an enhancement, like the Lincoln Memorial to Lincoln or the Arc de Triomphe to Napoleon's military career.
Might even wind up with a graded level of Immortalizing Enhancements to Great People similar to your Epic grades . . .

Hmm maybe we can solve this by making art religious only when it is stored inside a religious building? That would create an incentive to fill temples with statues and paintings early on, and then move them to museums from the industrial era onwards. I'm also not opposed to making the Museum a toggable option for buildings with Great Work Slots, as opposed to being a separate building, as many temples now function as one.

I think Religious Art has to be contextural. A great deal of the classical Greco-Roman statuary was 'religious' in subject matter, but that religion being virtually extinct as a religion, none of it is displayed as 'religious' art any more. All the Biblical 'Davids' sculpted in the renaissance were, obviously, of a religious/Old Testament subject, but even at the time they weren't considered 'religious art'. I like the idea of using the Display Space type to indicate the Art Definition: Religious Art in religious structures, with the addition that if you change religions or acquire a religion after building a religious structure (Shrine, Temple) then any 'religious' art displayed in the structure is no longer considered religious art by the new Religion.

For shame to me because my fave museum is actually the Museum of Natural History in Brussels, which doesn't have a single artwork in it. I suppose we can split up Artefacts in different categories as well?

> Cultural: Heirlooms
> Religious: Relics
> Scientific: Fossils
> Commercial: Treasure
> Administrative: Records
> Industrial: Machines (the type of artefact an Engineer could create)
> Militaristic: Weapons

that would allow for theming and museum specialization.

May I suggest the good old Industrial term "Engines" for all the machinery created by Engineers

. . . I do believe the game should facilitate this either via either adding ways to store spare art in private collections (inside bank vaults, inside archives, inside manors and castles), or by allowing you to store art even if you don't have slots available (which would simulate as them being in a private collection)

Random events could also spontaneously give you art when a noble makes a donation to the state.

Random Event is an excellent way to simulate the nature of Donations by private individuals. Stored Art, I suggest, is an elegant way to simulate Art Not On Display, in game terms because you simply have no 'slot' for it anywhere. I'd also suggest that Stored Art has to be stored in a City Center, Theatre District or Wonder with any kind of 'art' slot. IF such a location is conquered or Razed/Pillaged, there is a chance that the stored art would be captured ("Looted") by an enemy - except Barbarians, who by definition smash everything. This mechanism, of course, would also apply to Art On Display, except that looting Public Art would get the Looter a major Grievance Hit with other Civs in the game

 

[Lord Lakely]

You could have a 'synergy' between the Great Person and Immortalization: sometimes the 'art work' enhances the 'fame' of the person far beyond their actual accomplishments, as did the Iliad for Achilles or Shakespeare's play for MacBeth. In other instances, the Immortalizing Factor is no more than an enhancement, like the Lincoln Memorial to Lincoln or the Arc de Triomphe to Napoleon's military career.
Might even wind up with a graded level of Immortalizing Enhancements to Great People similar to your Epic grades . . .

You can take it even further than that. For instance environmental buildings like the monument can be cast in the likeness of a past great person the civ has earned. You can make buildings modular, in that options for statues and other decorations can be added to your library, park, marketsquare, etc.

I think that would be really cool too, but also a nightmare to play with. Maybe we'll need a Base Mode and an Expanded Mode for the game (kind of how Monkey Island III had a Mega Monkey mode which featured more and more complex puzzles)

I think Religious Art has to be contextural. A great deal of the classical Greco-Roman statuary was 'religious' in subject matter, but that religion being virtually extinct as a religion, none of it is displayed as 'religious' art any more. All the Biblical 'Davids' sculpted in the renaissance were, obviously, of a religious/Old Testament subject, but even at the time they weren't considered 'religious art'. I like the idea of using the Display Space type to indicate the Art Definition: Religious Art in religious structures, with the addition that if you change religions or acquire a religion after building a religious structure (Shrine, Temple) then any 'religious' art displayed in the structure is no longer considered religious art by the new Religion.

Assigning a religion to Artworks works for me. A religious civ would then use them to decorate their state religion temples, while a secular civ's Art would not generate such yields. I don't mind adding comissions as a mechanic either, where you can 'order' a piece of art for gold or faith and receive one after an amount of turns (based on the city's culture output?)

May I suggest the good old Industrial term "Engines" for all the machinery created by Engineers

That works for me. Maybe Antiques for the cultural artifacts but that's semantics.

Random Event is an excellent way to simulate the nature of Donations by private individuals. Stored Art, I suggest, is an elegant way to simulate Art Not On Display, in game terms because you simply have no 'slot' for it anywhere. I'd also suggest that Stored Art has to be stored in a City Center, Theatre District or Wonder with any kind of 'art' slot. IF such a location is conquered or Razed/Pillaged, there is a chance that the stored art would be captured ("Looted") by an enemy - except Barbarians, who by definition smash everything. This mechanism, of course, would also apply to Art On Display, except that looting Public Art would get the Looter a major Grievance Hit with other Civs in the game

That's pretty much the idea I had in mind as well. One my civs (Assyria) gets a science and amenity bonus towards owning undisplayed art created by other Civs.

As another point maybe, but I also feel that tourism should be more meaningful. Currently it does nothing in Civ 6 other than give you a nebulous score that may or may not eventually win you Culture Victory (call we rename this to Schrödinger's Victory?) Tourism is a massive moneymaker irl. At the very least, a Civ that excels at Tourism should be able to make loads of money from tourism.

 

[Civilwar20]

A bunch of Semi-Random Thoughts on the subject, which has been engaging me ever since I heard about Humankind and Ten Crowns and started thinking about the Historical 4X as a category instead of just 'Civ'

Leaders:
Kill 'em Off every once in a while! Not at historical rates, or none of them would last more than 2 turns until half-way through the game, but allow them to Lead a Battle (with bonuses and a chance of getting whacked), die in an accident, natural causes, Plague, Assassination, bad oysters, etc. Succession Wars, Civil Wars, all the problems with 'picking' a New Leader should be in the game - they were a major set of problems and solutions for the historical Civs, after all.
Animated Leader Bards should be the diplomats/emissaries actually doing the negotiating - that way the game can have multiple leaders/Civ without bankrupting the company and the gamer.
Leader names can be historical, legendary. semi-historical, or Complete Fantasy.
After all, why shouldn't I be able to play as Red Orm or Ivar the Boneless in the same Civ?

Map
First, the map graphics have to to be much, much better than Civ VI, which, compared to other games coming out, looks like a kindergarten crayon effort. Completely realistic is probably not the way to go, because it can result in both blandness and difficulty for the gamer in keeping track of the tiles and their effects (The Japanese Army identified over 20 different varieties of Swamp in Manchuria in the 1940s - we do NOT want a 'realistic' Map!)
So, how about the Map As Artwork. Specifically, model the game map on the efforts of the great Landscape painters of the 18th - 20th centuries:

View attachment 545519

View attachment 545521

Now that would give us some dramatic and lovely maps to fight over - spend the graphics animation money on terrain light/clouds animations instead of ephemeral Leader Heads

Resources
Need a complete Re-Think.
For instance, why is Wheat or Rice only on certain tiles? Once you've domesticated either one, your people are going to plant them on every freaking tile where they can make them grow.
Mineral Resources of all kinds should Deplete, and new ones found - keep the whole thing Dynamic: All Gold does not appear magically in 4000 BCE, nor any other 'deposit' in History.

More later . . .

Agree totally !
Especially your point with the Leaders makes totally sense to me. I like it

 

[Lord Lakely]

Yields & Resources.

1. Traditional implementation in Civ
Traditionally, there have been three yields in Civilization:

a) Food, which represents an empire's agriculture. Used to gain more population.
b) Production, which represents an empire's industry. Used to gain buildings and units.
c) Gold, which represent an empire's commerce. Used for taxation, which can be used for public services and research.

This is also a classification used irl to distinguish between the three sectors that make up an economy. This is a fine distinction, but laterly, Civ has been adding more yields to the game

d) Culture, which represents an empire's cultural developments. Used to expand borders
e) Science, which represents an empire's scientific develoments. Used to obtain techs
f) Faith, which represents an empire's religious developments. Used mainly for religion, but also as a secondary currency in the endgame.
g) Diplomatic Favor, which represents an empire's diplomatic developments. Used strictly as a diplomatic currency in negotiations and the World Congress.

As a distinction this is significantly less cut-and-dry. Of the four "new" yields, only Science can compete with the basic ones (perhaps this is also why Old World and Endless Legend consider it to be on par with Food, Production and Gold?)

Other 4X games have used different systems, but I normally only play Civ so I can't comment too much on those. I know that Old World uses "Civics" over Culture and "Training" as some militaristic currency used to train and maintain armies, as well as gold.

In order to choose which yields we can choose, we must take a look at the following

1) What does each yield truly represent?
2) What are the components of each yield?
3) What is or could a local use of the yield?
4) What is or could be a global use of the yield?
5) Should the yield be split up, merged with another or kept the way it is?
6) If so, how should it be named?

2. Food, the Agricultural yield

2.1 What does Food truly represent?
An empire's ability to create new citizens, have more children reach adulthood and have adult citizens (workers) live longer. It also represents a consumable resource for all citizens living in the city and its surrounding lands.

Tile improvements that provide food are:

Farms: Agriculture
Pastures: Husbandry
Camps: Hunting
Fishing Boats: Fishing
and occasionally Plantations: often provide "bonus" food resources such as Wine or Spices.

2.2 What are the components of Food?

Traditionally Food is obtained via farming fertile land. So, for the most part, it represents the products of agriculture, the crops we harvest, the animals we hunt, the water we drink and dairy we reap from domesticated animals. But to some degree it also represents preservation, fertility and health. Birth rates have stayed roughly the same up until the Modern Era, but population booms were not only fuelled by a sudden abundance of food, but also by scientific developments which improved food storage, created synthetic fertilizers and curtailed the spread of diseases

So, it represents
- Nutrition: Staple crops (wheat, rice, maize), proteins of choice (dairy, meat, fish), and fresh produce (fruit, vegetables)
- Fresh water: to enhance the harvest by irrigating the fields. Also serves as a base for any self-respecting beverage.

Enhanced by
- Fertility: Like fresh water, further enhances the efficiency of agriculture, producing more food
- Food processing: Includes,brining, fermentation and pickling. We see this for instance with Salt and Spices producing bonus food. This isn't because they are eaten as is, but are used to make the already existing food last longer before it rots.
- Healthcare, Hygiene and Fitness: The oldest forms of healthcare predate the Sumerians, when the people of southern Anatolia would consume ground willow bark for pain relief. This is important as well: fit people stay alive longer and therefore produce more offspring, while food spoils less quickly in hygienic circumstances.
- Pollution: An important negative factor that inhibits growth and can take many forms such as soil corruption, disease outbreaks and pestillence
- Environmental factors: the nearby presence of fresh water, but thing such as forest fires, volcanic eruptions and other environmental factors could enhance or hinder agriculture.

but not:
- Housing: The amount of food produced should not increase the maximum amount of citizens a city can house.
- Migration: This is an important aspect of population growth which is not represented by Food. Citizens that are born in another city and then migrate to another city because it has more food is a thing irl, but it does not create new citizens. It merely moves a pop from one city to another.

After all, the combination of mechanize agriculture, synthetic fertilizer and microbiology facilitated the massive population boom during the Industrial revolution. Not only was there more food, people generally stayed alive for longer and more children made it to adulthood.


2.3 What is or could be a local use of Food?
For the most part, increase the population of nearby cities. Buildings such as the Granary should provide means of food storage to store food surplusses. In the early game, population growth should be capped, with cities not using all of their food output for growth and/or cities not growing past certain numbers.

