If I were a Game Designer

[eScapegoat]

Hello Civfanatics forums. I am new. Please be nice, or, failing that, be clever in your meanness.

I love the Civ franchise, I first got hooked when I played Civ2 on a friends computer, I fell in love with Alpha Centauri, I played hundreds and hundreds of hours of Civ4, and have taken to hotseating Civ5 with my roommates on rainy days. I preordered CivBE and, while there are many aspects of the game I enjoy, and areas where it exceeds Civ5 (tech web, orbital layer) it has not replaced the former game as the go-to hotseat fun.

It was a small step forwards for the franchise but I feel that the game could have been much more. These are my ideas for the game, starting with the biggest and working my way down to smaller suggestions.

1: Moons
CivBE missed a huge opportunity to take the game in a direction that no Civ game has gone before. Multiple planet management.
I would love for maps of Medium size and greater to spawn with 1-3 moons orbiting them. Moons would always be at least two map sizes smaller than the main planet and never larger than Medium size. 50% of moons would be Rocky (No water, only mineral resources) but the other 50% would have one of the 5 Biomes and all of the associated flora and fauna. The ability to travel to said moons would be unlocked somewhere in the middle of the tech tree and then the fun begins. (Switching screens to a moon could be a tab that hovers over the minimap or something like that).
Opening up moons is cool because well it's COOL! Exploration of the map is one of my favorite aspects in Civ. I often found myself getting bored in the midgame of Civ4 once I had discovered the entire map. Civ5 saved me from the midgame boredom by introducing Archeology. CivBE has the potential for even greater things - Moons. Besides humans are supposed to be spacefarers in this narrative anyways. What kind of noob spacefarers can't even visit a moon.
Moons would also open up a huge number of new strategic options for expanding your empire and containing your enemies. I tremble to speculate on the full potential of what players could do with them.

2: Great People
"Civ5 had these you say." "That's not a new idea." you say.
"Hear me out." I say.

One of the problems often brought up on these boards is that all of the factions in CivBE feel too similar. Playing as the African Union isn't significantly (enough) different from playing as the ARC.
What if each faction had it's own unique Great Person?
There are some basic Great People that I would like to be available for all factions (Scientists, Generals, Engineers, and Artists) that would function in a similar way to their Civ5 brethren with new Sci-fi names. Most wonders would provide points per turn for one of these people.
Here's my ideas for Unique People:
Slavic Fed: Great Astronaut
Macro Boost: Can create an orbital station that gives +Science and +Hammers on affected tiles and doubles production of orbital units for cities within radius and never de-orbits.
Other Boost: Transport a large number of units into space for free (from space units could land on a moon or drop deep into enemy territory).
African Union: Great Sower
Macro Boost: Create a tile improvement for +Food and +Health.
Other boost: Grow a City 3? sizes (all numbers are on suggestions subject to balance discussion)
ARC: Super Spy
Macro Boost: Create a tile improvement for +Science and +Diplomatic Capital. Any cities within radius 3? have greatly improved defense against intrigue.
Other Boost: Function as an agent that performs operations twice as quickly as normal.
Brasilia: Super Soldier
Macro Boost: Creates defensive building in friendly city that gives +HP, +Atk, and allows military units to pop with some XP.
Other Boost: A very strong military unit that improves with Affinity and has unique Veterancy upgrades.
Franco Iberia: Noble
Macro Boost: Creates a building in friendly city that gives +Culture and provides slots for Great Works/Artifacts.
Other Boost: Create a Great Work with extra +Culture.
Kavithan Protectorate: Great Prophet
Macro Boost: Create a tile improvement for +Health and +Diplomatic Capital
Other Boost: Use Diplomatic Capital and Energy to convert an opponent's city to your faction (Cost increases for City size and distance from your Capital) Opponents Capital cities would be immune (obviously).
Polystralia: Great Merchant, Same as Civ5 pretty much.
Pan-Asian Cooperative: Great Builder
Macro Boost: Same tile improvement as Great Engineer but with more Energy
Other Boost: Function as a worker with greatly improved combat (not instantly destroyed by melee) and 4x buildspeed.

I'm not too familiar with the Rising Tide factions yet but the North Sea Alliance should have a Great Admiral for sure.

