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

[Zaarin]

reinventing history

You keep using that word; I don't think it means what you think it means. Especially since you joined less than a month ago. I wasn't here for Civ5 releases or earlier, though I was in other communities, but I was here for the Civ6 release. It was every bit as negative as the Civ7 release. I still heard tantrums about the Civ6 art style as late as a couple years ago. I still hear them occasionally now. I think what you mean was that your reaction was not negative so you did not perceive the community's reaction as negative.

 

[RandV]

I'd like to emphasize here that while you always get negative response to changes and they tend to be the loudest, a major factor here is that the most controversial change the 'Civ switching' has such an overwhelmingly poor reception because Humankind made it a prime feature in their game and it went terribly. So from the perspective of the launch it isn't change for the sake of change, or change to appeal to 'casuals', it's copying from an inferior product to make a fundamental change to a key element of the entire series.

I'd imagine the reception to the early launch would have a much higher degree of positivity if that one feature was left out.

 

[Zaarin]

I'd like to emphasize here that while you always get negative response to changes and they tend to be the loudest, a major factor here is that the most controversial change the 'Civ switching' has such an overwhelmingly poor reception because Humankind made it a prime feature in their game and it went terribly. So from the perspective of the launch it isn't change for the sake of change, or change to appeal to 'casuals', it's copying from an inferior product to make a fundamental change to a key element of the entire series.

I'd imagine the reception to the early launch would have a much higher degree of positivity if that one feature was left out.

Or, framing it a different way, the feature would have been controversial but less so if Humankind weren't in the picture. I know my first reaction was negative largely because of HK until I saw Civ7's approach was quite different from HK's.

 

[TheGrayFox]

You keep using that word; I don't think it means what you think it means. Especially since you joined less than a month ago. I wasn't here for Civ5 releases or earlier, though I was in other communities, but I was here for the Civ6 release. It was every bit as negative as the Civ7 release. I still heard tantrums about the Civ6 art style as late as a couple years ago. I still hear them occasionally now. I think what you mean was that your reaction was not negative so you did not perceive the community's reaction as negative.

This isn't my first account here... I had to create a new one because i didn't remember my old password, email, etc. I've been lurking and posting here since 4 and was present during the announcement, devolopment, and release of V (and VI)

The negativity towards 6 was largely driven and fueled by elements of its art design/style and I already admitted that the controversy over art style was probably the only thing even remotely comparable to the backlash we're seeing to civ swapping and eras. (which are fundamental gameplay changes to the series, not simply aesthetics which can be ignored and modded)

 

[tedhebert]

Is it just me, or are almost each and every thread in this forum taken over by one or 2 users complaining all the time on the very same single subject ?

This is getting incredibly old and frustrating...

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

Imagine if instead of culture affecting the growth of the city we had a separate currency: border growth. And instead of of gold being able to be used to buy tiles, we had an extra separate currency: land acquisition points. Do you think that it would be a better system than culture/gold for border growth?

 

[uppi]

Imagine if instead of culture affecting the growth of the city we had a separate currency: border growth. And instead of of gold being able to be used to buy tiles, we had an extra separate currency: land acquisition points. Do you think that it would be a better system than culture/gold for border growth?

How would you earn those land acquisition points? How would it be connected to other systems? The danger would be to end up with yet another mostly independent system that ties into nothing else.

Which is why I think "merging" features can be a good thing. Yes, it restricts your decision space, but ideally it makes those decisions interesting. You will have different goals at odds with each other (e.g. work that high yield tile vs. expand towards that resource) and will need to prioritize. The potential danger is decision fatigue: after placing 100 pops you might not care very much were this particular one goes.

Also, if I understand this correctly: gold and culture will play no direct role in city growth. Border expansion will essentially be done with food.

 

[Krikkit1]

Also, if I understand this correctly: gold and culture will play no direct role in city growth. Border expansion will essentially be done with food.