Civ does this via adopting a clunky Housing mechanic, which is a step in the right direction. The problem is in Civ 6 that housing is generally hard to come by and that large cities aren't that good as the poorly implemented if often a game of hitting enter ad nauseam. The question of Tall vs Wide is a topic for another post, but for me the answer is always one of timing, not choice: Go wide in the early game, tall in the lategame. Food mechanics should reflect this balance.

2.4 What is or could be a global use for Food?
Feed the population of the empire. Cities that have food in surplus should have the option to sell it to cities which are starving. Where the food can be sent to should depend on geography (access to coast or river, proximity) and technology (refrigeration, refining, flight and railroad should all extend the range, but this is more of a trade thing). The trade value of food should also increase during winter or famines.

Furthermore, consumption rates of Food should increase as pollution increases, as healthcare also falls underneath the nominal umbrella. (2.2)

2.5 Should Food exist as a separate yield?

Yes, definitely.

Food is one of the most essential concepts in a 4X game and one of the most intuitive to understand. The only reason one might want to split up Food into different resources would be for the following reasons

a) Production Chains: In this case Food would be split up in a myriad of base resources (Cereal, Meat, Produce, Water) which can be combined with each other or other resources (ex.: salt) to great high value food that can feed more people (examples: Bread, Beer, Sausages, Pickled Veg), which in turn can be transformed into dishes that may sustain even more people per individual unit (example: Bread + Sausage = Fast Food, Wine + Spices = Mulled wine, Beer + Sugar = Liquor, etc)
b) Food and Water: Splitting up Food and Water creates two consumable resources, where Water not only sustains population but agriculture itself, including irrigating the fields and pastures. This would definitely improve the realism and allow for events such as dysintery outbreaks and droughts water supplies to really cripple settlements which don't have it stored inside wells, cisterns and dams. (as opposed to the annoyances they had been in Civ games past and present)
c) Food and Health: A system of checks and balances where Food represents itself and Health is a check that enhances population growth via food if high, or nerfs it if low. Enables buidings such as Clinics, Fountains, Pharmacies, Gymnasiums, Cemetaries & Bathhouses and improvements such as Aqueducts, Water Processing Plants, Dams, Landfills, Cisterns, Spa's & Field Hospitals.

2.6. Other ideas

Seasons could be introduced to make the food supply less reliable and more constant. For instance, Winter means no food from farms, and only a small amount from Pastures, making Camps the best food generation improvement. This contrasts with Spring which boosts pastures,Summer which boosts Plantationsand Autumn which boost Farms.

Actually building up reserves would be more important, while civs with inate agricultural abilities (examples: Egypt, China, Iroquois) could use their surplus food as a bargaining chip to trade for more expensive resources in times of famine.

Tiles could have a fertility rating, which ehances Farms and Plantatons but depletes as long as you work the tile with a Farm or Plantation. Fertility depletes more slowly if the tile is irrigated. Some improvements, such as Pastures ignore fertility, but increase it passively (cf: manure from cattle and horses, the three fields system, etc). Excessive agriculture should result in droughts and water shortages, and the switch between Field and Pasture should be made easily to accomodate dry spells.

Improvements such as Trading Posts, Caravansaries and Castles could store Food from surrounding farms, serving as entrepots for supply units such as Caravans and Wagon Trains.

Additionally, one could make a case of soldiers costing food in maintenance, which makes sense as they need to be fed. Supply trains can be used to transport food from cities to the nearest regiment, allowing them to heal, maintain high morale and resist attrition, as long as their food supply doesn't dry up. Regiments that aren't fed will take it from nearby food improvments and cities, resulting in looting.

The recruitment of soldiers should, to some extend, also be influenced by a city's food output. A city busy recruiting soldiers should grow more slowly during the recruitment, but also should be able to recruit faster if the city produces a lot of it per turn. Units stationed inside cities should consume food just like a citizen and should only cost gold when they head outside. Disbanding a unit inside a city should also generate "food", not because of cannibalism but because it frees up able bodied-men who can father children, speeding up the birth of the next citizen.

"Food" represents much more than just food, even if the vast bulk of what it represents is food itself. Since its purpose is to grow population: I wouldn't mind seeing it renamed to Growth.

3. Production. the Industrial yield
3.1 What does Production truly represent?

Production represents an empire's ability to aquire and process raw materials, use them create equipment and weapons, as well as pure physical labor. It serves as the main yield for construction and recruitment.

Tile improvements that provide Production are

- Mines (Ores)
- Quarries (Stone)
- Lumber Mills (Lumber)
and occasionally Pastures, in the form of draft animals.

3.2 What are the components of Production?

As Production is used to build everything, we instantly see that Produciton is a tad more complex in nature than Food/Growth was. In order to construct any building you need the necessary raw materials, tools as well as workers. Note that the "workers" represented by Production aren't the same as the citizens that are toiling in the fields or mines. Citizens working in outside of the ring can be seen are government regulated serfs, while the Physical Labor represented by Production is that of professional builders, craftsmen and engineers. It also does NOT represent the civilian units known as Workers/Builders.

So, in a nutshell, Production represents:
- Building materials: Wood, Stone and Metals
- Craftsmen: Carpenters, Engineers, Smiths, Stonemasons,
- Strategic resources: Used to create units.

Further enhanced by:
- Certain bonus materials: Cloth for ship's sails, glass for windows, tin for alloys.
- Equipment: Workers will need tools, while soldiers will need weapons
- Training: Recruiting a unit, civilian or military, requires time as they learn how to us their weapons and tools
- Power: Electrically powered engines and machines exponentionally increase a city's ability to produce.

But not:
- Citizens: As they only work the tiles they are suposed to work
- Materials not used for construction: As these have other purposes than construction and recruitment
- Trade Goods: While Industrial resources can be traded


3.3 What is or could be a local use of Production?

The purpose is easy enough: It should be used to construct buildings and Wonders, or recruit units in cities. Production can also be used to modernize unit regiments, effectively upgrading them one at the time.

Aguably, buildings could also cost production in maintenance, while gold maintenance could be restricted strictly to wages. However, as maintenance often requires money anyway, I'm not sure how important this distinction is.

There isn't much else in terms of local use. Production create stuff and that's it. It isn't the punchiest of tales.


3.4 What is or could be a global use for Production?

Like food, a global use for production would be stockpiling resources which can later be used for heavy industry and trade. Buildings such as warehouses should store production, which can be later used (or sold) to build more buildings or units in a pinch. This is the only thing I can really think of. Production should largely remain localised, but being able to sell it ot other cities and boost their production via trade would be a great option.

3.5 Should Food exist as a separate yield?

Yes... but it's a more hesitant yes.

For the most part production is a very straight-forward yield, but I would advocate a split here. The options are identical to those I listed with Food, so I'll go over them

a) Production Chains: Easily hands down the most intuitive implementation. Production could, like it is in Old World, be split in three base resources: Lumber, Stone and Metal/Iron. I would also add Crystals/Clay to that list. Note that these could be seen as Yields, as opposed to resources proper. Proper resources would include Marble, Copper, Sapphires and Cedarwood, which would have different implementations (most notably: creating Art, making them highly prized commodities). Production chains that combine of the four base resource yields with other resources (examples: Coal, Tin, Quatz, Tar) could create advanced building materials such as Bricks, Paster, Glass, Charcoal, and Steel, which can later be used to refine late-game materials such as Fuel, Asphalt, Electricity, Concrete, Stainless Steel and Plastics.
b) Construction and Recruitment: These two could be split up, allowing cities to spread their production per turn between getting building and getting soldiers. This can be done by giving cities a production penalty by undertaking both actions at the same time or, if Production is split up into its base materials, by looking at the resources needed (if a building needs stone and a unit needs metal, production speed would be determined by the availablity of these resources to the city)
c) Producton and Labor/Happiness: As with Food and Health, "Production" can be seen as conversion between input and output, checked by the amount of Labor a city has on offer, enhanced if the city has a high amount of able-bodied men and women at its disposal and reduced if not. "Labor" can also be replaced by city Happiness, with happy cities working faster (implied consistency due to good working conditions - people would skip work less often and be more motivated), and unhappy citizens being prone to neglect and worker strikes.

3.6 Other ideas

Besides splitting up Production in base resources (see 3.5 a), I think the map is the best way to improve production and its implementations. Humankind does this by adding the Rocky Terrain type, which I think is a great addition. Since Lumber Mills have to be built on Forests and Mines must be built in hills, would it not make sense for Quarries to be built in infertile, rocky soil?

Arguably, all resources should not be visible from the start of the game, not just the strategic ones. They also shouldn't be revealed by techs. They should appear as Points of Interest (animal tracks, a sapling of an undiscovered plant, a shimmer in the rocks, water bubbles in lakes, sea and marshes) and their true nature is only revealed either by settling nearby and claiming the tile or by sending over a unit and having it spend a few turns investigating the Point of Interest. (cf: this is also how the game should handle things such as Tribal Villages and Antiquity Sites)

Additionally, new tile improvements can be added. Pits can be used to harvest sand and soil in fertile tiles which can later be used to create bricks and glass. Labor Camps can be built in poor regions, to provide a cheap, but inferior source of production if the terrain doesn't allow for Lumber Mills, Mines or Quarries.

Boris Gudenuf made a point of industrial resources depleting over time: I agree. Advancements in technology could discover new deposits or increase the amount of the deposit that can be mined, but all strategic resource are finite. Excessive industry should deplete them and civs which didn't store them properly should struggle in getting things done. Trade in the endgame should revolve around acquiring vast reserves of endgame resources, such as Oil and Coal and selling the excess, laying a foundation for an Economic Victory condition. Late-game wars should also have resources as its main incentive, as the lack of certain resources (Aluminum, Oil) cockblocks you from winning Scientific Victory.

Naturally, all forms of heavy industry should create pollution which cripples nearby agriculture (locally) and causes climate change (globally). Investments in climate control and sustainable energy should be an option for those who choose to approach it, but it should be expensive. I'm not just refering to a gold cost here. Green factories and power plants should cost SCIENCE in maintenance, taking away research that could be used elsewhere. High production is very, very powerful in any 4X game and if it comes with a downside in science or growth, it would become a much more Weighed Decision.

Finally, I wouldn't be opposed to Production being a maintenance yield for military units and Power Plants. Military units require weapons, uniforms and armor and all of these cost resources. Civ 6's mechanic of units not healing if their associate strategic resource is unavailable is a step in the right direction. So is resource/turn cost of buildings such as the Coal Plant.

I am okay with "Production" as a name for the yield. "Industry" also works, as does "Labor". If Production does end up being split into different groups, I would suggest Lumber, Stone, Minerals, Energy/Power and Labor as names.

4. Gold, the Commercial yield
4.1 What does Gold truly represent?
Gold represents an empire's prosperity, trading and ability to generate money. It represents value not just in monetary values, such as taxation and income, but also luxury, commerce and jobs.

Tile improvements that could generate gold include

- Cottage, Hamlet, Village, Town: The infamous Cottage change from Civ 4, correctly tying in commerce with population.
- Trading Posts: The Civ 5 equivalent of a Town, but rather poorly implemented. Imagine a tile improvement called a "Trading Post" that generates NO EXTRA MONEY FROM PASSING CARAVANS???
- Plantations, Pastures, Camps and Quarries: if built on a valuable resource, these generate money, tying in with the commercial nature of their resources.

4.2 What are the components of Gold?
Called "Commerce" in the early iterations of Civ, "Money" in Humankind, "Energy" in Stellaris, "Ducats" in EU4 and "Credits" in Master of Orion, "Gold" represents, first and foremost, whatever currency an empire would use for its expenses and incomes. Expenses which could include wages and import costs and income which could include taxes, exports and donations.

However, it's a little bit more than that;

Traditionally, Gold isn't generated by tax collectors, but by marketplaces and traders. Indeed, while "Gold" equals "Money" in the strictest sence, it also reflects a high quality of life. Citizens that live in cities with a marketplace produce more gold, implying that barter for commodities and that these luxuries, too affect their lives.

