Invisible Game Elements

[Jaybe]

Tourism is fine as it is.. I find it logic that you don't necessarily need it to be 100 percent transparent. It's still easy enough to get a cv once you understand the fundamentals.

Well, almost.
While tourism is adequately transparent to me (it DID take me a while to figure it out), I believe having no reduction in tourism while at war with that civ is an egregious error.

 

[Myomoto]

Well, almost.
While tourism is adequately transparent to me (it DID take me a while to figure it out), I believe having no reduction in tourism while at war with that civ is an egregious error.

Honestly, everything about the cultural victory was perfect in V, I don't understand why they changed it.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Honestly, everything about the cultural victory was perfect in V, I don't understand why they changed it.

Didn't you have to create a Utopia project?
That sounds pretty similar to what a Diplomatic Victory would entail.

 

[Aurelesk]

Honestly, everything about the cultural victory was perfect in V, I don't understand why they changed it.

Even if I like the Tourism victory in civilization V more, there is a "problem": multiple civilizations could pretend a cultural domination. It is non sensical that, in the end, multiple civilizations could pretend to be culturally dominant over all other civilizations. I mean, how can Brazil can both be culturally dominant and dominated by France?!
But at least, the system was plain, simple and easily understandable. It was a race that could easily understand by everyone just by watching the according tab, and see how quick / low you are catching up or not.

The new one is hard to understand, because they tried to simulate that you can take out "culture" (labeled domestic tourism) by "tourism" (labeled foreign tourism). +1 tourism foreign tourism take out 1 domestic tourism. It is a good idea, but I think the execution (or the UI about it?) is not great. You need to have more tourist from every civilization than the domestic tourism from 1 specific civilization?! What? And the ratio tourism to foreign tourism change depending on the number of civilization?!
Furthermore, there is no real indication how well some civlization are doing, like the "arrow" up/down in Civilization V. What are those pop-up about civilization being culturally dominant other one other? What does that even mean?

 

[Amrunril]

Didn't you have to create a Utopia project?
That sounds pretty similar to what a Diplomatic Victory would entail.

That was the pre-BNW version. BNW introduced the tourism mechanics and, unlike Civ VI, actually made it do something in addition to its role in diplomatic victory.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

That was the pre-BNW version. BNW introduced the tourism mechanics and, unlike Civ VI, actually made it do something in addition to its role in diplomatic victory.

Right I was assuming he was talking about the change to it being tourism. I really haven't played Civ 5 much so I don't know the difference between the two types of tourism victories.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

In regards to cultural victories- I'm not sure if I missed this somewhere but... Once you become dominant over a civ is that actually indicated somewhere after you get the report of it? A simple star or something might help on the victory screen when working with many civs to assist with those that you still have left and need to work on.

 

[Buktu]

In regards to cultural victories- I'm not sure if I missed this somewhere but... Once you become dominant over a civ is that actually indicated somewhere after you get the report of it? A simple star or something might help on the victory screen when working with many civs to assist with those that you still have left and need to work on.

You can check the world rankings culture screen to check alot regarding a cultural victory. For example you can see how many domestic and international tourists each civ has. So you can easily see which civ you have already overpowerd and where to send your rock bands next

 

[_hero_]

Levying- Until I played a game as Hungary, I'd never done it. Lately, I've started doing it more though. It's 2 free era score, it can be relatively cheap depending on the circumstances, and best of all my most evil use: When playing with Apocolypse mode activated, you can sacrifice levied troops to volcanos instead of having to sacrifice your own.

National Parks- Not invisible per se but I never use them anymore. Rock Bands seem to always be a better way to convert faith to tourism now.

Giant Death Robots- If I'm going for a war game, I've already secured victory by the time I can build them. If I'm going for any other victory, they're just a waste of time.

Tunnels and Canals- I think I have only built 2 tunnels ever. Canals I always wish to build but the map generator never wants to give me a good reason to.

