IGN: Civilization's Past and Future, As Told By Its Lead Designers

[Knightfall]

I think expanding on diplomacy could partially help solve the late-game problem. Adding things like coalitions and blocs could spice things up and provide a way to check runaway civs.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I also may be inspired by being very strongly burned by Humankind's attempt of implementing frequently - changing - cultures - with - no - face approach which made me realize just how much games like this desperately need emotional attachment to factions constant faces and identities. The result of that innovation is that like half of negative reviews of HK on Steam mention what one reviewer beautifully put "a constant sense of schizophrenia and alienation" - you have no idea who you are and you have no idea who is inhabiting the world, everything is just a swirling mass of morphing colours and names. The feeling was so abrasive and powerful to me that 8 honestly contemplated if it isn't some awesome framework for cognitive science research, which I am studying right now. Also in HK you have no meta - game emotions attached to particular civs or leaders because of that, you have one session with faceless mass of morphing aliens and they mean nothing for the next one.

The rise of "liquid" 4X?

 

[Gedemon]

Yes, I strongly agree, and this is why I'm constantly arguing against the people who think leaders need to be scrapped.

HK issue is more about how abrupt the change is: almost all players, every era, no sense of continuity.

Leaders not being mentioned doesn't help, true, and just adding their name in the UI helps, but them being the only "face" of a players would make things worst (as someone who want to play a civilization-like game to build an Empire to stand the test of time, not to simulate a board game session).

I still feel they're useless with static Civs... And annoying the way they are represented since civ5.

I think expanding on diplomacy could partially help solve the late-game problem. Adding things like coalitions and blocs could spice things up and provide a way to check runaway civs.

Yeah, I waited for that (or the possibility to mod that) for all civ6 life span. Got Vampires and Zombies instead. Ho, well...

 

[Zaarin]

I still feel they're useless with static Civs... And annoying the way they are represented since civ5.

I disagree. You simply can't make an emotional connection with abstractions like "the Roman Empire." In order for the game to have a personal dimension, you have to have a face to love, hate, or love to hate. I think Civ5 and Civ6 did a great job with that, and I think Civ7 needs to double down on that.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I disagree. You simply can't make an emotional connection with abstractions like "the Roman Empire." In order for the game to have a personal dimension, you have to have a face to love, hate, or love to hate. I think Civ5 and Civ6 did a great job with that, and I think Civ7 needs to double down on that.

Found this out the hard way, by playing Humankind extensively: without an emotional, personal Human connection to the faction you are playing and, to a lesser extent, to the factions you are playing against, the game becomes a sterile Mental Exercise.

But, let me trot out (again!) another possibility for those who want some variety, instead of changing Civs or Leaders or providing multiple Leaders/Civ, why not just change the Leader Uniques at intervals?

All Civ Leaders fall into two categories:
1. People we know quite a bit about, who are famous (or Notorious) for doing one or more things well.
2. People we know almost nothing about, who are famous for something they might have done, or that the group they led are supposed to have done that they are given the credit for.

So, we can make up whatever we feel is appropriate for most of the Uniques associated with the second group, and find more than one really unique Unique for the first with some research.

The excuse to change Uniques should be related to in-game events, not some arbitrary Era Change: conquer a capital, lose your own capital, reach X number of Trade Routes, or Trade Route or general income, or settle X cities on another continent, etc.

 

[Zegangani]

I think Improved Diplomacy (especially in late-Game) and Economic Systems would make the Late-Game much more interesting and engaging.

having a deep Diplomacic System where Decisions and Relationships matter, especially when the World Congress takes place (an Event that should have serious outcomes for someone who dances off the stage, like some ambitious leader who wants to control more of everything) in addition to something like Ideologies and/or Multi-Leader Alliances + a revamped Economic System where International Trade is essencial to maintain your Empire and keep it growing, like Population requiring more food and a variety of Products, which Industries & Corporations mainly produce from improrted resources, would make for a very interesting and engaging late game:
- Interest driven International relationships: relationship with a Leader is more meaningful, because they might be someone who you share same diplomatic interests with (benefit: voting with you in the World Congress, so you can benefit together) as well as someone you can have profitable trade deals with at reduced cost. And the opposite for Players with different Interests/Ideologies,
- The Growth and Happiness of your Population relies on International Trade,
- Embargoes that might threaten Players from getting access to Trading Posts from where they get the resources they need for their Population,
- Monopolies (forget the Civ VI Game Mode for a moment), which are the main way to an Economic Victory, are much harder to attain,
- possible Multi-Leader Alliances based on Ideologies, which might result in World War Scenarios,
- Espionage could play a major role in succeeding/failing in all of the mentioned
- couple all of that together and you will have the most difficult Victory Type that you can win: the Diplomatic Victory.