So in a nutshell, Gold is
- Money/Tokens: The main currency of the empire and its distribution amongst the population.
- Trade Goods: things such as Cloth, Pottery, Glassware, Jewellery, Furniture, Spices. Anything one might want to buy.
- Shops: While not physically present in Civ games, the underlying implication that trade goods generate money comes is that they're being sold with profit. Where are they sold? In shops.
- Imports and Exports: More of a diplomatic mechanic in Civ 6, but regardless, buying and selling resources to other Civs in exchange for other resources and/or is a tale older than money itself.


enhanced by:
- Taxation: People have more material possession generate a higher amount of government income
- Prosperity: Cities that specialize in trade also attract traders and shoppers from nearby, poorer regions, who travel in hopes of receiving a more lucrative deal
- Tourism: See above, except this time it's purely about spending money? Just because Tourism is culture-related doesn't mean it should generate Gold for the empire hosting the tourist attractions.

but not:
- Gold itself: Part of the reason why "Gold" is such a horrible name is that while yes, Gold is pretty and shiny and malleable and a universal currency, it is FAR from the only material used for such purposes. SILVER and COPPER actually have been the go-to currency Europe before the advent paper money (which initually was made using silk, natch), not to mention that older forms of currency included sea shells, cattle, literal cartwheels etc. The fact that it's called a currency and not a resource is Dumb.

4.3 What is or could be a local use of Gold?
Subsidies and investments is what springs to mind. Spend gold, get something good in return. I will elaborate more later (4.6)

Similar to a maintenance cost, cities could spend gold on the wages of those working in their buildings. In Civ this cost is passive; I personally think the passive cost should be production - it is in fact the specialists, barring the mercantile ones, that should cost gold, as they are government employed.

Likewise, as i noted with Food, soldiers stationed inside cities should cost food instead of gold in terms of maintenance, but this should change the second they head out in the field. Levied troops and Mercenaries, if mechanically implemented should have higher wages than the national army, and wages should scale based on experience, rather than having it be an overarching maintenance cost scaling with the position in the tech tree.

While the player should have access to a nationwide Gold stockpile, the stockpiling itself should be localised, to Banks, Treasuries and Vaults. Losing a city also loses all the gold stored in the city ot the enemy. Convoys could be designated to move gold around to prevent it from falling into enemy hands

Important note here is that if Gold were to be localised, it could lead to local bankruptcy as well.

4.4 What is or could be a global use for Gold?
As the main use of Gold is currency it should be used for quickly buying, selling and recruitment in a pinch. Great People could be comissioned by spending Gold, as could Mercenaries.

In diplomacy, Gold can be used as a maintance cost for trade agreements, requiring a financial investment from both parties that will be refunded with effective trading.

But ideally, the main purpose of gold is as a means of trade, spent by buying resources and gained by selling spare resources. Profits should also add an additional diplomatic deal: a bad deal should make an AI resent you, even if they agreed to the deal, while a favorable deal (or a donation) for the AI should improve relations.


4.5 Should Gold exist as a separate yield?
Yes. having a currency that can be used to produce other yield creates leniency and improves tactical decision-making. It is important here that Gold/Money is the ONLY yield that can be used this way. By giving away some of its its niche roles to Faith, Civ 6 has in fact weakened the value of Gold.

Gold could be split up however, so as with Food and Production I will go over the three points one final time (the other yields I'm tacklling are specialized enough as if).

a) Production Chains: There's a case to be made here, as many commodities and luxury resources are in fact not harvested in the wild. Luxury end products such as Faience, Cloisonné, Hippocrass, Champagne, Lace, Brocade, Chocolate, Leatherwork, and Perfume are the end products of long, long chains. Implementing a production chain from raw material (Cotton, Dye, Reeds, Pottery) to a base commodity (Furniture, Clothes, Shoes, Cars, Phones) to high-end Luxuries (Apparel, Ornaments, Jewellery, Sport Cars, Music Instruments, Chess Sets) could create valuable resources which sell for more gold and provide more Amenities (Happiness, Health) than their regular counterparts.
b) Wealth and Taxation: An intuitive split would be one between personally acquired wealth and government acquired wealth. "Wealth" would represent the Gold gained via commerce and tourism, (ie: the Gold economy) while Taxation is gold gained via taxing individuals in the population. Effectively, the first one is greater in cities with higher levels of base gold, while the latter is more effecitive in cities with many citizens. A city that has both in abundance will make high amounts on both, though good balancing should prevent this.
c) Wealth and Security: Material possessions are prone to creating envy and greed, so it would make sense that the check to Gold/Wealth could be Security . High safety would allow for a fair distribution of wealth and attract more tourists/merchants from abroad, while low security would result in crime, squalor and emigrations.

4.6 Other ideas
I personally dislike the concept of "Rush-buying" units and buildings Instead, I would suggest an implentation of Investments and Subsidies. Investments would increase the recruitment or construction speed of the designated buiding or unit, by substracting an amount of gold/turn from the city and adding it to production for a set amount of turns, as long as the ity continues recruiting that unit or building that building. This would be a way to speed up Wonder Construction for Civs that have high gold reserves, but low production outputs.

Meanwhile, Subsidies, are a more global investment in which Civs can fund an entire sector (Tourism, Industry, Science, Agriculture, etc) again by lowering their gold income by as long as the subsidies remain in effect.

I've said it several times, but each tourist could provide gold income, scaling with each attraction they visited.

Trade Goods could have values attached to them, making them yield more gold traded via caravans. Values can be increased based on the materials used to make them (if production chains are in play). Some Civs could also specialize in making better trade goods (the ones I have in mind are the Germans, Japanese and the Navajo, specifically.)

Art can, instead of a cultural thing become a trade commodity instead. Not too fond of the idea, but it could substitute luxury resources if traded and stored inside private collections.

Trade Goods could be split in those which provide Happiness and those while provide Health, meaning that shipping certain resources to certain cities will improve their Health and Happiness. The ability to micro-managed this could be a fun option for min-maxers

Personal wealth can become a personal attribute like religion and nationality already are, affecting the amount of money a citizen generaties via taxes or as a tourist. it should increase by assigning the citizen to jobs that generate gold (such as making them a market specialist or having them work a Trading Post). Personal Wealth could also effect they type of crime they would commit in cities with low levels of security, with different crimes having different negative effects.

Bureaucratic effciency could be an alternative check to Security, since efficient administrations are capable of redicrecting their gold more quickly. However, this could be extended to other yields, specifically Science and Legal yields as well.

Gold is a horrible name for this yield. Call it Commerce or Wealth.

5. Science, the Scientific yield
5.1 What does Science truly represent?

Science represents an empires research, innovation and education. It also represents literacy and well-readness of its population.

There are currently no improvements that provide science as a base yield. Civ 4 had the Forest Preserve which required Environmentalism to produce science. Civ 5's Academy was exclusive to Great Scientists. Potential Tile Improvements would include.

- Observatories: Need to be placed on hills or mountains, provide more science from adjacent mountains
- Observation posts: Need to be built on animal resources, provide science and appeal, and later tourism can be built inside a national park.

5.2 What are the components of Science?

Fortunately these next four yields are very specialised. Science is, as the name applies, the main source of research in Civ and is used to develop new technology. It is overall considered the most important yield found in 4X games, to a point where it's often considered equally valuable to Food, Production and Gold. It is so powerful that Civ 4 never implemented an outright Scientific trait, with only indirect bonuses towards Financial, Creative and Philosophical leaders. Needless to say that the three leaders with those trait combos (Pericles, Willem van Oranje and Elisabeth) are also consistently the tech leader in most Civ games they appear in.

As such, it makes science the most specialized (and dullest) yield found in 4X games.

In a nutshell, Science represents:
- Research: Anything tied to directly making new discoveries.
- Implementation of acquired knowledge: Not just theory, but the pracitical side of things as well. The knowledge that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius and whatever degrees Fahrenheit (adopt metric you FREAKS)

Further enhanced by
- Education: Well-educated people tend to make discoveries more quickly in their field of expertise, but even those who aren't highly educated are prone to better logical resoning than those who haven't been educated outright.
- Literacy: Knowledge and the spread thereof is closely tied with
- Record Keeping: This goes hand in hand with literacy and education: Knowledge needs to be spread via media often in education programs. There's no education without material left to study and there's no passing of empirical knowledge without scribbling down your findings on a piece of paper or parchment. The most basic forms of science, such as counting, also find their roots in record keeping.


5.3 What is or could be a local use of Science?
Currently, Science has no direct impact on cities and that's a pity because it makes science, a very, very, VERY boring yield and that's where my frustrations with it arise.

But that isn't to say there aren't ways to facilitate a local implementation. Given that science represents education a very simple use for science would be to enhance (educate) Specialists, improving their base yields and increasing the rate at which they spawn Great People.

Another use would be to facilitate ecological alternatives. Power Plants are maintained by scientists in real life. Have them cost science in maintenance? Nuclear meltdown? Again, science penalty in the city until resolved.

If Knowledge becomes a stockpilable resource, it should be stored inside Libraries.

If Health and Happiness are mechanics in the game, why not scale Health with Science/turn? Educated people are, if anything else, more aware of their health and of the impact of their actions on their direct environments, tend to live longer, etc.


5.4 What is or could be a global use for Science?

Unlocking Technologies and this should stay exactly the same as is. The most important thing here would be to determine how Science can be made less powerful, but this is best left for (5.6)

5.5 Should Science exist as a separate yield?

Hard question to answer. Early installments of Civ made Good Science an effect having a high income, effectively making this more of a mechanic than a straight-up yield. It took until Civ 5 for science to actually physically appear on the map, even then in limited forms.

So basically a 4X game CAN survive without science as a base yield... but it probably shouldn't, I guess.

I don't think there are grounds to split up science, it too specialized as a yield. The only thing I see here is maybe adding Literacy as an Amenity type/check to prevent players with science bonuses (cf: Korea) from amassing too much science too quickly. .

5.6 Other ideas:

The most important thing with science is that it is traditionally the strongest yield in the game, so, i think it's important to make it equally powerful to other yields by increasing its uses and nerfing its basic use of techning.

You know what I'm going to suggest here: a modular blind tech tree would help immensely here, as you can no longer beeline to "key" technologies and push for a Knight Rush on turn 120 or whatever. Limiting reward options to 2-3 per tech creates more diverse technology tree outcomes. Civs that may have discovered the same tech may not have chosen the same reward, marking a slight difference in how their civs play despite being techologically equal.

(addendum: All unique components would be guaranteed unlocks for the Civ that plays them. Greece should ALWAYS get the Spearman/Hoplite for free, etc.)

Likewise, distinguishing between Discovering A Tech and Unlocking A Tech is a means to spend your science more wisely. Unlocking a tech early costs more science, but it gives you an advantage. If they tech is less essential however, wait a while and get it for a discount.

But there are alternatives as well. Knowledge can be spread, like culture and religion are, throughout the empire, with it only unlocking more buildings and units when it has been successfully embraced by the other city (yes this idea borrows heavily from EU4. It's a good idea! Bite me!)

Trading with more advanced civilizations should improve your ability to obtain techs they have researhed and you do not have.

Eureka's and Inspirations can be modified to instantly discover the tech you're researching if triggered.

Other yields can assist the discovery (but not unlocking) of new techs: It would make sense for a civ with a high faith economy to blast through religious techs.

Modular Unit design (ie: customising units with weapons and armor, rather than unlocking ready-made unit types) can also make science more meaninfgul without making it overpowered.

Educational buildings such as Schools and Universities can be specialized (example: Schools of Engineering, Drama Schools, Business Schools, Law Faculties), to increase the base yields generated by citizens.

Field Scientists could be a civilian unit class that requires Science to recruit. They can be promoted into Teachers, Naturalists and Archaeologists, each having special bonuses.

Overall, Science really is about achieving the right balance and games should develop their game mechanics in a way that science is important but not ridiculously more powerful than any other yield.

