Is it a good idea to "merge" game features into one in new iterations of the game?

[kaspergm]

Over the last couple of Civ games, we've seen cases of game features being "merged" into one. The most prominent examples are:

• Civ 6: Traders also function as road builders.
• Civ 7: Placing a population also works as improving the tile and as expanding your borders.

Personally, I'm strongly against merging game features like this. My main objections are:

1. Automating features takes away freedom from the player. We saw this with roads in Civ6, where the player could not decide where the roads were placed. This might not have been an issue if the game had been successful at making meaningful choices (i.e. primarily: Connect cities with roads), but this was not what happened. Instead we saw roads bypassing cities, roads being laid down in parallel to each other and (most annoyingly) traders choosing to go over sea instead of over land, so no roads was made at all.
2. It leads to conflict between the two features. For instance in Civ6, when I was making my early trade routes, I had the choice: Do I send the trader to the city that gives me the yield I need most, or do I send it to the city where I want a road to be made. Often these two options were not the same, which forced me to choose one or the other where really, the two should not be connected. One can argue that this adds strategic depth to the game because it means the player has to choose, but I don't agree with that argument; what it adds is not strategic depth but instead reduced freedom for the player.

In Civ7, I really fear we'll see the same issue with the new tile and worked system. So when the city grows, I need to place the population immediately. Once placed, I cannot move the population to another spot (unless I overwrite with an urban district) - so no longer do I have the option to shift between for instance food or production depending on what my need is (less strategic options for the player = bad for gameplay). Furthermore, when I chose where to place the population, I'll be faced with conflicting interests: Do I place the population where I get the yield I want most, or do I place the population in order to expand my borders where I need it the most. Really, these two things are completely independent and should not be linked, but now they are. So potentially I'll be stuck with a citizen working a worthless tile because I want the culture bomb effect, which seems super unrealistic and bad for game design. And why did we need this? Was the old border expansion system really a problem?

Anyway, that's just me thoughts, are there others who have the same concerns regarding this, or is it just me being conservative?

 

[LastSword]

I am gonna be frank, I don't know. Right now it is impossible to tell how it will play out.
Removing workers is actually one of the positives for me. In general I absolutely like what you are describing here. Strategic depth and reduced freedom may be just two sides of the same coin.

33-33-33, something had to be changed. This game reeks of civ5/6 enough already. The population change is one of the big ones, it actually excites me.

I know why they made an alternate road making in civ 6, their charge system was extremely half-cooked and was simply not feasible to it. (Just like repairing -> one builder -> infinite repairs). They either had to make some more complicated charges (like 20 for improvement, 5 for roads, etc.) or find an alternative. It turned out bland and series lost something there.
Well, the charge system was exciting me too when announced. Therefore again, I don't know.

I am not a fan of micro citizens. Like in civ5 you could maximize great scientist's value by focusing science for several turns. Or focus gold, have GPT so you can trade with AI. I kind of like this instant decision aspect, planning city location and border expansion. It wasn't fun to enter city-view just to overwrite in-game evaluation of plots in civ6 (yes, this gold is very valuable to my 1 pop city right now...).
Furthermore border expansion was not fully controlled either - city could expand the way you would prefer not. However there was an option to bypass it with gold (is it gone now?).

My general answer to the title question is: depends. Though topic is interesting because genre is rather focusing on "splitting" mechanics and adding complexity.

 

[Ornen]

first off, there's a difference between "features" and mechanics, and a lot of the stuff you're talking about here are game mechanics. if you look at Civ 6's steam page, it's not going to list "use workers to improve tiles" because that's not exactly a feature.

and having just walked away from my last (thank god) game of Civ 6, I can tell you that moving workers around and improving resources is the most tedious part of the game. there are decisions to be made in what you improve and when, and the game is keeping that. but the actual moving and improving (which takes at least two turns, per improvement) is the most boring part of the game and I'm glad they're streamlining it.

(honestly, improvements are one of the most interesting decisions I spotted in the demo. are you going to focus on expanding your borders, or improve that choice resource?)

w/r/t roads I take issue with the mechanic in Civ 6 because it makes it harder to build roads, especially in the midgame & beyond. your traders will prefer A.) water, B.) pre-established routes, which means they're not about to establish new routes, and there's not much you can do about it.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

If I may make a small correction:

The question is not More 'feature/mechanic' converging, but Which features/mechanics to converge or diverge.

As already posted, some mechanics produce great freedom of choice for the gamer, but also require a great deal of time (increasing as the game goes on) from the gamer to make all the choices and implement them.