3: Biome Uniqueness
Rising Tide appears to be moving in the right direction here with re-skins and strength/spawn rate changes (which I hope are huge differences, like double strength and half spawn rate) for aliens based on the Biome. I would love to see the game take this a little further. I would like there to be 1-2 alien types and 1-2 resources that only occur in their native Biome.

4: Leaf Tech costs and Kicker Techs
I don't feel that the game makes full use of the potential that the new tech web brought. Factions often end up with similar techs in the midgame, pursuing all the easy branches and the essential leafs. I believe that teching could be more diversified if the branch techs cost more research than their leaf techs. Also I would like to see a Kicker Tech providing some powerful advantage that is available only when both leaf techs have been researched.
I believe that this sort of system would reward investing heavily in specific branches rather than taking a broad, generic approach that seems optimal in the game as it stands today.

5: Unit Special Abilities:
I loved the fully customizable armies of Alpha Centauri (even when it became a real pain to sort through pages of obsolete units). While I'm not sure that CivBE should go to the same lengths of customization it would be nice to have options other than +10% strength for veterancy promos. Abilities could range from counteracting specific types (infantry, mech, alien, orbital) to unique strengths (amphibious assault, paradrop etc).


That's my rant... for now. Feel free to comment, critique, criticize, or condemn.

 

[Galgus]

Personally I'm not sure Moons should be implemented though there are definite upsides to it.

Thematically, the game is the story of colonizing the planet, and shifting to colonizing another planet seems to shift the spotlight too much.

It also seems like a bit of a stretch for others to be particularly habitable.

Mechanically, it could be tedious to shift between different moons, needing to often look between different layers for information.

On the other hand, it could be fun to see the balance of power shift with new planets, with some colonies potentially ignoring some planets and thus changing their balance of power.

It would certainly add an interesting element to territorial disputes if control over an entire new zone was thrown into the mix.

Affinities could even potentially play into this, with Supremacy gaining bonuses to settle a new planet a little earlier, Harmony getting bonuses focusing more on the main planet, and Purity being somewhere in between.

Though I think that at least early on in the process movement between worlds should be limited and expensive, rewarding colonies that undertake expensive secondary seeding efforts and shielding them from the full militarizes of the home world at first.

This also gives me nostalgia for the old Metal Fatigue RTS, which had orbital, surface, and subterranean layers with advantages for controlling each.

I had a related idea awhile back for, essentially, trade routes to extra-planetary colonies, mining operations, or research stations that would be defended and contested by current air units and exorbitantly expensive capital ships.

It was my attempt to show the beginnings of extra-planetary expansion while keeping the spotlight solidly on the home world.
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Personally I think that sponsor-specific Great People seems unbalanced and hard to balance, though I agree that Sponsors could use more to differentiate themselves.

(And Specialists definitely need some form of buff, though there are some mods for that.)

Beyond that, Great People as they were in Civ 5 don't work as well in Beyond Earth because there isn't a real history to draw from.

Though this would be hard to implement and balance, I think a Great Person system with individualized Great People with specific bonuses tied to them would work better.

They would essentially be purchased with gradually acquired Great Person points, with some prerequisites to buy them.

(Possibly including Virtues, Technologies, and Affinity.)

They could use the Wonder one-per-game rule with significant increases in cost for each on purchased to give all players a fair shot at them.

Each would have a unique bonus and a text entry containing their story, explaining who they are and why they are important.

To leave room for gameplay diversity, all Great People would be purchasable by all Sponsors.

This is an example, the only one I've written up, though there are some interesting new great person concepts in this old thread.
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Great Purist Merchant: Vont Telvin

Requires Mobile LEV technology, Purity 8, and the first Industry kicker.

The rich and famous ARC engineer who, in 2632, fulfilled a dream humanity had fantasized for centuries: the flying car.

His career began with a solid Central education slated for a cushy Liberation Army job, but that took a twist when he left the military to form his own civilian company.

Though he led the development of many small joys and tools, he is forever remembered for revolutionizing early Floatstone tech.

By improving the refining process and energy input to the core while creating a sturdy, yet light and simple frame, he introduced the Model Z floating car.

The improvements in efficiency, all-terrain mobility, and cheap and easy maintenance revolutionized ARC's transportation industry and opened the door to previously unimagined feats of engineering.

A new and improved Mark 2 Float Tank was quickly developed on the heels of the civilian market: ensuring swifter and safer "liberations".

Effect - +2 Energy from Trade Routes and +1 Movement for Purity Calvary.
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I agree that Biomes should be more unique, though there are a variety of ways to go about it.