Semantically, I don't mind the name Science but I strongly prefer the more generalistic "Knowledge".


6. Culture, the Civilian yield
6.1 What does Culture truly represent?

As the name implies, Culture represents a Civs, sophistication, social development and well... culture/level of civilization. Arguably the most conceptual of the yields, culture represents all values that are unique to their civlizations.

There are no base tile improvements that provide culture. Civ 5's Landmark is the closest we got. Potential tile improvements that provide culture could include:

- Landmarks/Monuments: Provide culture and appeal, boosting nearby wonders
- Parks: Increased appeal, provide gold and tourism, can be built inside National Park.
- Stelae: Increase border growth if placed near borders.

6.2 What are the components of Cuture?

The list is near infinite. Nearly every component that is considered a distinct feature of a Civ is culture. This would include:

- Their Art
- Their Language
- Their Traditions
- Their past achievements

Further enhanced by more art? lol. Unlike other yields, Culture isn't an addition of traits. It is a graph, and its path is constantly evolving.

6.3 What is or could be a local use of Culture?

Create a cultural identity. Citizens should have an ethnicity, based on which city or Civ they were born in. If they migrate or if their city is captured, they should remain of that ethnicity until purged, accepted or assimilated. Yes, ethnic cleansings, slavery and forced migrations should be things in a historical 4X game, what of it? It's not because we live in a society where such practices have, thankfully, been almost fully eliminated, that they didn't play a huge historical role in empire building. Their implementation in a game doesn't mean you have to use them!! History is full with some nasty, effed up truths and it is only by showing them that we can truly realize how far we've gome and how fortunate we are to be living in the present day.

The most important thing to take away from Culture is that most of it comes from downtime activities: Public Spectacles are the bread and butter of culture, with many plays and stories getting adaptations throughout the ages. As such, Culture should be tied closely with Entertainment and buildings that provide Entertainment should have culture as their base yield as a rule of thumb.

6.4 What is or could be a global use for Culture?

If Cities are responsible for creating a cultural identity, then the global use would be spread that identity beyond, to other empires. Cities should exert cultural pressure, which could cause other empires to enter a state of brotherhood, peacefully merging culture (trophy unlocked: possible culture victory condition #1!)


Cultural pressure could have several uses, most notably it would give citizens in other civs incentives to leave their homes and come over and visit, attend their markets, be educated at their universities, pray at their temples. Yes, the advent of tourism.

Tourism as I said before should yield gold to the player, but it should require a strong cultural base first. Tourism should be localized in the early stages of the game, drawing mostly domestic tourist and maybe a few tourists from nearby civs if your culture is more refined than theirs.

6.5 Should Culture exist as a separate yield?

I think it's essential that culture remains a separate yield, and even that its role is expanded even further. The fact that the Civs we play as even exist in the game is because each of them has a unique, distinct culture. Civilization is culture, and therefore should be one of the more important yields.

I am not sure if culture should be split up more because I find that the whole functions better than the sum of its parts. As my conversations with Boris Gudenuf in this thread have made clear, Religion is basically a form of culture, and its separation from culture makes Faith a very niche, awkward yield, hence why Naturalists and Rock Bands are bought with FAITH whne in reality they shouldn't be (lol Naturalists should cost science but I digress, Culture makes MUCH more sense than Faith does anyway). If you doubt that culture, not science, opposes religion let me point out that Humanism and Secularism (cultural developments!) were responsible for the dismantling of Religion as an institution in the western world, replacing it with nationalism and idealogy (again cultural developments)

So if anything, Faith and Culture should be merged lol.

6.6 Other ideas

Culture should reflect the achievements of the civilization over time. So rather than a rat race between who can host the highest amount of tourists (repeating myself, but Civ 6's Culture Victory is TERRIBLE because you never know when it's coming or not. It really is the Schrödinger's Cat of victory conditions), I would advocate a system of cultural heritage, where all cultural achievements are boosted via faith. With 'boosted' I mean increased base tourism and culture. Attractive more tourists should still be a condition for CV, but not until you control several World Heritage Sites of your civlization inside your borders (Trophy Unlocked: More Cultural Victory Conditions!). The capture and destruction of World Heritage Sites by other civs should result in true blood feuds between the two involved Civs, making it a last resort option if an AI threatens to run away.

The Concept of Loyalty should be integrated into Culture as cultures with a more jingoistic background have more integrity than those without. Strong cultures should resist oppression, forced conversion and covert actions compared to those who are culturally weaker.

Religion and Culture, should they remain separate values, should oppose each other with religion being powerful early and culture being powerful late. Only Civs with strong religions (examples: Arabs, Indians) should keep on pursuing religion well into the late-game. The rest should switch to culture.

Tourism should be an accumulated rating, based on the culture output of Wonders, Great Works, Buildings (including all UBs) and certain tile improvements (including all UIs). If one Civ influences another Civ, it may receive tourists from the other civilization, based on how high their own rating is and how many civilizations live in their empire. The tourists will be spread even based on the accumulated tourism values of every civ with cultural influence in its cities, including its own.

Example:, the French city of Strasbourg and German city of Wiesbaden influence each other. Wiesbaden is the only foreign city that influences Strasburg and vice versa. Wiesbaden has 9 citizens while Strasbourg has 6. However France has a Tourism rating of 200 while Germany has one of 100.

In this example, Strasbourg has 6 potential tourists. Since Wiesbaden is the only foreign city they now, that will be the city they visit if they go abroad, If they don't, they will visit other towns in France. France receives 200 Tourism from itself and 100 from Germany. So, of the 6 citizens living in Strasbourg, two (100/300 => 1/3) will visit Wiesbaden, while 4 will tour around France as domestic tourists.
Conversely, Germany receives 100 Tourism from itself and 200 from France, hence why 6 of Wiesbaden's 9 Citizens will visit the nearest French city, Strasbourg, while 3 will stay inside Germany as domestic tourists. If a Civ accomodates over 51% of the citizens from ALL other existing Civs as tourists (not including their own), they can win a CV (Trophy Unlocked: Better Tourism Victory?)

. . .

or maybe we can just trash tourism as a victory concept

Oh and, Rock Bands should be renamed to Bards and be purchasable with Culture, not Faith.

I'm fine with Culture as the name of the yield.

7. Faith, the Religious yield.
7.1 What does Faith truly represent?

Nobody knows? Yes, Faith was introduced as religious currency but its implementation is awkward because it can be used for so many irreligious things? Did you know that you can earn Great Scientists if you pray hard enough? Or um... Rock Bands for that matter?

Naturally, the devs have tried to explain what Faith is in broad strokes and failed, becuase Faith is actually... identical to culture ( :gasp: ) except for religions!! So I do see that I'll need to do some serious revamping/backpedaling to make this even remotely work.

Again there are no tile improvements that generate Faith, barring some unique ones. So here are a few suggestions

- Monasteries: Should be built on elevated terrain or near forests, generate faith and extra knowledge from nearby cities and towns.
- Tumuli/Cemetaries: Generate faith and a small amount of health (a nod to animism and ancestral worship).


7.2 What are the components of Faith?

Like Firaxis, this is where I have to be a bit... creative in my terms, because "Faith" is a, at its base just "Religious Culture".

But there is a little bit more ot that Culture was all about identity, then faith should be more about a strict moral code. Religious people believe in something, and this doesn't have to be a form of zealotry: they have principles and draw strength from their hardships. In many ways "Faith" is a bit deceptive, for its better name would've been "Morale". And that concept doesn't have to be religious at all.

So, in a nutshell, Faith represents
- Morals and Ethical values in irreligious societies
- Fervor and Spirtuality in religious societies.

futher enhanced by:
- an inner sense of respect for surroundings, beauty and life? Can you tell I'm not religious from this post? moving on.

but hey, if you turn faith into something spiritual; not necessarily religous, then it suddenly makes more sense to recruit Rock Bands with Faith.

7.3 What is or could be a local use of Faith ?
Faith always should be tied to Culture to some extend and should function similarly. Cities that have a lot of faith should resist conversion, but also should resist oppression and ethnic cleanings. Cities with high faith should also resist (or ignore) cultural pressure finding solace in liturgical services. Religious buildings should provide amenities, but only to followers and the effects of such amenities should be greater than those of other sources.

Effectively, Religion should be used to quash unrest, keep the population happy and even serve as an early form of tourism, increasing the stability of cities.

Religious units should, obviously also be recruitable with faith in some capacity. I would personally add in recruitment over time as an option, with faith output being added to production until training has been completed.

I personally like the idea of rush-buying/levying troops with Faith more than I like the idea of doing so with Gold. Fanaticism has always been a stronger motivator than greed.


7.4 What is or could be a global use for Faith ?
Improving the power of the State Religion, first and foremost. Faith should be a primary tool for Religious civs, using it to patronize great people and comissioning art from them for good measure. Pilgrimage should be an early form of tourism, affecting only followers but with no restrictions to distance and cultural influence. Owning a Relic or Holy City should be enough to draw pilgrims from all over the world. Religion should be the ONLY means of winning a culture victory before the modern era. (Trash Religious Victory and theoglocial combat entirely )

Faith can also be used a currency to fund research and education, but it should be more restrictive. I spoke of potentially adding different Schools and Universities to the game; Those founded by faith should be religious in nature, providing extra faith for a small penalty in science.

Religion can also impact diplomacy as Civs of the same State Religion will like each other more, granting combat bonuses when fighting together against a common foe and potentially increasing the efficiency of diplomatic agreements, such as alliances, as well.


7.5 Should Faith exist as a separate yield?
I am of the opinion that the distinction is useful, not not fully necessary. Faith can be replaced with culture and has been in the past... but keeping them separate has merit for role playing/immersive values if anything rlse:


7.6 Other ideas:
The key to Faith isn't to make it a polyvalent yield that can be used for many different things .its main use is religion and that's fine. The solution towards making Faith better is to make religion better. Religions should for starters be:

- Developed Organically: Ideally out of an already existing monotheistic or polytheistic animist cult (techs for these can come early in the three). Polytheism I would define as 'having a different patron deity in each city". Monotheism would retain the pantheon mechanics as we know them (one patron deity for every city). Pantheons requires generating a set amount of Faith in the city. Having a pantheon unlocks the ability to generate Great Prophet points. Religions would evolve from these cults once a Great Prophet as been earned, with Polytheistic turning into Hinduism, Buddhism, Eastern Religions (Taoism, Confucianism and Shinto) and Tengriism, and Monotheistic cults turning into Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism.
- Have more built in tenets: Religious should have a fixed founder believe, a fixed follower believe and a fixed religious building, all three available upon founding. Any additional tenets can be added later.
- Have more tenets, period: How many tenets? I think at least seven should be fine. Propets can be expended to discover a random viable tenet, which can be added to the religion. The embers of the religion will have to vote on whether to accept the tenet or not, unless the player who discovered the tenet controls the Holy City. In that case it will bypass the vote, giving founders full control over their religion as long as the Holy City remains theirs.
- Create Denominations/Heresy: if a non-founded civ discovers a tenet they want to add and the founder refuses, they are presented with the option to create their own denomination. Every religion should have a denominations available, such as Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy for Christianity or Vedism, Jainism and Dharmism for Hinduism.
- Have tenets that can be shared between religions: Vegetarianism can be shared between Buddhism and Hinduism for instance. Food Regulations in Islam and Judaism are very similar as well. Have those religions access those tenets at the same time. The idea that religions cannot have identical or similar is nonsense.
- Make tenets powerful: More Work Ethics plz.

I would also commend that religious units function like spies can can be promoted accordingly into missionaries (specialised in peaceful conversion), guru's (especialised in government) and inquisitors (specialised in rooting out foreign religions).

As I said, "Faith" is much broader than what it implies. Ethics or Morals should be apt alternatives for names.

8. Favor, the Diplomatic yield.
8.1 What does Diplomatic Favor truly represent?

A massively missed opportunity but eh.

