Invisible Game Elements

[AntSou]

This is a discussion about game elements which are currently in the game but that are nearly invisible due to how they have been implemented.

Some of the changes suggested below could also be attributed to higher difficulties.

Anarchy - How many hours did you play before you realised this is a thing? One of the things I like the least in the game are the free changes of policy/governments. I think changing governments should always cost 1-2 turns of anarchy to the Human player (leave the poor AI alone). (excluding perhaps the first).

Paying to Unlock Policies - It's a button that exists. Imo I should only get free policy changes after changing governments (since this should already have an anarchy cost) or unlocking the first civic of a new era. It's both too easy and repetitive. (Human player)

War Weariness - I don't think I've ever even noticed this whether I'm warmongering or not. It seems like whatever impact it's supposed to have, it's not doing it adequately.

Free Cities - They are there... kinda. Free Cities never last very long. They should imo have +15 base Loyalty. Automatically at war only with the Civ from whom it defected. Other Civs can send trade routes to Free Cities, causing extra loyalty pressure for each trade route. Amani's Emissary Promotion grants +5 Loyalty to your Civ when established in a Free City.

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What other game elements are in the game which are barely noticeable?

 

[Solver]

The Appeal mechanic feels like that to me. I basically pay no attention to appeal unless playing Australia. If going for a culture victory, I build a couple of resorts but sometimes skip them anyway, and I certainly don't plan tiles for appeal. Neighborhoods are useless, I'll maybe build one per game. It's a nice concept, but it feels like even in high-difficulty games I rarely look at any tile's appeal.

 

[Starwars]

It's not invisible in that sense but tourism still feels like a weird thing to me in terms of how it works in the game. Just something to maximize, yet you never see any effect from it until you win the tourism victory.

 

[AntSou]

@Solver
Yep, those two are good mentions. I would add the Chemamull improvement, but other than that and Australia, I don't usually care much about Appeal.

Neighbourhoods issue imo is linked to both high Population not having enough of an impact and Partisans being poorly implemented.

Perhaps a way to increase the usefulness of late-game housing is to lift the loyalty pressure from population. Go up to -30 / +30? Extra production from Pops? I don't know.

It's not invisible in that sense but tourism still feels like a weird thing to me in terms of how it works in the game. Just something to maximize, yet you never see any effect from it until you win the tourism victory.

It's a bit cryptic, though I understand it now. I find tourism to be a good approach to culture victory and I prefer it over what we had in Civ 4.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Anarchy - How many hours did you play before you realised this is a thing?

There is anarchy in this game???

 

[AntSou]

There is anarchy in this game???

Yes. It happens when you attempt to change governments back to something you've already used. I did it once.

I don't think it should have been implemented like that. At the very least you should get a free government when unlocking a new Government tier, BUT get the penalty when attempting to switch to a government in the same tier.

It's 3 turns of anarchy atm. I'd rather it be just 2 but make it so it can actually happen.

 

[DrCron]

War Weariness - I don't think I've ever even noticed this whether I'm warmongering

Which difficulty setting do you play on? On deity it's pretty clear it's there, especially when you go for domination and spend most of the game at war.

 

[AntSou]

Which difficulty setting do you play on? On deity it's pretty clear it's there, especially when you go for domination and spend most of the game at war.

Usually Immortal, though I've played plenty on Deity. Max I've been down was -5 from war weariness in a single city. I didn't quite understand why that single city had that much war weariness. Iirc, I just ignored it.

I never went on a snowball world conquest.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It happens when you attempt to change governments back to something you've already used.

You learn something every day!!

 

[Myomoto]

Honestly, I think a lot of these elements can be explained due to poor UI. For example, is there even a way to see your current War Weariness penalty? I know it's related to your units being killed, with a difference in the stacking penalty depending on if they die inside your borders or outside of them, but it's very hard to really track the actual impact, and amenities in general really do not matter that much...

Tourism is high on my list, especially how to track the different bonuses to your tourism output (i.e. having open borders, having a trade route), how much of your tourism is religious, vs. how much is regular. It's all horribly obfuscated because we don't have a clear menu dedicated to cultural pressure.

 

[AntSou]

Honestly, I think a lot of these elements can be explained due to poor UI. For example, is there even a way to see your current War Weariness penalty?

It's in the City Panel under Amenities, which I think is fine, though I agree in general the UI in this game isn't very informative.

 

[Mahi]

I don't get war weariness either. It's there. It think there is even a policy card that reduces the war weariness? I never seem to have problems with it in my war games. Not even sure how it works.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

The Appeal mechanic feels like that to me. I basically pay no attention to appeal unless playing Australia. If going for a culture victory, I build a couple of resorts but sometimes skip them anyway, and I certainly don't plan tiles for appeal. Neighborhoods are useless, I'll maybe build one per game. It's a nice concept, but it feels like even in high-difficulty games I rarely look at any tile's appeal.

An appeal in a culture game is converted to tourism generated by your civilization(national parks, resorts) so I wouldn't say it's so irrelevant in any difficulty level.
But in general, I agree that appeal and aesthetics should be used more often, in-game mechanics.
Culture game, in my opinion, should be split into two equally decent paths: Naturalist: (based on aesthetics, nature preservation, parks, national parks, landmarks etc) and Artis (based on building culture districts, great works of art, wonders) On top of that appeal could be used in every strategy as a source of amenities perhaps.