Ideally each should have different challenges and opportunities.
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Generally the Tech Web could use an overhaul, with some techs being almost essential and others being almost worthless.

Ideally we would see extensive specialization rather than a generalist route.

Perhaps researching a tech could grant some discount on researching similar techs to encourage this?
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I'm mostly fine with unit uniqueness being focused in the upgrades system, but I'd like to see it pushed further.

For instance, many unique units have interesting traits present in all their upgraded forms unavailable when they are first built, making them needlessly bland.

 

[eScapegoat]

I agree that Moons is a big change for the Civ franchise and the least likely thing to be added to the game. I'm not looking for Civ to become a game of Galactic Conquest, there are other games for that, I would think lunar exploration and settlement could be very fun though. If people think it's tedious they could always disable moons in the game setup.

50% chance to have a biome is unrealistically high but I'm edging more towards fun than realism here. Who wants to scout rocky wastelands all the time?

I was thinking lunar travel would require a unit to be in a city that has built the appropriate building (something probably requiring petroleum, until perhaps a later tech where the need for petroleum is bypassed) and also pay a one time energy cost.

I'd like to tackle two of the issues you brought up with Great People.
First: Imbalance.
I'm of the opinion that balance is a matter of tweaking numbers and that if the concept is solid that it can be made to work. The CivBE team has already been active in balancing issues (sucky faction traits, OP Purity 1 explorer immunity). I didn't even postulate many of the numbers behind the bonuses in my initial post.
Furthermore asymmetric balance is a feature in many Civ games including Civ5 and I don't think anyone would argue that all the nations were equally strong (Iroquois vs Poland anyone?). I would prefer if each faction in CivBE were a bit OP, when they are able to go for their optimal strategy.
I think it makes a little more sense for the CivBE factions to have specific great people - which represent an ideal for the future, than unique buildings or units - which have been drawn from the history of earth.

My idea for generating the Unique Great People would be based on overall affinity progression. You get your 1st one on your 1st affinity level up and then another one every (4?) overall affinity levels thereafter. This should allow a player to generate enough Great People to make an impact on each playthrough without being overwhelming or game breaking.

The second point you bring up is Historicity:
While most of the Great People in Civ5 have names of Historical figures, I believe that is a 'nice touch' rather than the core aspect of the unit. At it's heart Great People represent outstanding individuals who changed the course of history with inventions, ideas, or art and I don't believe that they are only a relic of the past. Great People will continue to emerge in the future and that could be implemented (quite easily) in the game.

Not that I don't like your ideas. Anything would be better than 'No Great People'.

We're on the same page with Biomes. I like the thought you put into enriching them in your thread but I still feel they could use unique aliens/resources.

The basic idea for Kicker Techs is that most of the Wonders currently on Leaf Techs would be moved to the Kicker, and that they would be replaced on the Leaf by some resource-boosting building, unit ability, or tile boost upgrade. We appear to be mostly in agreement in our desire for more diversified teching and better options for unit upgrades so I'll end my post here.

 

[Galgus]

It would be hard to balance a great person type for each Sponsor, particularly with more Sponsors, and the system may be more enjoyable if all players had a shot at all of them.

I love strong asymmetry, don't get me wrong, but I'm not sure unique great people is a good way to go about it.

Come to think of it, I'd absolutely love something like the Civ 5 Events and Decisions mod in Beyond Earth to spice things up, with some sponsor-specific options.
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That could work well, unlocking Great People with affinity thresholds.

Admittedly my Great People idea could be even harder to balance and implement well, and would require many different bonuses and backstories to be designed.
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Yeah, specializing in technology has considerable potential.

It may help if the zones of the tech web helped specific playstyles while addressing needs in different ways.

Like if Roads connecting cities provided a bit of health and Magrails provided a bit more, allowing players to potentially forgo some techs that unlock health buildings.

Generally the game would benefit from more ways to manage Health in the early game.

(And from Health being less irrelevant come late game.)

 

[eScapegoat]

You could be right about the Great People. If they are not faction specific would you be ok with a faction having a discount or extra bonus from a particular type?

I just really want Great People. CivBE launched without them or Natural Wonders for no apparent reason.

 

[Galgus]

If anything, it might make more sense to tie that to Colonist choice, though I think Great Person acquisition would be best left separate.

I also want Natural Wonders.