This is not a new problem in Civ or any other game, it is one of the constant dichotomies in game design: maximum flexibility versus the quest for short, "clean" turns and Only major decisions from the gamer.

Nobody has ever gotten it right for every gamer.

Given that we have only seen glimpses of the 2nd and 3rd Ages in Civ VII, I have no idea if they've gotten any closer than Civ VI - especially since the late-game was the source of the most tedium in unit movement and decision-making in Civ VI, and we've seen almost nothing of Civ VII's late game yet.

So far, my view is that the Early Game of Civ VII gives me a different set of decisions to make than Civ VI, but I'm not even certain yet which ones are going to be most important and which relatively easy to 'redo', let alone which and how many will still affect my Civ in the following Age(s). I'm willing to wait for more information, while noting where the decision points have apparently changed from Civ VI.

 

[AriochIV]

If it plays better, it's a good change. If it doesn't, it was a bad change.

We won't know until we play it.

 

[Trengilly]

Roads: It appears they have realized the road building issues and have said that you can use trader/merchant unit to manually build roads (in addition to the automatically generated ones). That seems like the best case in this situation . . . most roads get build automatically along logical trade routes, but you still maintain the ability to build roads in specific situations where you need them.

Tile Working: Choosing what tiles to work (and swapping citizens around) in previous Civ games was the worst kind of micromanagement. That's a choice I never enjoyed having, so I'm happy that is gone for Civ 7. I strongly suspect that 99.9% of players won't miss it.

Expansion: Tying expansion to development (via culture bombs) . . . is a super fun and engaging mechanic. It provides for lots of great strategic decision, regardless of how abstract or separate those two things are. Yes, you are no longer 'free' to do whatever you want. But you weren't 'free' before . . . always chasing the best resource to develop isn't a choice, it was mostly an automatic decision. And previously you had almost no control about where your borders expanded. Now you actually have agency to expand your city where you want. Anyway . . . I know this is a good change . . . because its basically a straight rip off from Old World where it works great and is really fun, it plays better.

 

[rocksinmypath]

You can build railroads manually in Civ 6, and it's a terrible experience. Traders choosing to travel overseas for seemingly no benefit was an oversight, but I disagree the game would be better if you had to build roads manually. Automation isn't problematic, although mechanics that require automation often are since desire for automation implies busywork. The problem with Civ 6's road network system is that, because it affects builder performance and domination timing, you want to control how your roads get built. The former is an especially big problem because builders usually need to get onto tiles without districts, and you can't really do much about this without building roads inside cities yourself. The latter is a problem that's fixed by connecting cities together with traders because it's more important for military units to be able to travel long distances quickly, rather than visit many specific tiles inside your cities, and you can use city centres as checkpoints that your units move through. Civ 7 mitigates these issues by removing builders completely and building roads connecting your cities automatically. I think these changes are likely to lead to better player experience without sacrificing strategic depth.

As for the citizen assignment system, I find it to be one of the most pleasant changes to be announced so far. Civ 6's citizen assignment system is the definition of busywork. A moderately large empire can easily have ~100 citizens across several cities by the mid-game. It's crazy that the game allows you to reassign every one of those 100 citizens every single turn. People don't complain about this aspect of the game only because it's automated very well. The game would be unplayable if it had no way of automating citizen assignment because you'd be faced with the dull task of making 100 decisions, each of which, on average, is practically trivial. The new system not only removes the need for automation, but it also adds strategic depth. The fact that you (OP) are frustrated about not being to move citizens once allocated is evidence of this. Your decisions matter more when they're permanent. This is what makes district planning fun in 6. Why would you ever take several minutes early in a game to put down district pins on the map if you could move districts once they're built? Also, I don't really understand the point that border expansion and yield considerations have to be decoupled. On what basis? Again, if that decision gives you a challenge, doesn't that mean it's strategically engaging?

 

[8housesofelixir]

Expansion: Tying expansion to development (via culture bombs) . . . is a super fun and engaging mechanic. It provides for lots of great strategic decision, regardless of how abstract or separate those two things are. Yes, you are no longer 'free' to do whatever you want. But you weren't 'free' before . . . always chasing the best resource to develop isn't a choice, it was mostly an automatic decision. And previously you had almost no control about where your borders expanded. Now you actually have agency to expand your city where you want. Anyway . . . I know this is a good change . . . because its basically a straight rip off from Old World where it works great and is really fun, it plays better.

BTW, getting rid of tile-working is something Old World did as well; both Old World and Civ 7 now have permanently slotted Specialists. Soren Johnson wrote a designer note specifically about why he felt the citizen-tile tradition of the Civ series is not good gameplay, so he replaced them with something less micromanage-y in the Old World.