That with a combination of reduced Micromanagement and reworked Victory Conditions and some features that help Civs fallen behind to catch-up with the more advanced Civs (like more science through Trade if the Origin Civ doesn't have a Tech, but the Target), would allow for a good late game, and it wouldn't even need a really smart AI, because most of that would be behaviour driven (Ideologies help to sort out friend from foe, profit driven AI Leaders would mostly rely on Data and behaviour tree rather than actual AI...etc), maybe apart from Engaging in Combat.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The leader is the face of the civ and the point of emotional connection for the player as @Krajzen was saying. IMO there is no meaningful difference between changing civs and changing leaders. Plus this would exclude many civs that don't have a vast array of leader choices. Every leader added is also -1 civ we can expect to get overall; I'd much rather have more civs than multiple leaders for every civilization.

I do have to say that to me there is a difference between having different leaders under one civilization. At least I play differently with Pericles than I would with Gorgo. Changing up strategies mid game would be fun.
I agree with everything else you said though, and I don't expect changing leaders mid-game would happen, no matter how much I'd be on board with it.

 

[Gedemon]

I disagree. You simply can't make an emotional connection with abstractions like "the Roman Empire." In order for the game to have a personal dimension, you have to have a face to love, hate, or love to hate. I think Civ5 and Civ6 did a great job with that, and I think Civ7 needs to double down on that.

I guess I'm just not looking for that in a Civ game, I'd much prefer to have a better diplomatic background with an abstraction than "human" interactions with AI avatars.

 

[uhu]

Risk aversion

Things which are not going to change no matter what

Very good points, many of them not only valid for the Civilization franchise. But there are some more things which are not going to change no matter what:
* snowball mechanics (in very general: all systems which allow exponential growth) are difficult to balance and are inclined to change the boundary conditions which defined their start. I.e. not running Long time, instability is law here. And there is a lot what can be learned in physics/electronics to avoid the instability: negative feedback.
* most players "don't want to be punished for doing great"
* most players want 'not too short lasting' games and often more details (more differentiated & complex)
From the above you can prioritize 2, but not fulfill all 3 points.

And there are the given owners, so I believe, the following is true:

The series will not change much. Too much of a risk as it still makes lots of money.

Long or short moves, distance between cities and more
I had played a lot of PanzerGeneral (developed by SSI) in the years between civ1 and civ2 and was quite excited when I learned, that Jon Shafer tried to introduce PanzerGeneral features into Civilization.
From far away I saw then the crisis to get civ5 out of the door ... ... ... and see some plain generalisations still today:

[...] half of game eras are postindustrial wtf, extreme micromanagement of ever less important details, AI will never be good at 1UPT, very snowball civ development means no catch up ever, no spectacular late game global events of any kind [...]

In PanzerGeneral (and a horde of sequels & offshoots) 1UPT worked well. The point is that 1UPT doesn't work good under all conditions you throw at it.
Probably in order to be on the save side (or for what reason else?) in spite of adopting 1upt on Hex tiles civ5 retained the traditional short Civilization moves -- typically 1-4 tiles (depending on unit & terrain) compared with 3-15(?) in PanzerGeneral.
This severe limitation in movement points is experienced in a much higher unit "density". Even in the Norway scenario with its (on purpose) narrow paths were (nearly) enough manoeuvre-ability only because of the much higher range of the units.