Various specialized tile improvements- I don't think I've ever built Liang's City Parks, maybe I'm missing out. Forts, Airstrips, Missile Silos and Railroads are all so niche and it never seems worth investing in Military Engineers to build them to me. I suppose I could see it in Multiplayer maybe? There's also some city state unique improvements that are just hard to justify using build charges on, though this is far better than it used to be.

 

[TomKQT]

Anarchy
Paying to Unlock Policies
War Weariness
Free Cities

I agree only with anarchy - I know it's there, but I think I've had in only maybe once. Paying to unlock policies - I use this sometimes. War weariness is quite strong I would say, I usually cannot ignore it completely. Free cities - happens quite often and I use them often to destroy a city that I don't want to take for myself and I don't want to destroy it while it's owned by a main civ.

Levy a city state - I've used this only to get the achievement...
The unit list that you get by clicking on a unit name banner in the UI, that is a feature that nobody knows about unless being told or clicking there by accident.
Renaming a unit or a city. You can completely forget about this (as I did) and it will never get your attention again.

Other than that, nothing comes to my mind. There are many units, pantheons, beliefs and policy cards that I (almost) never use I wouldn't call them invisible, though, because they are always in your sight together with the other ones that you really use.

 

[AntSou]

Free cities - happens quite often and I use them often to destroy a city that I don't want to take for myself and I don't want to destroy it while it's owned by a main civ.

I agree they happen frequently, my point was more that they don't remain free cities for very long, which is why I'd rather they have +15 innate loyalty rather than only +10. Or even +20 like city states.

You could then make them its own mini-game, where Civs compete for Free City loyalty. Sending trade routes or Amani to a free city would increase loyalty pressure in that city in favour of your Civ.

So they are invisible imo in the sense that there's nothing very unique or Free about a Free City. They have no personality or enticing mechanics like city-states.

Clearly the idea of competing for Free City loyalty already exists in the game, it is just superficially implemented, and I see no reason why this part of the game can't be improved.

Renaming a unit or a city. You can completely forget about this (as I did) and it will never get your attention again.

I think that's a different class of "invisibility". Naming cities and units has no gameplay value but it serves a Role-Playing purpose. There's lots of players who like naming their stuff.

 

[ContraryPoke]

I forgot that anarchy is a thing, and I think I've only ever entered it accidentally.

Tourism is probably the most invisible element because since it's not explained well and the interface doesn't do much to help that.

I wouldn't call the other elements invisible. It's just that they are very situational so they are rarely seen.

Levying troops is probably an underused element of the game. I've conquered entire civs in the very early game with levied warriors alone (not even Hungary, on deity too). It's not that expensive and the Era score is a nice plus. Pretty funny that they can be sacrificed in apocalypse mode lol. The main downside is the chance of losing suzerainity after levying.

 

[JJOne]

Renaming a unit or a city. You can completely forget about this (as I did) and it will never get your attention again

When I play on Earth I sometimes go and rename my cities with the names of cities in about the same location in real life, in order to find them afterwards quicker, but otherwise you're right.

 

[Jeppetto]

Right I was assuming he was talking about the change to it being tourism. I really haven't played Civ 5 much so I don't know the difference between the two types of tourism victories.

Civ 5 had "talent trees" you gained benefits from by accumulating Culture. Each tree had six policies. Once five trees were finished, you'd be able to finish Utopia Project and win. That was the vanilla and gods & kings one. Pretty uninteractive, though little fun If you enjoy snowballing. Sometimes I play V without expansions for simplicity among which I rate this version of Victory.

 

[TomKQT]

I think that's a different class of "invisibility". Naming cities and units has no gameplay value but it serves a Role-Playing purpose. There's lots of players who like naming their stuff.

Yea, I know that some people love this feature. For me it fully qualifies as "invisible" because it is quite hidden in the GUI, it doesn't get your attention at all unless you look for it on purpose (except for the rock band) AND also it has zero (absolutely zero) impact on the gameplay. So, you don't see it and you don't need it - thus it is invisible

 

[Galvatron]

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

Less than one. I'm one of those 'reads the instructions' types of guys.