 

[Tanel]

Those two are completely different situations though. Combining two things that make sense together is a good thing and should absolutely be done. Taking away freedom from the player is also not necessarily a bad thing when it leads to more meaningful decisions.

 

[JNR13]

Trade offs are good. Game design is basically all about limiting the "player's freedom" in such a way that they have to be creative and engage with the game's systems to find a way to overcome these limitations placed upon them, with the limited means they're given. Strategy games more than most others, arguably.

Shifting focus by moving citizens was never quite the most efficient. It was mainly an early-game thing where moving a single citizen was impactful. Later, however, it's not really good design to have to move 30 citizens to implement a single strategic option. In older games, you shifted focus with the sliders. A clean, empire-wide mechanism where a single interesting choice could be put into effect with a single action. Now policies can fill that role. Swap out the bonus Food on Farms policy for a bonus Production on Mines policy and you got your yield shift without having to go into all cities and moving around tokens on the map one by one.

 

[Fummy]

Important to note this new city growth feature merges a whopping 3 previous features. City pop assignment, tile improvement building, border expansion. Now that's efficiency in taking away player control in the name of streamlining.

Moving population around to work different tiles in a city has been a key feature since Civilization 1. Its a great part of every game because you can focus on food if you want growth, temporarily focus on production to get a wonder or expensive building, focus on gold etc when you are happy with the population you are at. And it didnt slow up the game at all since its always been optional. The cities manage themselves automatically so a new player, or a player with too many cities can ignore it and not suffer. But it gives a skilled player an edge and the option to micromanage every city for the yields they think are most important or change focus reactively.

I know their point in merging game features is to streamline the game and remove as much tedious micro as possible. But this feature was entirely optional so removing it just harms skilled players. Its like how micro in an rts game increases the skill ceiling rewarding highly skilled players and this is just removing it to bring everyone down to the same level.

This also means a city always has as many tile improvements as it has pop, until specialists get involved, so you can never be in the common situation of having more improved tiles than you have pop in one city but more pop than improved tiles in another. Careful planning to avoiding this situation has been in the game since Civ 1 as well. Removing it does make it easier, simplifying the game so that a skilled player and a careless player are equal. You cant screw up and have a city working an unimproved hill or grasslands anymore.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Important to note this new city growth feature merges a whopping 3 previous features. City pop assignment, tile improvement building, border expansion. Now that's efficiency in taking away player control in the name of streamlining.

Moving population around to work different tiles in a city has been a key feature since Civilization 1. Its a great part of every game because you can focus on food if you want growth, temporarily focus on production to get a wonder or expensive building, focus on gold etc when you are happy with the population you are at. And it didnt slow up the game at all since its always been optional. The cities manage themselves automatically so a new player, or a player with too many cities can ignore it and not suffer. But it gives a skilled player an edge and the option to micromanage every city for the yields they think are most important or change focus reactively.

I know their point in merging game features is to streamline the game and remove as much tedious micro as possible. But this feature was entirely optional so removing it just harms skilled players. Its like how micro in an rts game increases the skill ceiling rewarding highly skilled players and this is just removing it to bring everyone down to the same level.

This also means a city always has as many tile improvements as it has pop, until specialists get involved, so you can never be in the common situation of having more improved tiles than you have pop in one city but more pop than improved tiles in another. Careful planning to avoiding this situation has been in the game since Civ 1 as well. Removing it does make it easier, simplifying the game so that a skilled player and a careless player are equal. You cant screw up and have a city working an unimproved hill or grasslands anymore.

I don't think "taking away player control" is the same thing as removing micromanagement. If game has a lot of micromanage potential, it either allows player to trivialize the game or makes it a required feature. I really don't like playing game where high difficulty requires you to manually manage everything. And, as I understand, the majority of players are the same.

Another thing is - this micromanagement is not about strategic decisions, it's about spending more time. When you decide to build a wonder, that's strategic decision. When you move your population to maximize production output for this wonder, you make no decisions, just work.

Actually this part of Civ 7 is one the best to me. You do a lot of decisions (in late antiquity play on the stream, there were 2-3 population placements per turn) and each of them is important and strategical. Including planning for future eras (which is the only part which makes me worry as planning without seeing expecting output is also not too fun).

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I don't have a big enough brain to really grasp how this will impact strategic depth, not without more information and some time with the game.

But I do like it for my personal sense of immersion. I am a great leader, why should I be worrying about what individual pop are up to - leave that to the local administration! I want to be making grand macro decisions that impact my entire empire.