In general, Diplomatic Favor represents the concept of goodwill when interacting with other civs. While not considered a direct representation it also represents the amount of votes a civ may cast in the world congress.

This is an incredibly shallow vision and not quite how I've seen other 4X games do it. Europa Universalis 4 has a plethora of modifiers that each accomplish similar effects to Diplomatic Favor (Favors, Prestige, Legitimacy, War Score). I see no reason why Civ shouldn't have a full yield representing authority which can be spent on domestic, governmental and diplomatic actions.

There are no improvements that yield Diplomatic Favor, but I believe it should be awarded by Forts.

8.2 What should be the components of Favors?

Favor is generated by having an advanced government and by being the suzerain of city states. That means it represents some sort of authority, but only in interaction with others. I think this is a huge waste. Authority, Administrative efficiency and lawgiving are important factors in society which currently don't have an equivalent. There needs to be some sort of legal yield and it should represent:

- Law and Law Enforcement
- Government Authority
- Personal prestige

enhanced further by
- Efficient Bureaucracy:
- Meaningful Diplomacy:

all of these things would make a good impression with other leaders, especially with minor civs that desire to be protected by a powerful suzerain and it would provide a true yield that has more uses beyond a simple niche.

8.3 What is or could be a local use of Favors or similar?

"Favors" could be used locally to improve the government's grip over the cities. Law Enforcement buildings such as Guardhouses, Courthouses and Police Stations, as well as Militaristic buildings should provide it as a base yield. Civs that specialize in this yield should be feudal empires depending on vassals (think: French, Japanese, Hittites) or those where the leader traditionally had a powerful, god-like role (Chinese, Persians, Romans)

Civil unrest can be brought down by spending "Favors" when or before it reaches critical levels. (simulating concessions and negotiations with the revolting party OR quashing the uprising with military might depending on how you roleplay)

If we go for a more legalistic yield, we can also turn "Favors" into the yield that acquires surrounding tiles for your civilization, over culture. From a logical perspective makes sense. If you have authority in your cities, they will acquire more corelands for you to exploit and you can easily intimidate civs into Cultural influence would solely affect factors such as tourism, forced migration and ethnicity, but that should be good enough in itself. by separating cultural influence from tile gains, you also unlock a mechanic where you can lay claim to tiles that are currently owned by other civilizations, creating organic casus belli that may lead to war.

8.4 What is or could be a global use for Favors or similar?

"Favors" should be the main diplomatic currency. Lopsided deals should incurr a penalty in "Favors" for the person enforcing the deal, while gifts to other civilizations should generate it. It should be awarded when you keep a promise or successfully demand tribute from another player.

Additionally, it should be spent each time you wish to reform your government. Regardless of how governments work in a 4X game, their policies aren't permanent. Swapping out policies, appointing new officials, adopting a different government and adding a new paragraph to the constitution should all cost "Favors" as they temporarily weaken the goverment's stability.

8.5 Should Favors exist as a separate yield?

Yes. While "Law" or "Order" or "Authority" isn't the punchiest concept, there are enough grounds for it to be a separate political yield, representing the strength of government, law enforcement, bureaucracy and personal prestige.

As with "Faith" the factors enabling a separation require a well designed government and diplomacy system, so that the yield is good, and relevant throughout the game. Part of the reason why Diplomatic Favor sucks in Civ 6 is because of it's atrocious, godawful exploitative role in diplomatic negotiations, and the clunky, counterintuitive design of the World Congress.

8.6 Other Ideas

Generally I've covered most of my ideas. I do like the idea of it being the yield that passively acquires tiles while simultaneously being a diplomatic currency that isn't prone to exploits.

"Favors" could also be used to improve the adminstrative efficiency of cities, resulting in higher modifiers when the city is healthy or happy. I personally consider efficiency to be a different concept entirely, but it and authority go hand in hand and may be combined. The most important thing really is to design a diplomatic/government sysyem which doesn't suck, as this will give the yield the value it deserves.

I think i'll pass on writing more for the time being christalmighty. Have fun reading all of this if you've got... an hour or two.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

@Lord Lakely , you've provided a lot to think about!

Taking it bit by bit, here are my basic thoughts on Resources and Food in particular.

First, we have to recognize that aspects of all the Resources are going to be abstracted to make any playable game. Otherwise, you get into situations in which to make Steel to build virtually all post-1860 weapons, you need Iron, Limestone, Coal and a specialized Industrial Building, and to make specialized steel for armor plate you also need Nickel, Chromium, or Molybnynum - multiply that by a half-dozen 'basic' Strategic Resources and X number of 'Amenity/Luxury' Resources and you have an entirely separate game of Industrial Trivia. Dunno about anybody else, but I have been trapped into games of that sort, and it Was Not Fun.

Second, in-game concepts like Science and Production are even more abstracted, since they represent a whole raft of both hard technologies and 'soft' factors like amounts of education and training of workers and researchers, needs for new technologies or building things, and the population's attitude towards 'progress', education, science in general and industrialization/factories. Again, trying to show all of the factors explicitly results in a 'game' that is more like Punishment For Our Sins.

So, on to In-Game Resources in general:

1. Resources are not defined by their Use. The usefulness of a Resource depends on your Civ’s requirements and needs and technology available.
For example, Copper is one of the first metals available, because, basically, copper will melt out of an ore in the heat from a camp fire. Line a fire pit with rocks that happen to contain copper, and when the shiny stuff starts melting out of the rocks someone’s bound to notice.
Copper tools can be made with nice edges and copper blocks can add weight to hammers, so it is an early Production enhancer - a Bonus Resource, in current Civ terminology.
Copper when alloyed with tin or zinc makes Bronze or Brass, which are much harder and better for both weapons current weapons (weighted clubs, knives, bladed spearpoints) and entirely new weapons (short swords, axes). To produce the alloys requires higher temperatures, so some kind of Kiln Technology makes Copper into a Strategic Resource = Bronze and the Bronze Age. The Kiln Technology will probably come from advances in Pottery firing, so the technologies are linked.
Copper is the premier conductor and resource for electrical wiring, required to electrify your cities, light the streets, provide mass transit electrical trolleys and subways, electrical appliances, all the Amenities of the late Industrial and Modern Eras.

In other words, Copper the Resource has Bonus/Production, Strategic and Amenity uses, depending on the Technology available to use it.

2. Any Resource that is organic can be grown somewhere other than where it is first found on the map. Again, this may require Technology to make a useful plant hardy enough for different terrain and climate, or to discover how to keep useful animals healthy and breeding in ‘artificial’ environments like fenced pastures and barns. In other words, organic Resources are Movable. The limitation in game terms is that you can only ‘grow’ one Resource per tile, so ‘planting’ every tile in your Empire with Maize or Saffron is probably not a Winning Strategy.

3. Mineral Resources stay where they are found, but they don’t all appear at once. In fact, changes in Technology will make new ‘deposits’ appear, because they were always there, but you couldn’t get at them earlier or had no idea they were useful before reaching a certain level of Technical knowledge. The amount of a deposit that is useful also changes. In the Classical Era a vein of Iron producing a few hundred tons of ore is useful because you can equip an entire Roman Legion with less than 200 tons of wrought iron. That same mine in 1900 is worthless, because to build a single skyscraper, small warship or 100 kilometers of railroad requires 1000s of tons of steel. That deep vein of ore that produces 1000s of tons might not even be visible before you discover Deep Mining in the late Medieval or Steam Pumps in the early Industrial, so expect new deposits to appear as fast as old ones are depleted - but probably not in the same places.

4. Some Resources become new Resources with Technology and Infrastructure. So, your Maize, Korn (the grass grains like Wheat, Millet, Barley, Rye, etc) and Rice provide Staple Foods from the beginning of the game - they are the basic agricultural goods, after all, but once you have Distilling Technology they also provide Distilled Liquors, a potential separate High Value Trade Good and an Amenity Resource. That Iron ore that provided the wrought iron for early long swords and link mail armor, when combined with High Temperature Blast Furnaces produces Cast Iron for Bombards, Naval Cannon, Siege Guns, and enhanced agricultural and other tools and then when Bessemer and Open Hearth Furnaces Technology comes along in the (late) Industrial Era the iron ore produces Steel in quantities sufficient for your railroads, skyscrapers, and Battleships - but only if you build Steel Mills and (for the Battleships) major Industrial Shipyard infrastructure.

Summarizing: Resources will never be static: their use and availability will be changing constantly throughout the game as requirements and technical possibilities/capabilities change.

Classes of Resources.

Since we’re not classifying Resources as Strategic, Bonus and Amenity/Luxury, how should we classify them?
The most basic classification is the Immovable Resources, or Minerals, which are placed by geological forces and stay in place until removed by humans, and the Movable Resources: plants, animals, fish, birds, that move on their own or can be moved around the map by humans.

Within the Movable Resources the important distinction is between Food Resources and Everything Else, because Food is basic to maintaining a human population and making it grow into a Civilization.

Among the Living Resources, there are two basic types: Plants and Animals/Birds/Fish.

Such Resources each have a specific type of terrain in which they grow. Without advanced Technologies, you can move them (plant them, herd them) in other tiles of that same terrain type, but nowhere else. As it happens, though, a very early Technology that applies to ‘moving plants’ is Irrigation, a Technology which allows you to modify terrain by adding enough water for certain plants to grow where they wouldn’t grow ‘naturally’.

Food Resources are divided by their usefulness:

Staple Crops - the ‘basic food’ for a Civ. Once you start exploiting one of these, they don’t appear on the map anymore, because every appropriate tile in your Civ will presumably be planted with it if the tile is being used for nothing else, like Mines, Districts, etc.
Basic Staple Crops: Korn, Maize, Rice, Potato
(Korn refers to all the grass grains: wheat, millet, rye, barley, etc).
Original Tile Types:
Korn - Plains, Plains Hills, Desert Floodplains
Maize - Grasslands, Grasslands or Desert Floodplains
Rice - Marsh, Grasslands Floodplains
Potato - Plains Hills, Tundra, Tundra Hills

Then there are the Quality Foods - the higher-priced stuff, the additives that make Edible Food into Tasty Food:

Quality Foods: Honey, Salt, Olives/Olive Oil, Sugar, Wine (grapes), Tropical Fruit, Citrus Fruit
These all have Food Value, but also Amenity Value - the more variety of them available to your population, the more they are likely to overlook the other things their government/the Player is screwing up.

Finally, there are the Luxuries - not all of which are strictly speaking, Food:

Luxury Foods: Cocoa, Sugar, Coffee*, Tea*, Tobacco*, Cinnamon, Cloves, Saffron, Pepper (last four the classic ‘Spices’)
The Food Value in these (except those marked (*), where the Food Value is essentially Zero) is far less important than their value as Amenities and desirable Trade Goods

Protein Foods - the animals, fish and birds:
Huntable Animals: Deer, Reindeer, Bison, Mammoth/Elephant
These are present from the Start, but they are not susceptible to Domestication, and so cannot be ‘moved’ and pastured at will: they have their preferred habitat/terrain and there they stay until you destroy or enlarge the habitat.
Domesticable (Pasturable) Animals: Cattle, Sheep, Horses
All of these have other uses besides Food: the bone, hide, sinew, hair, wool, leather are all Production Enhancers and both cattle (oxen) and horses among the primary draft animals for plows and wheeled vehicles, the sheep a source of Wool that is usually far more valuable than the sheep as Food.
Sea Animal Resources: Fish, Shellfish, Whales, Turtles
Like most of the ‘wild’ land animals, some of these migrate, but they migrate to and from the same places and all within a year’s time, so in Game Terms, they remain in the same place.
Birds - will not be shown as separate graphics. They are, after all, Everywhere. Certain terrain types where birds congregate enough to become a major food source (coastal wetlands, marshes, flood plains) will have extra Food factors ‘built-in’ to reflect the effect of the Bird population.