Another aspect is the distance between cities. If you allow a city every 4 tiles, you have obstacles everywhere: mountain ranges, forest belts, hills ... and of course cities! (What makes also all maps more conformal, btw.)
PanzerGeneral were sequences of fix maps (with a lot of space between a few cities) depending on how quickly objectives were achieved. The AI was not really brilliant, but able to use its standard Long moves and do proper reconnaissance & hit the human player effectively in weak positions.

OldWorld units & cities play a lot like civ5&6, but address the 1upt issues with Long moves and with fixed city sites. It is possible to have 1upt and adequate AI performance.
Looked here for infos about a 3rd aspect on 1upt, the system of limited "Orders" in OldWorld (which leads to the wish to move as few units as possible and decreases so "unit density") ... and do now just copy:

Old World features IMO the best 4X innovation in a very long time, the Orders system. Almost everything you do costs Orders. Move a unit, that's 1 Order. Assign a governor, 2 Orders. Worker constructing an improvement, that's 1 Order per turn while construction lasts. So Orders are a super important resource for your empire, and they make it impossible to do something with every unit every turn as you would in Civ.
That works very well together with OW's larger and less densely populated maps (compared to Civ), creating a completely different movement and combat system. Units can move across large distances, measured in tiles, in one turn, and there's enough space on the map, which means you actually get tactically important unit formations, and you get meaningful flanking, rear strikes and other tactics.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I guess I'm just not looking for that in a Civ game, I'd much prefer to have a better diplomatic background with an abstraction than "human" interactions with AI avatars.

I'd love those for city-states, at least.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Risk aversionVery good points, many of them not only valid for the Civilization franchise. But there are some more things which are not going to change no matter what:
* snowball mechanics (in very general: all systems which allow exponential growth) are difficult to balance and are inclined to change the boundary conditions which defined their start. I.e. not running Long time, instability is law here. And there is a lot what can be learned in physics/electronics to avoid the instability: negative feedback.
* most players "don't want to be punished for doing great"
* most players want 'not too short lasting' games and often more details (more differentiated & complex)
From the above you can prioritize 2, but not fulfill all 3 points.

And there are the given owners, so I believe, the following is true:


Long or short moves, distance between cities and more
I had played a lot of PanzerGeneral (developed by SSI) in the years between civ1 and civ2 and was quite excited when I learned, that Jon Shafer tried to introduce PanzerGeneral features into Civilization.
From far away I saw then the crisis to get civ5 out of the door ... ... ... and see some plain generalisations still today:In PanzerGeneral (and a horde of sequels & offshoots) 1UPT worked well. The point is that 1UPT doesn't work good under all conditions you throw at it.
Probably in order to be on the save side (or for what reason else?) in spite of adopting 1upt on Hex tiles civ5 retained the traditional short Civilization moves -- typically 1-4 tiles (depending on unit & terrain) compared with 3-15(?) in PanzerGeneral.
This severe limitation in movement points is experienced in a much higher unit "density". Even in the Norway scenario with its (on purpose) narrow paths were (nearly) enough manoeuvre-ability only because of the much higher range of the units.

Another aspect is the distance between cities. If you allow a city every 4 tiles, you have obstacles everywhere: mountain ranges, forest belts, hills ... and of course cities! (What makes also all maps more conformal, btw.)
PanzerGeneral were sequences of fix maps (with a lot of space between a few cities) depending on how quickly objectives were achieved. The AI was not really brilliant, but able to use its standard Long moves and do proper reconnaissance & hit the human player effectively in weak positions.

OldWorld units & cities play a lot like civ5&6, but address the 1upt issues with Long moves and with fixed city sites. It is possible to have 1upt and adequate AI performance.
Looked here for infos about a 3rd aspect on 1upt, the system of limited "Orders" in OldWorld (which leads to the wish to move as few units as possible and decreases so "unit density") ... and do now just copy:

1 UPT can work, it’s just the way Civ6 does it is torture. The low move allowance makes moving your units an agonizing sliding tile puzzle

Keep the current way economy and production works in Civ6 and you won’t have to worry about doomstacks and unit density because you won’t be able to crank out Civ4 stacks anyways, so really 1UPT has no good reason to exist, and just brings so much frustration with it. It’s also clearly beyond the AI in this game

 

[AsH2]

I guess I'm just not looking for that in a Civ game, I'd much prefer to have a better diplomatic background with an abstraction than "human" interactions with AI avatars.