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)

Yes it could use some work. I'd rather if you had to pay for an individual unlock of policies... or something. The current system is just goofy with the amount of free changes. I'm not sure how I feel about policy cards, I'd rather be able to have a bunch of switches for like every policy type, that you can turn on and off. Like choose 'Communism/Socialism/Mercantilism (later) Capitalism/Feudalism (later Manorialism, then Syndicalism)' for your economic system, and some of them block out other policies like communism can't exist with corporate policies or market policies, and capititalism doesn't allow for some military policies like the draft maybe.

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.

I definitely have. I think happiness could use some depth though. I'm not sure that happiness a lone is a good enough measure of societal function. Sure there's loyalty, but I think a public order stat would help.

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.

I definitely think there's room to grow here. Maybe they should blend more into the way city states work and vice versa.

It'd be neat if they had a rebellion after a few turns and became independent if there wasn't enough pressure to maintain them. Further if you could invade them, and give them autonomy, or turn them into a puppet state.

 

[comatosedragon]

One thing I was going to say is purchasing Great People (with gold or faith). I always forget that this is a feature.

I agree with people who have mentioned Anarchy, War Weariness, and Appeal. Those things have never been a factor in any of my games.

Previously, I would have said Loyalty is a mechanic that means zero in my games (because of my play style). I have lately started playing games on Epic Speed, and loyalty has been a big factor for me so far.

 

[acluewithout]

Unlocking Policies. I agree it’s rare you need to unlock policies with Gold because of free changes with Civics. But at the same time, I think unlocking policies with Civics works really well. If you changed it to only unlocking via gold or made the penalties for changing policies too great, I think you’d just end up discouraging players from swapping cards at all.

War Weariness. I think WW is actually fine. The real problem is just how irrelevant Amenities, Happiness etc feel in general. Perhaps the game needs other sorts of weariness too, like economic or social weariness if your focusing on chopping or production too much. I don’t know really. I guess I just file War Weariness etc in the box marked “cool growth / happiness / amenities / maintenance mechanics that sadly don’t actually do anything”. So sad.

Free Cities. It’s obvious Free Cities were only introduced as a bit of kluge - basically, you couldn’t have Cities just flipping to other Civs right away, otherwise it was too powerful. I’d really like Free Cities to be more interesting. But I also don’t want a bunch of new mechanics around them. I certainly don’t want them turning into City States - that would be totally broken. So, yeah, I think Free Cities just remain this sort of slightly odd transition mechanic.

 

[sonicmyst]

There is a good explanation about tourism from Potato McWhiskey here:

 

[NicolaR1]

I've noticed something like this

 

[Deadly Dog]

Glad I found this thread as I just yesterday started to realize I don't understand the mechanism by which City States expand their borders. I've just recently noticed them gaining tiles when I complete their quest, like immdiately. Also maybe once when I manually assigned an envoy? But surely this doesn't happen EVERY time you send an envoy, does it? And what about the AI? Do they even get envoys from quests? It always seems they assign a lot less envoys than I do, and I bank envoys a lot from mid-game onwards. And does AI assigning an envoy to a CS give them a tile?

Of course there is nothing in the Civilopedia about CS quests. So this counts as invisible, right?

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Glad I found this thread as I just yesterday started to realize I don't understand the mechanism by which City States expand their borders. I've just recently noticed them gaining tiles when I complete their quest, like immdiately. Also maybe once when I manually assigned an envoy? But surely this doesn't happen EVERY time you send an envoy, does it? And what about the AI? Do they even get envoys from quests? It always seems they assign a lot less envoys than I do, and I bank envoys a lot from mid-game onwards. And does AI assigning an envoy to a CS give them a tile?

Of course there is nothing in the Civilopedia about CS quests. So this counts as invisible, right?

City States only acquire new tiles via placed envoys. Happens every time regardless of human or AI. There's a specific column for this called CanAnnexTilesWithReceivedInfluence. That's one reason I'm usually careful about placing envoys in CSs that are very close to my own cities. However, I've also modded them so they can buy tiles with gold too for a bit of added tension over claiming tiles.