Non-Food Organic Resources

These can be planted, ‘farmed’ or otherwise managed and moved like most of the Food Organics, but their precise use depends on technology:
Cotton
Flax
Silk

These were used for their fiber - the first two in clothing, fishing nets, ropes/cordage - from the Neolithic Era, Silk as a luxury Amenity and Trade Good from the Ancient Era on. Silk, Cotton and Wool (sheep) are also required Industrial Raw Material for Textile Mills and Factories.
Furs - the Luxury clothing comparable to Silk, but also a requirement to move and exist in Tundra/Snow tiles until the Modern Era’s artificial fibers.
Ivory - available from Elephants, Walrus, or Mammoth carcasses. Elephants are also a potential Production Enhancer (draft and organic construction machinery) and War Material
Aromatics - there are really two resources under this: Incense and Aromatic Woods from the tropics (Rainforest) - the latter was a huge component of trade between Indonesia and China for centuries, while the traditional Incense sources are almost all in desert terrain.
Dyes - this is actually an abstraction - in fact, dyes include materials from sea creatures, insects, animals, plants, and mineral deposits, but a single Source avoids cluttering the map and the game with a half-dozen different resources that all have the same purpose and use.
Timber - specifically, the Old Growth trees that provide large, straight, tall logs for ships and monumental construction.
Latex/Rubber - this has a religious/Amenity effect from the start, after Vulcanizing is discovered in the Industrial Era it becomes a prerequisite for motorized transport for Amenity (the personal automobile), War (virtually All Modern Era and later ground units) and Trade (Truck transport). Synthetic Rubber (Buna) can also be made in Modern Era and later from Coal or Oil resources.

Terrain-Changing Organic Resources

Special Features which would be Neat To Have in the game:

Elephants - a source of Ivory and Production/War material, but also, Elephants are migratory and destroy trees as they eat them to death, converting forest or rainforest into grasslands or plains, then moving on.
Beaver - a Fur source which, however, also is a Production/Amenity Source (castorium secretions used for chemical engineering) and changes the landscape, converting regular rivers into marsh/floodplains.

Both of these Resources, then, could also act like the current ‘Fires” to temporarily modify the landscape, except that Elephants would convert Forest/Rain Forest into Grasslands after X Turns, then move to another tile after which the original tile gradually turns back into Forest. Beavers would convert river tiles into Marsh or Floodplain, but neither would be subject to flooding, since the Beaver does a pretty good job of hydraulically managing its ponds and dams. After a random number of turns, Beaver moves to another tile and the Beaver Marsh/Floodplain gradually turns back into normal river tile.

Mineral Resources

Unlike all the Organic Resources above, most of which can be planted, herded and spread to new tiles, minerals Stay Put - until they are depleted. On the other hand, new deposits become available throughout the game, as Technology allows better searching and access to previously-unavailable materials (underwater or deeply buried)
The use of each mineral Resource depends entirely on Technology and many, having no use until later in the game, will not be visible until appropriate Technologies are researched.

Mineral Resources from Start of Game:
Copper
Silver
Gold
Lead
These are the First Metals, because all of them will melt in a campfire - they are easily discovered and easily worked. All have Amenity uses from the start, in addition Copper and Lead are Production Enhancers. Later, Silver and Gold are the primary Coinage metals to enhance Trade both internal and external, and Copper is the primary component for Bronze.

Obsidian - available from volcanic areas, a substitute for Copper and Bronze as a Tool and Weapon material
Stone
Marble
Stone is a primary building material, so a major Production Enhancer. Marble has Amenity effects for its decorative properties, and both resources may be required for some Wonders or Monumental Buildings (Palaces, etc)

Amber
Gems
Jade
These are purely Amenity/Luxury Resources

Diamonds
While an Amenity/Luxury resource like the above, Diamonds also have major Industrial uses in the Modern Era and later as cutting edges, so is also a Production Enhancer

Sulphur - used in medicine from Before Start of Game, it is also one of the primary Industrial Chemicals from the late Industrial Era on, so becomes a Production Enhancer

Mineral Resources Appearing Later with Appropriate Technology:
Iron - the earliest ‘iron’ useable is Wrought Iron, produced by furnace temperatures about twice that required to work the Starting Minerals. Later, higher blast furnace-type temperatures allow Cast Iron, a major Production Enhancer and War Material. Lastly, Crucible Furnaces allow Steel, and Open Hearth/Bessemer Process technology allows Industrial Quantity Steel, the basic Production and Military Resource of the late Industrial Era and later
Coal - required to make Industrial Quantity Steel as well as for powerplants and as raw material for manufactured Rubber or Oil
Oil - Basic requirement to run internal combustion engines and modern naval boilers, so an on-going requirement for all Modern Era and later land, sea, and air units.
Aluminum - a late Industrial material, a major Enhancer for building Modern/Atomic Era aircraft and the major Modern Amenity, the personal automobile.
Uranium - required for fission atomics, both powerplants and weapons. Using it also produces radioactive waste which requires major efforts to safely store or sequester - a potentially disastrous Pollutant.
Rare Earths - trace materials required to manufacture solid-state electronics, so a component of a large percentage of manufactured Amenity goods or military Units during the Endgame.

Rare Mineral Resources
These are Specials that may show up only in conjunction with a Natural Wonder or in at most 1 - 2 places on the entire map.

Tephra (Volcanic Ash) - found, obviously, in Volcanic regions, a very fine-grained mineral ash which produces a waterproof concrete for construction - a Production Enhancer
Kaolin Clay - clay deposited from compacted wind-blown soil, also very fine-grained and so with the proper high-temperature firing Technology capable of producing Porcelain, a very high value Amenity/Trade good
Wootz Iron - a very pure grade of Iron ore, no more than one deposit on the map, which with high temperature firing Technology produces carbon steel instead of wrought iron. A major enhancer to military Units, but by its nature the deposit is limited and likely to deplete well before the end of the game and not capable of providing Industrial Quantity Steel

 

[Lord Lakely]

@Boris Gudenuf Your ideas are very similar to mine, which is reassurin. I've thought about resource management more than any other aspect and I find it very difficult to get right without turning the game into glorified version Anno.

I have a list of resources I made a year ago somewhere but I can't find it rn

,

First, we have to recognize that aspects of all the Resources are going to be abstracted to make any playable game. Otherwise, you get into situations in which to make Steel to build virtually all post-1860 weapons, you need Iron, Limestone, Coal and a specialized Industrial Building, and to make specialized steel for armor plate you also need Nickel, Chromium, or Molybnynum

Yeah, simplification is important here. [/QUOTE] This is exactly why I want "Production" to be split up amongst its base materials (wood, stone and metals), which also covers niche wood, stones and metals that have very specific uses. Creating a unit using the steel you descrived, should mostly cost ore, but can be enhanced if you have wood (charcoal) or stone (limestone) in your resource stockpile.

Second, in-game concepts like Science and Production are even more abstracted, since they represent a whole raft of both hard technologies and 'soft' factors like amounts of education and training of workers and researchers, needs for new technologies or building things, and the population's attitude towards 'progress', education, science in general and industrialization/factories. Again, trying to show all of the factors explicitly results in a 'game' that is more like Punishment For Our Sins.

Civil Training/Education is a mechanic I've toyed around with when designing my ideal Civ 7 (though, like split up resources, it's a mechanic I shoved into an expansion. Refining and balancing such ideas takes a lot of testing time). For me it makes sense that, the more educated a civilian is in certain areas, the more competent they are at completing it. "Work experience" could be factor where, if a citizen has been assigned to a job for long enough, they will become better at it, producing more yields. (this can be sped-up by spending science/knowledge - simulating education programs)

Now as for the rest of your post, I won't quote all of it, since I'm still recovering from my MASSIVE post the other day, so I 'll resort to some bulletpoints

Re: Resource Classes
In Game Resources should be given multiple tags, reflecting their biological/geological origin, how they are procured and what their main use in humanity is,

Method 1: Classification via base sectors
So basically, I would say that instead of Bonus/Strategic/Luxury, I would say
> Agricultural: Food is the base yield, Improved with Farms, Plantations, Pastures, and Hunting Camps
> Industrial: Production is the base yield, Improved with Mines, Quarries, Pastures and Sawmills
> Commercial: Gold is the base yield, Improved with Plantations, Mines, Hunting Camps and Sawmills.

This is the simplest designation and probably the easiest to accomplish. It isn't quite the same as Bonus/Strategic/Luxury however. Bonus resources can be commercial (example: Flax, Hemp) or industrial (example: copper, "stone") in nature. Strategic resources can be Agricultural (Horses) or Commercial (Rubber). Luxuries can be Agricultural (Sugar, Honey) or Industrial (Marble)

By simply looking at base yield + method of improvement you can already "improve" the base resource classification system.

(this does not include other tile improvements such as Watermills, Windmills, Reservoirs, Dams, Canals, Roads, Villages, Trading Posts, Monasteries, Observatories, Landmarks and Castles, which don't require resources to be built)

Method 1.1: Base resources, Enhancer Resources and Luxury Resources

Effectively this:

Staple Crops: Maize, Korn, Potato, Rice, etc
Quality Foods: Sugar, Honey, Salt, Spices, etc
Luxury Foods: Coffee, Tea, Chocolate, etc

but I would do it a bit differently. You can make the division into the Base Resources, Quality Enhancers and Efficiency Enhancers

For Agricultural resources I propose
Base: Cereal (staple grain of choice), Protein (meat, fish, dairy), Produce (vegetables, fruit, roots)
Quality Enhancers: Anything that improves flavour and preservation: Salt, Spices, Sugar, Honey
Efficiency Enhancers: Anything that would be consumed alongside your meal: Water, Coffee, Tea, Wine, Beer, etc.

For Industrial Resources I'd propose
Base: Wood (Oak, ), Stone (Limestone, Granite, Clay), Metal (Copper, Iron, Tin, Zinc, Lead)
Quality Enhancers: HQ versions of the base industrial resources: Charcoal, Cedarwood, Bricks, Steel, Bronze
Efficiency Enhancers: Anything that aids the production, extraction and exploitation fo the base resources: Fuel, Tar, Tools, Manual Labor etc.

For Commercial Resources I'd propose
Base: Fabric (Cotton, Linen, Silk, Leather), Precious Minerals (Gold, Silver, Gems, Marble, Obsidian, Amber), Pottery (Ceramics, Baskets, Porcelain, Glassware), Furniture (Beds, Carpets), Essential Oils (Olive, Rose, Lavender), Herbs (Tobacco, Tea leaves, Coffee beans),
Quality Enhancers: More advanced versions of those listed above: Apparel, Jewellery, Ornaments (Carpets, Mirrors, Statues, Paitings), Electronics (Phones, Cars), Perfume, Paper.
Efficiency Enhancers: Anything that aids the produciton of quality products while not being a base resource itself: Dyes (Indigo, Ink, Murex), Fragrances (Amber, Insence), Plastics, Rubber, Microchips, Batteries

Not how I would do things myself, but I can see the merit of such a sysem.

Method 2: Classification based on the resources itself (aka the one where you consistently keep adding tags)
By which I mean way of procurement and how the resources appears on the map. Is the resource derived from a green plant, a tree, an animal, an ore vein? I?f from a plant is the resource derived from its leaves, fruit or roots? If from an animal, is it procured via hunting or husbandry?

There are two ways to classify resources this one. One is by using tags and subtags: like this:

Horse: Animal, Herdable, Mount
Pig: Animal; Herdable, Livestock
Elephant: Animal, Herdable, Huntable, Mount, Pack Animal
Deer: Animal, Huntable, Game
Fish: Animal, Huntable, Seafood
Wheat: Crop, Cereal
Potato: Crop, Produce
Gold: Mineral, Ore
Limestone: Mineral, Stone
Olive: Herb, Produce
Coffee: Herb, Cash Crop
Salt: Mineral, Spice


Method 2.1: Turning classes into resources themselves, changing with terrain types.