Indeed.
Also, 'double down' on stereotypes do not feel up-to-date 2022.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Leader focused design will not leave CIV because is a main element of the franchise and certainly it helps to build the personality of each civ BUT this

You simply can't make an emotional connection with abstractions like "the Roman Empire."

is an exageration.

Humankind have more than one reason for its lack of personality: lower degree of unique mechanics for each culture, the fast changing cultures, the generic customizable avatars, the lack of a better auditive characterization (language and theme music) even the fact that many (if not most) players come from play CIV.

On historical based games like EU, AoE, TW, etc. specific figures are a secondary elements and the fans built the identity/personality of the factions on others "historical flavor" elements and their unique gameplay styles. You could find a huge amount of memes about these that just use the flags, emblems or their "countryball" to have fun with it.

In fact CIV have their own degree of "everybody is the same" that people are pointing all the time, a good asymmetric historical 4X that achieve ballanced factions with really different playable factions coul put CIV on shame as a "souless mess". Think about it, different ways to gain resources, cultural flavored objetives, unique diplomatic mechanics, their own tech-civic trees, full set of units, etc. Of course unique unit visual, all unit speaking on their language, localized great people and of course not the mess of contradictory and disconnected wonders, religions and goverments for all the civs.

People are just used to CIV's own degree of "lack of personality and historical mess" that is saved mainly by its historical figure focus.

 

[Zaarin]

People are just used to CIV's own degree of "lack of personality and historical mess" that is saved mainly by its historical figure focus.

This is true, but I don't see the kind of changes necessary to give the franchise as a whole more flavor happening--or being done well if they tried. The focus on historical figures is about all the franchise has going for it; it would be unwise for them to abandon that. On top of that, the Civilization franchise currently sits at an interesting intersection between people interested in strategy games and people interested in narrative games (TBH I'm more in the latter camp than the former, even though I do play other strategy games).

 

[kaspergm]

I disagree. You simply can't make an emotional connection with abstractions like "the Roman Empire." In order for the game to have a personal dimension, you have to have a face to love, hate, or love to hate. I think Civ5 and Civ6 did a great job with that, and I think Civ7 needs to double down on that.

But just because there isn't a named leader doesn't mean you can't have a face, does it? Personally, I wouldn't mind it being "the Roman Empire" (in fact, that is how I think of them in Civ either way), and then you could still show a person when you engage with them. We could even have developing representatives throughout the eras, a bit like Civ2 advisors, although the development cost for that would probably go through the roof.

 

[Civinator]

Civ2 advisors

 

[Zaarin]

But just because there isn't a named leader doesn't mean you can't have a face, does it? Personally, I wouldn't mind it being "the Roman Empire" (in fact, that is how I think of them in Civ either way), and then you could still show a person when you engage with them. We could even have developing representatives throughout the eras, a bit like Civ2 advisors, although the development cost for that would probably go through the roof.

BE happened; I don't trust FXS to write good original content. Besides, where's the fun in interacting with Nameless Advisor #73 instead of Elizabeth I or Augustus? The franchise would lose 90% of its appeal if it did away with historic leaders IMO.

 

[uhu]

@aieeegrunt: Watch your blood pressure!

so really [in civ6] 1UPT has no good reason to exist

At least in theory for civ7 the solution is easy: analyse old 1upt games and do finally the full transformation with Long moves and appropriate distance between cities or go back to the original stacks ...
... but probably the persons in charge just compare the sales figures of civ4, civ5, civ6 & OldWorld and then make the sound decision, that the civ5&6 way of 1upt is the best way to do it

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

BE happened; I don't trust FXS to write good original content. Besides, where's the fun in interacting with Nameless Advisor #73 instead of Elizabeth I or Augustus? The franchise would lose 90% of its appeal if it did away with historic leaders IMO.

I'm sure it would be more like Lady Liberty leads America or Mother Russia leads, well Russia.

 

[Zaarin]

I'm sure it would be more like Lady Liberty leads America or Mother Russia leads, well Russia.

If they choose Marianne for France, there goes the E10+ rating.