 

[Olle Wernersson]

Merging game features could improve AI performance, making it more strategic and unpredictable, which would enhance the challenge and variety of gameplay.

 

[Fummy]

I don't have a big enough brain to really grasp how this will impact strategic depth, not without more information and some time with the game.

But I do like it for my personal sense of immersion. I am a great leader, why should I be worrying about what individual pop are up to - leave that to the local administration! I want to be making grand macro decisions that impact my entire empire.

You will still be assigning pops to which tile they work (rural districts) but it will be tied to building a mine/farm/sawmill etc. and wont be moveable. So you will still be a great leader saying "build a farm on this specific tile" just not using a builder but a city pop. The city focus in civ 5/6 was more like what a leader might say, tell the city to put all efforts into production or whatever and leave them to sort it out (although you can micro them if you want)

Merging game features could improve AI performance, making it more strategic and unpredictable, which would enhance the challenge and variety of gameplay.

it would help the AI keep up by knee capping the players ability to game the system.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

You will still be assigning pops to which tile they work (rural districts) but it will be tied to building a mine/farm/sawmill etc. and wont be moveable. So you will still be a great leader saying "build a farm on this specific tile" just not using a builder but a city pop. The city focus in civ 5/6 was more like what a leader might say, tell the city to put all efforts into production or whatever and leave them to sort it out (although you can micro them if you want)

Well, I don't mind choosing where to put critical infrastructure. But as a great leader, I expect my citizens to work. The output of this work should be influenced by what I choose to build, the policies I adopt, my religious beliefs, and so on.

If I want my people to produce more food, I'd rather introduce an empire wide policy that encourages this, or command that an entire town should focus on agriculture. I don't want to visit Middlesbrough and manually drag some of my miners out of the pit in order to stick them on a farm.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I don't want to visit Middlesbrough and manually drag some of my miners out of the pit in order to stick them on a farm..

I do, however, want to decide what percentage of my empire's non-farmers, non-miners are dressed as Elvis at any given time. That's a critical Immortal Leader responsibility and should never be delegated.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I do, however, want to decide what percentage of my empire's non-farmers, non-miners are dressed as Elvis at any given time. That's a critical Immortal Leader responsibility and should never be delegated.

Absolutely, I very much agree.

Silliness aside, of course you have to have some micro in Civ, but I do think it was getting a bit much in VI. I never pay attention to it, too tedious, so I'm hoping the emphasis on VII has shifted to more macro and a bit less of all this min maxing. Removing eurekas and era score are definitely a great step, and merging of features can absolutely be a good thing - we'll have to see if they get it right or if they go too far in the other direction.

 

[Fummy]

I never pay attention to it, too tedious

Yet you still win the game. So its an optional thing that the player has the freedom to care about or not. CIv VI had eurekas that were basically the same, you could aim for them or just let them generate naturally and not fall behind the AI. A pretty good system unfortunately replaced with narrative pop up events.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yet you still win the game. So its an optional thing that the player has the freedom to care about or not. CIv VI had eurekas that were basically the same, you could aim for them or just let them generate naturally and not fall behind the AI. A pretty good system unfortunately replaced with narrative pop up events.

The concept of eurekas was good - the things you are exposed to drives what you learn. The implementation was weak for a variety of reasons, including static tech trees, knowing the triggers for the eurekas, those triggers not varying, etc. Most importantly, though, it didn't have the intended result. If you're on the coast, you already have an incentive to learn Sailing, so you're likely to research it. The eureka system simply disincentivized learning a tech until you had triggered the cost discount.

And yes, you could ignore them, but that's mostly because Civ 6 was "win your way". You could ignore lots of mechanics in Civ 6 without meaningful penalty, because the AI certainly wasn't optimizing. That doesn't mean those were good systems or that gameplay couldn't be improved by re-imagining some of the more micro-intensive mechanics.

Also, I'm not arguing that all of these changes will end up being good for gameplay. I'm just encouraged to see them trying to eliminate some of the busywork. Pop placement is a great place to start:

• What did it even mean to suggest that your city has expanded, if no one is working the land? It makes sense to represent the expansion of a city by having population from the city "move into" and start working that tile.
• If people are working the land, they can be assumed to be optimizing the technology at their disposal. It makes sense to assume they dig mines, build sawmills, and fence farmland if your culture knows how to dig mines, build sawmills, and fence farmland.

Of course there are other ways of addressing this and the Civ 7 approach may not prove to be the best, but I like what I'm seeing on this front and hope they go further (*cough* *policy cards* *cough*).