Alternatively, you should "cheat" by making several of the resources identical: Cattle, Game, Cereal, Produce, Stone, Crystal, Gems, Hardwood etc, but they have different aesthetics and names depending what terrain type they spawn on

example:
Cereal appears as "Rice" in wetlands, as "Wheat" in grasslands, as "Maize" on rainforest and as "Potatoes" on plains.
Livestock appears as "Cows" on flat grassland, as "Sheep" on grass and tundra hills, as "Llama's" on plains and desert hills, as "Pigs" in forests and Water Buffalo in swamps/marshes/wetlands
Pack Animals appear as "Horses" on flat grassland, plains, tundra and marshes, as "Camels" on flat desert, as "Elephants"* in forests and jungles, as "Donkey" on grassland hills, as "Llama's" on plains and desert hills and as Yaks on "snow".
Furs appears as "Reindeer" on tundra/snow, as "Beavers" in grasslands and forests, as "Leopards" on plains
Game appears as "Deer" in grasslands/marshes/forests, as "Antilopes" in plains, jungle and tundra, as "Seals" on snow, sea and ocean tiles.
Ivory appears as "Elephants"* on plains, "Boars" in forest/jungle "Walrusses" on Snow/Tundra and "Narwhals" in ocean"

Note that these "resources" would be considered of equal value to one another. It is after all, the same resource with merely a few cosmetic differences.
In these cases the overarching category would be the tag. For a player this would change little, but it would make it easier to program. For other types of resources I would suggest a different tag

I personally dislike using this system with commerce-based resources however, for which I prefer the third potential method.

Tag #3: Picking resources based on class, scaling with rarity/value
Not all resources are created equally, and some are more valuable than others. A more valuable resource not only should sell more, commodities and trade goods produced with it.

"Value" itself should be subjective, but as a baseline, more common resources should be of lower value than those who are less common. "Quartz" could be the lowest value incarnation of the "Gems" resource, while "Diamond" is the most valuable. Jewellery and tools made with Diamonds should therefore e much more valuable than those made with Quartz, etc.

So, unlike the resources I posted above, those I will post below ARE NOT considered equal. They are tiered and may appear on the same tiles, though those with higher numbers are much less likely to appear (and may even be completely absent from certain maps)

So, examples of this would be

Gems: Quartz (1), Amber (2), Pearl (3), Crystal (4), Diamonds (5)
Stone: Limestone (1), Granite (2), Jade (3), Obsidian (4), Marble (5)
Metals: Tin (1) Copper (2), Gold (3), Silver (4), Platinum (5)
Fibers: Hemp (1), Wool (2), Flax (3), Cotton (4), Silk/Mulberry (5)
Fruit: Apple (1), Banana (2), Grape (3), Citrus (4), Pomegranate (5)
Spices: Salt (1), Pepper (2), Mustard, (3) Cinnamon (4), Saffron (5)
Oils: Canola (1), Sunflower (2) Peanut (3), Almond (4), Olive (5)
Sweeteners: Beets (1), Cane (2), Honey (3), Chocolate (4), Vanilla (5)
Aromatics: Mint (1), Roses (2), Lavender (3) Eucalyptus (4), Frankinsence (5)
Dyes: Lead (1), Henna (2), Indigo (3), Ink (4) Murex (5)
Timber: Bamboo (1), Oak (2) Ebony (3), Cedarwood (4) Mahogany (5)

One could state that the name in bold is the actual name of the resource, while the other names are the variations of the resource, divided by quality as opposed to geography.

However, I dislike putting Crop and Livestock resources into this category though. I can accept that Rice and Cows are better than Sheep and Rye, but it's hard enough to find a High Quality animal or crop. These are sources of multiple trade goods, not just one


Method 4: Using special tags for special resources (stratagems)
Used in conjunction with methods 2 and 3, some resources can be given extra tags to signify their importance: For instance Horses may be a Pack Animal, but they can also be used as mounts, while Llama's may not.

Other resources such as Iron and Coal are so important that they should be considered their own, separate entity. Giving these resources a special "Stratagem" tag does not change their base value, nor their other forms of classification. However, it enables them to be traded directly, to be used in unit recruitment and to provide unique advantages to the Civs who are fortunate enough to access them.

This shouldn't necessary be limited to the classical Strategic resources either. Elephants should be given the same tag, as they can be used as mounts AND a source of luxury.

Part of the reason why creating diverse tags (as well as the merging of resources) is important isn't so much for historically accuracy, but because it would help the game (and by proxy, the AI) recognize what it needs. if an AI wants to create a Perfume luxury and knows that Perfume requires 1 Aromatic + 1 Oil, and it has access to several of such resources, it will know to use its best quality items and if not, it will try to procure them via trade, colonization or warfare. Higher quality Perfumes sell for more gold and provide more amenities to more citizens. If an AI has a city with many crop resources, it will be more inclined to construct buildings and tile improvements in an around that city which help maximize yields from those resources. Creating an accurate 4X game not only takes into account the player's experience but also the realism of the game's AI, as I'm sure you'll agree.

RE: Resources Management:

Summarizing: Resources will never be static: their use and availability will be changing constantly throughout the game as requirements and technical possibilities/capabilities change.

I love this idea. Generally, I'd like to see armies have inventories that allows them to carry whatever they discover in the world (treasure, supplies, ammunition => anything they can't carry can be dug up later as "Artefacts"), but an early use for this "inventory" would be to carry seeds and livestock they discover on the map and carrying them to their cities. Once inside a city, seeds can be planted and livestock can be raised. Creating extra livestock would require an upfront food cost, and creating extra seeds would require an upfront production cost

Settlers could, likewise, carry the seeds and livestock of their origin city with them that would allow the construction of fields, orchards and pastures right away.

There are three forms of implementation that I see:

1) Discovery on the map: the more immersive, but much, much slower way. This would require the game to have more than its usual 500 turns.
2) Each civ starts with one type of livestock and one type of seed. This can be determined randomly or historically (the Inca would start with Llama's and Potatoes, the English would start with Sheep and Wheat, the Indians with Rice and Cows. Civs without a go-to staple livestock animal will start with Maize by default. See below for reasoning)
3) or both: Each civ starts with a crop and a form of domesticated animal and may acquire more via early exploration

Furthermore each staple crop and livestock option should have unique modifiers:
Grain: Bonus food if planted on high fertility, grants Food to adjacent pastures (Animal field). Perfect for civs with good livestock options..
Potato: Ignores fertility, same yields on any terrain time, but has a lower value. Ideal for Civ with low food starts.
Rice: High quality crop, higher yield but can only be planted on "wet" terrain (Grassland, Floodplains or Marsh). Ideal for Civs with plenty of lakes, rivers and floodplains.
Maize: Unlocking Maize also unlocks Beans and Squash which otherwise can't be found on the map. One field of Beans and Squash can be planted by n citizens living in a city. Beans, Squash and Maize grant extra food and faith when planted adjacent to each other. Perfect for Civs which lack livestock.

Cow: Cost a lot of food to create new herds, require fresh water, but increases soil fertility of adjacent tiles by a massive amount. Grants Leather per herd.
Sheep: Highly adaptable to any terrain type, New herds cot very little food. Low base production and food. Grants Wool per flock.
Llama: High base production, but no food. Instead, it produces Gold. High quality Wool per herd.
Pigs: High food output, more if adjacent to forests. Lower qualty Leather per herd, but may discover Truffles in nearby forests.
Goat: Low food output, but more if adjacent to hills. Higher quality Wool per flock.
Water Buffalo: Unlike the others, affected by irrigation, which enhances its effect. Grants Leather per herd.

Seeds and livestock can later be traded with other civs, granting them access to the different resources.

Finally, I'm sure this has been repeated ad nauseam
Crops of any variety should deplete soil fertility unless irrigated. Once fertility drops to zero, the tile becomes barren and can no longer we used for agriculture.
[land] Animals of any variety should increase soil fertility of its tiles. This includes Livestock, Pack Animals and Huntables such as Game and Fish
Once domesticated, Livestock and Pack Animals can be put inside pastures, with their fertilizaiton effect spreading to adjacent tiles as well. While they can't deplete through exploitation, they may die from diseases and pestillence, making them unreliable food sources in environments with high pollution. Creating more herds requires food, slowing down population growth. (some religious tenets could result in unique interactions. Hinduism especially should have a Vegetarianism tenet which converts all the food from livestock tiles into faith)
Wild Animals migrate and can be "hunted" (this includes "fishing"): Tile improvements that interact with these animals, such as Hunting Camps and Fishing Boats should produce more yields if the herd, flock or school is on or adjacent to them. Their numbers will deplete over time if hunted or fished, but will increase if not. Late game TI's such as observation posts (+science) or preserves (+culture) should not deplete herds by themselves, though they will halt migration. (these tile improvements should also span multiple tiles, effectively turning them into national parks)
All Industrial resources (Stones, Ores, Metals, Crystals) should deplete over time, though the size of undepleted deposits may be increased with technology. Likewise, forests and jungles that have been worked by sawmills for too long will disappear (sawmills should affect adjacent tiles as well).

Tephra (Volcanic Ash) - found, obviously, in Volcanic regions, a very fine-grained mineral ash which produces a waterproof concrete for construction - a Production Enhancer
Kaolin Clay - clay deposited from compacted wind-blown soil, also very fine-grained and so with the proper high-temperature firing Technology capable of producing Porcelain, a very high value Amenity/Trade good
Wootz Iron - a very pure grade of Iron ore, no more than one deposit on the map, which with high temperature firing Technology produces carbon steel instead of wrought iron. A major enhancer to military Units, but by its nature the deposit is limited and likely to deplete well before the end of the game and not capable of providing Industrial Quantity Steel

This looks like a cool mechanic and I wouldn't mind seeing it.

So, in a nutshell

Civs are *given* a source of crop of livestock and can discover more early in the game.
> Livestock can be planted by "creating" new Herds in cities: Click button, pay upfront food cost, receive a new herd next turn, which can be placed inside a pasture

All other types of "resources" appear in overarching categories: Stone, Ore, Herbs, Game, Lumber, Tropical Wood, Fruit, etc, appearances and names changing according to quality level and terrain type.

New Trade Goods can be made by combining two resources from specific types with one another (ex: perfume = 1 oil + 1 fragrance, clothes = 1 fabric + 1 dye, etc). Luxuries should require specific resources (Hippocras requires Wine and Honey, Faience requires Glass and Clay, etc)

The expection to these are strategic resources: mounts (horses, elephants, camels), iron, coal, rubber, petroleum, niter, aluminium and uranium

 

[Ryansinbela]

Should I compile this info in a doc

 

[Ryansinbela]

Lord Lakely's ideas

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Don't know about @Lord Lakely, but I'm compiling all the good stuff from this and other Threads into a Perfect 4X File on my computer, for massaging.
I'm not doing this 'Perfect 4X" stuff just as a Mind Game, I intend to throw a whole bunch of ideas as a Compiled Entirety at whatever Game Company is willing to work on a 'perfect' 4X Historical game.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I'm designing my own Civ 7 vision and most of the ideas I'm sharing are a part of it. I am flattered if you wish to compile them but if anyone should put them into a doc, it should be me

 

[Ryansinbela]

Can I have it

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I'm designing my own Civ 7 vision and most of the ideas I'm sharing are a part of it. I am flattered if you wish to compile them but if anyone should put them into a doc, it should be me

Agree completely. Didn't mean to imply I was grabbing your posts.

What I'm interested in is the Ideas Presented here and elsewhere, since none of us have a lock on Good Ideas.
Like you, I'm putting together my Vision of a Perfect Historical 4X, whether it winds up being Civ VII or Civ XXXXIX or Humankind Redux
or just a collection of random additions to some company's different Vision which, hopefully, will at least bring their commercial product closer to what I would ideally want to play.