 

[acluewithout]

Bankruptcy. It’s so dire, that you always avoid it. And so easy to avoid because there’s so much gold in the game.

Maintenance. I’ve never not built something because of potential maintenance costs. It’s just irrelevant.

 

[Solver]

An appeal in a culture game is converted to tourism generated by your civilization(national parks, resorts) so I wouldn't say it's so irrelevant in any difficulty level.
But in general, I agree that appeal and aesthetics should be used more often, in-game mechanics.
Culture game, in my opinion, should be split into two equally decent paths: Naturalist: (based on aesthetics, nature preservation, parks, national parks, landmarks etc) and Artis (based on building culture districts, great works of art, wonders) On top of that appeal could be used in every strategy as a source of amenities perhaps.

In culture games, I usually get most of the way to victory by getting Great Works, and making sure I have walls for that Conservation bonus. Then I add a Natural Park or two, but usually next to a natural wonder, which provides national park space without needing to think much about appeal. This usually gets me very close to victory, and then I just music-bomb the strongest rival. Yeah, appeal does factor into it a little bit, but honestly even in a culture game it feels like a very small part.

I think it'd be good if tourism somehow mattered before victory, and appeal factored into that. Tourism is weird - you're generating it like any other yield, but it's all or nothing. Tourism does absolutely nothing until you finally have enough, and then you win the game instantly. If high tourism also had some other positive effects, they could be tied to appeal, which would make it all more interesting and relevant.

 

[sonicmyst]

Anti air units. Even though there are few AI fighters and bombers, I did not feel the need to build an anti-air unit.

Higher level recon units. I do not see the purpose when I have almost uncovered the entire map.

Specialists. Who manually allocates a pop to a district building? I do not use it.

Occupied cities. I do not feel the impact of occupied cities aside from the unnecessary grievances. Should there be more unhappiness for occupied cities? I think so.

 

[Naeshar]

This is a discussion about game elements which are currently in the game but that are nearly invisible due to how they have been implemented.

Some of the changes suggested below could also be attributed to higher difficulties.

Anarchy - How many hours did you play before you realised this is a thing? One of the things I like the least in the game are the free changes of policy/governments. I think changing governments should always cost 1-2 turns of anarchy to the Human player (leave the poor AI alone). (excluding perhaps the first).

Paying to Unlock Policies - It's a button that exists. Imo I should only get free policy changes after changing governments (since this should already have an anarchy cost) or unlocking the first civic of a new era. It's both too easy and repetitive. (Human player)

War Weariness - I don't think I've ever even noticed this whether I'm warmongering or not. It seems like whatever impact it's supposed to have, it's not doing it adequately.

Free Cities - They are there... kinda. Free Cities never last very long. They should imo have +15 base Loyalty. Automatically at war only with the Civ from whom it defected. Other Civs can send trade routes to Free Cities, causing extra loyalty pressure for each trade route. Amani's Emissary Promotion grants +5 Loyalty to your Civ when established in a Free City.

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What other game elements are in the game which are barely noticeable?

Oh-Oh. All of these I know well enough, they are not hidden at all, but I dont use them.

Anarchy does not only apply when you do not have a free government change, but also when you switch to a government you had previously! Which is very useless. I have become trained to change Government only when a new one comes up.

Paying to Unlock Policies anytime you check them, its there. I never used it, rather waited for the free change, since it comes frequently enough, plus when you get a new card or Revelations is invalid it also allows you to change them all for free.

War Weariness I kinda noticed. But usually all of them apply to a single city and only when you war for long enough. AI is very afraid of it, thats why it is so bad at war. But revolts via negative amenities are very rare anyway.

Free Cities, well, no free city lasted long enough. There might have been some with the status in middle ages, but modern ones (Danzig, Trieste) chose a side quickly. But the mechanism is ahistorical. Their loyalty is fine as it is. If there is enough foreign pressure and they first leave one nation, it is only natural to eventually join the other side. Even though I kinda want them to behave like city-states. A free city is a small piece of free real estate, if only I had the meme ready.
The AI doesnt expect the free city status, which it should.

As for invisible game elements, there is tourism and religious pressure which I hardly notice.

 

[kaspergm]

Bankruptcy. It’s so dire, that you always avoid it. And so easy to avoid because there’s so much gold in the game.

Maintenance. I’ve never not built something because of potential maintenance costs. It’s just irrelevant.

I don't fully agree. I occasionally struggle with maintenance costs in classical and medieval era. If I prioritize other districts over commercial/harbor, the maintenance costs for units and buildings can have you run in negative GPT fairly quickly. Once you get a couple of commercial hubs up and running, that problem usually goes away.

Apart from that, I agree with most of what's said in this thread. I do actually pay a fair amount of attention to appeal, because I like to grow my cities large (and have modded the partisan mission out), I also frequently take the pantheon that gives faith from breathtaking tiles, and its obviously very important for national parks.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Tourism is weird - you're generating it like any other yield, but it's all or nothing. Tourism does absolutely nothing until you finally have enough, and then you win the game instantly. If high tourism also had some other positive effects, they could be tied to appeal, which would make it all more interesting and relevant.

yeah, true the whole the design of culture victory is defective.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I forget Aircraft Carriers are a unit in the game sometimes. I've never seen one even from the AI.

Edit: I wanted to make sure they are real so I looked them up in the civilopedia and never knew that they had a melee attack and could take cities.