 

[Sostratus]

I've thought about resource management more than any other aspect and

I also think about resource mgmt a lot with X games.
I think, at most, you want 2-2.5 "levels" of resources. And the more advanced resources should ultimately tie back into other systems rather than exist for their own sake. Ideally, all the wonderful historicity of resources can be conveyed through very few mechanics. (An example of your staple crop conversation w/ Boris might be that it simply affects the look of your farms once you have cultivated one of those resources.)

For example - We have //. We have iron. Should steel be a resource, or should steel be a boost that requires iron to get?
I think stellaris is a pretty decent example of a "complex" economy that is very streamlined. You have food/minerals/energy aka //; minerals make "alloys" and "consumer goods"; and then there are a set of specialized "strategic resources" which are used to build advanced ship parts and buildings. For example, one can build a research lab for minerals, but upgrading to a "super research lab" also requires a strategic resource.

Do lots of resources need to exist in the industrial era, or can they be condensed to "consumer goods?" And if consumer goods only produce amenities and tax money in the end, do they need a resource representation or can the sources of them just provide amenities and money? Maybe! Or maybe we want such a resource so it can be traded/exported.

You don't want to turn civ into factorio, and given how map distribution of resources is limited in what it can do, using civ6's luxuries as an input to make new resources is sort of just saying you can upgrade your luxuries. Which can be implemented directly with yields. "Simple yet expressive," i guess would be the term for the resource system that works best. No wet blanketing! Just approaching from another direction.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I am perfectly fine with Firaxis or anyone else talking my ideas, as long as they put my name on the box.

But looking at my own design, I couldn't really find my Resource summary (it's a mechanic for the second expansion pack, so it isn't high priority for me), but I do remember most of it by our little theory crafting.

This is less about the mechanics of finding resources, but more of what the yields of the resources represent on the map.

For instance, the resource of "Cow" has a yield of 3 Food, 1 Production and 1 Commerce.

2 Food from meat, as one cow carcass can feed a lot of people
1 Food from Dairy, as this is one of the main uses for Cows all over the world
1 Production from Labor, as Oxen are used for tilling the fields
1 Commerce from Fiber, representing Leather

Improving with a pasture adds +1 Production (labor) and +1 Food (Dairy),

In a nutshell, I split up Food in the following subdivision

- Cereal: the staple grains and starches which can last long but have little nutritional value on their own
- Meat: the flesh of slaughtered animals and fish
- Dairy: the milk of domesticated animals, spoils quickly
- Produce: fresh fruit, herbs and vegetable, high nutritional value but spoils quickly
- Water: fresh water, obtained in large quantities from Lakes, Cenotes and rivers and in low quantities from Jungles and Mountains. Doesn't spoil

Every turn, each citizen living in your cities consumes 1 Water and 1-4 of the other variations, if available. Each base food type has a nutritional value: Cereal has a value of 1, Meat and Dairy 2, Produce 3. If a citizen consumes Water and 1 value of food, they will survive. If they consume more than 1 value of food, they will become healthier, increasing city Health, which in turn increases birth rates of both citizens and great people.

Each type of food also has a decay rate. Water doesn't spoil, but water deposits regenerate slowly and may dry up after extensive agriculture. Cereal spoils after, say, 50 turns. Meat after 15, Produce and Dairy after 5. When Food spoils it can still be eaten but its nutritional value is halved. When it decays, it can no longer be eaten and is lost forever.

When a city's agricultural supply is cut off, it will lose food, causing its citizens to starve. Cities without Water will also get amenity penalties. Cities that riot while besieged will automatically surrender.

Food will be stored inside Granaries. If a city has a 1000 Food stored, it could be 800 Cereal, 50 Produce and 150 Meat, or it could be 50 Cereal and 950 Dairy, depending on which food is stored.

Early in the tech tree, options for food processing (enhanced food if you will) will be available, creating production chains and "upgrading" food into alternatives that either sustain more people or spoil less quickly

- Bakery: 1 Cereal + 1 Water => 3 Bread. Bread spoils more quickly, but has a nutritional value of 2, meaning that it counts as consuming 2 food resources instead of one.
Bakeries can later be upgraded into Pattiseries, combining Bread + Fruit (Banana, Grape, Pomegranate) or Chocolate + a Sweetener (Sugar, Honey) to create the Pastry Luxury resource.
- Brewery: 1 Cereal OR Produce +1 Water => 2 Beer (Cereal) OR 2 Cider (Produce). Beer and Cider replace Water as a consumable, allowing water to be used for agriculture instead. They can spoil, but at a slow rate.
Breweries can also create the Luxury resources of Wine by combining Grapes and Water, Rum by combining Sugar and Water, and Mead, by combining Honey with Water.
- Creamery: 1 Dairy + 1 Wood => 3 Cheese. Same nutritional value, but spoils less quickly.
- Pickler: 1 Produce + 1 Salt OR 1 Sugar => 2 Pickle / 2 Preserve. Lower nutritional value, but hardly spoils.
- Smokehouse: 1 Meat/Fish + 1 Wood => 3 Smoked meat/Stockfish Lower nutritional value, but doesn't spoil
Using a higher quality wood will create a higher quality smoked meat. You can also use coal over wood.
- Butcher: 1 Meat + 1 Salt => 2 Sausages. This building also increases the meat output of improved Animal tiles worked by the city.
Using Spices instead of Salt will create a higher quality sausage.

Since these foods spoil less quickly, they can also be carried by traders to foreign cities where they can be sold. Some examples

Near the endgame, Luxury foods can be created, these foods will provide amenities (late game governments will require more amenities to be provided per citizen)
- Fast Food (Bread + Sausage), feeds many people but incurrs a health penalty for each citizen consuming it.
- Gourmet Food (Any form of Processed food + Cheese) feeds few people, but increases health for each citizen consuming it
- Hippocrass (Wine + Honey), Mulled Wine (Wine + Spices)
- Liquor (Beer + Sugar); Sake (Rice + Sugar)
- Vitamin Drinks: requires two Different sources of produce

Cities can have specialty foods if they have cooked (and traded) the food for long enough, making it a source of World Heritage (ie: tourism)


Some bullet points on commercial and industrial resources:

For industrial resources the main resources are Lumber, Metal, Stone, Minerals and Labor.
> Lumber is the main fuel resource, but can also be used to quickly construct buidings and units. Later it can be replaced by Bricks
> Metal is the main source for weapons, but may later be converted into Steel and later Stainless Steel.
> Stone and Clay are the main resources for building construction, later eclypsed by bricks and concrete, and even later by Reinforced Steel
> "Minerals" is a catch-all term for resources which aren't Rocks or Metals, so basically things such as Clay and Silica would fall underneath this umbrella term. This would also encompass all the metals needed for "purifying" Iron into steel.

The enhanced industrial resources are
Bricks (Minerals + Cereal), Replaces Wood as a building material
Steel (Iron + Minerals + Lumber),
Tools (Metal + Lumber,) OR Stone + Lumber) (replaces Labor),
Weapons (Metal/Lumber + Lumber/Coal)
Coal (Lumber + Lumber, but also appears as a separate deposit), replaces wood as a fuel.
Concrete (Stone + Water, replaces Stone as the main building material)

The advanced industrial resources are
Fuel (Requires Petroleum, but late-game techs allow it to be created with plant-based oils, replaces Coal and Lumber as fuels)
Firearms (Requires Alloyed Metal/Steel + Niter, replaces weapons)
Machinery (Steel + Lumber/Concrete, replaces Tools)
Plastic (requires Petroleum, late game techs allow it to be created with Dairy instead)
Reinforced Concrete (Concrete + Alloyed Metal/Steel) (replaces Concrete as the main building material)
Microchips (Minerals +
Stainless Steel (Steel + Fuel/Coal) (Replaces Steel as a main building material)

For commercial resources, the main subdivisions are Fiber (Wool, Leather, Reeds), Dyes (Indigo, Ink, Purple), Seasonings (Sweetener, Spice), Resins (Wax, Amber, Glue), Oils (Olive, Rose, Wallnut) Fragrances (Amber, Frankincense, Tobacco) Gems (Diamonds, Pearl, Crystal) and Coin.
The enhanced resources are main commodities and trade goods: Clothing (Fiber + Dye), Pottery (Mineral OR Reeds + Dye), Glass (Mineral + Mineral/Lumber/Coal), Furniture (Wood + Resin), Leatherwork (Leather + Salt) , Alloyed Metals (Specific Metal + Generic Metal/Mineral) , Paper (Fiber/Lumber + Water + Resin), Lamps (Metal + Oil), Perfume (Fragrance + Oil).
The advanced resources are high end luxuries created from industrial resources and enhanced commercial resources: Books (Paper + Dye), Electronics (Plastic + Silica + Alloyed Metal), Cloisonée (Alloyed Metal + Clay), Brocade (Silk + Gold/Silver) Porcelain (Clay + Gypsum + Dye), Faience (Clay + Glass + Dye), Jewellery (Gold/SIlver + Gem), Luxury Furniture (Mahogany + Wax), Mirrors (Mercury + Glass), Toys (Lumber/Metal/Alloyed Metal + Dye + Toys), Ornaments (Lapis/Jade/Obsidian + Generic Stone), Chess Sets (Ebony + Ivory), Music Instruments (Lumber + Resin + Fiber), Candelabra's (Bronze/Brass + Wax + Hemp), ...

This would require the following resources in the map:

Livestock:
- Cow / Water Buffalo (Meat, Dairy, Labor and Leather)
- Sheep / Goat (Meat, Dairy and Wool)
- Pigs (Meat and Leather)
- Llama (Wool, Labor)
- Bees (Wax, Honey)
- Snail (Meat, Dye)
Special: Horse, Camel (Strategic resources)

Game & Seafood
- Deer, Bison (Meat, Hides)
- Beaver / Elk / Mink (Meat, Furs)
- Elephant (Meat, Hides, Ivory)
- Fish, Turtle (L) (meat)
- Clam (Meat, Pearl)
- Lobster (L),(Meat)
- Squid (Meat, Ink)
- Coral (Stone, Gem)
- Whale (Meat, Amber)

Crops:
- Wheat / Rice / Maize / Barley (Cereal only)
- Potato (Cereal & Produce)
- Apple, Grape, Pomegranate (Produce only)
- Flax, Cotton, Hemp, Mulberry (Fiber only)
- Olive, Citrus (Produce, Oil)
- Lavender, Rose (Oil, Fragrance)
- Indigo (Dye)
- Mustard (Dye, Seasoning)
- Reeds (Fiber, Wood, Seasoning: Sugar) (this resource covers Papyrus, Bamboo and Sugar Cane)
- Pepper, Cinnamon, Vanilla, (Seasoning)
- Coffee, Tea, Cocoa (Drinks)
- Tobacco (Fragrance)

Mine Resources
- Copper, Silver, Gold (Metal, Coin)
- Lead (Metal, Dye)
- Amber (Resin)
- Iron (S) (Metal only)
- Coal (S), replaces Lumber as fuel.

Quarry resources:
- Granite, Sandstone (Stone only)
- Clay, Silica, Gypsum, Quartz (Mineral only)
- Crystal, Diamonds (L) (Mineral, Gem)
- Cinnabar (L) (Mineral only - improving grants Mercury)
- Obsidian (L) (Mineral only, can substitute Iron as a Strategic resource)
- Limestone, Chalk (Stone, Mineral)
- Frankincense (Mineral, Fragrance)
- Marble (L), Jade (L), Lapis Lazuli (L), (Stone only)

Sawmill resources:
- Oak (Lumber only)
- Cherry (Lumber, Produce)
- Wallnut (Lumber, Oil)
- Mahogany (L), Ebony (L) (Lumber only)
- Cedarwood (Lumber, Fragrance)
- Pine, Rubber (Lumber, Resin)
- Maple (Lumber, Seasoning) (Syrup)

 

[Ryansinbela]

Can I have a list of all the comments to combine them

 

[Ryansinbela]

I have no ideas how to write a simple doc with the info