At least in the first Age, I could see adding the ability to buy tiles with influence or money in Age 2.

 

[Olleus]

Pretty sure I remember explicitly hearing that there will be a way to rush-buy tiles, but I can't remember what resource that was.

 

[Krikkit1]

Pretty sure I remember explicitly hearing that there will be a way to rush-buy tiles, but I can't remember what resource that was.

Well influence and gold are the only ones you stockpile, so I would guess those.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I'd like to emphasize here that while you always get negative response to changes and they tend to be the loudest, a major factor here is that the most controversial change the 'Civ switching' has such an overwhelmingly poor reception because Humankind made it a prime feature in their game and it went terribly. So from the perspective of the launch it isn't change for the sake of change, or change to appeal to 'casuals', it's copying from an inferior product to make a fundamental change to a key element of the entire series.

I'd imagine the reception to the early launch would have a much higher degree of positivity if that one feature was left out.

I really like just about all of the gameplay/mechanics changes I am seeing so far with two exceptions:

The soft reset at era change. I am willing to give this a chance.

The forced civ switching where my Egyptians transmogrify into goddam Mongolians Because Developer Fiat. This completely changes the core identity of the game.

That one is a huge enough fly in the champagne it ruins the game for me

Other than that, this is the most positive I have ever felt about a Civ release since IV.

If I do get 7, the only way I can see myself liking it is after modders fix that feature, or I basically play it for one era only.

Imagine if instead of culture affecting the growth of the city we had a separate currency: border growth. And instead of of gold being able to be used to buy tiles, we had an extra separate currency: land acquisition points. Do you think that it would be a better system than culture/gold for border growth?

No. The last thing we need is more clutter and yet another arbitrary currency to manage. Faith was bad enough.

I really wish that the option to outright delete Religion from Civ that is present in the mod Customization VI still worked, but I am still so thankful that mod lets you remove the World Congress and Disasters

 

[rocksinmypath]

Imagine if instead of culture affecting the growth of the city we had a separate currency: border growth. And instead of of gold being able to be used to buy tiles, we had an extra separate currency: land acquisition points. Do you think that it would be a better system than culture/gold for border growth?

I've been thinking about this. I don't really like the expansion mechanism because, with culture bombing and how fast population grows, it looks like cities will all end up looking like big circles (or hexagons) and overlap between cities will be extremely undesirable (much more so than in 6) so cities will often be completely disconnected from each other. I'd like more interesting possibilities. My idea doesn't "solve" the problem of bundling too many mechanisms together because I don't see it as a problem. Anyways, here's how it works:

- Tile point is local to each city and cannot be transferred from or to another city.
- Each city has a tile point "wallet", which has finite capacity. When the wallet is full, additional points earned are lost.
- A tile costs as many points as distance away from city centre. For example, a tile in the third ring costs three points.
- Tile points are granted when population grows.
- Tile points can only be spent when population grows*. A citizen has to be immediately assigned to a purchased tile. (This is why this system doesn't solve bundling.)
- There is no explicit limit on how far a city's borders can expand, although implicitly, it's limited by the size of its wallet.
- Wallet capacity (and maybe points per new citizen) is subject to increase, although I haven't thought of exactly how. This is required to allow acquisition of tiles that are farther away.
- Districts do not culture bomb.
- Exception to *: A tile next to an urban district can be acquired at any time (potentially at a discount), but only urban development (including wonder construction) shall occur on that tile.
- Exception to *: Any tile adjacent to your city boundary can be bought at any time (at full price) for the purpose of wonder construction.

Each time a citizen is born, you have the following options to choose from:
- Place the citizen on a tile you already own because
- It gives you the best yields immediately or a new resource.
- You want to save points for a more expensive tile.
- Buy a tile and place the citizen on it because
- It gives you the best yields immediately or a new resource.
- You want take the tile before a neighbour takes it.
- There's another tile you want that you can only acquire after this one.

Justifications:
- Lack of explicit limit on border growth allows for more interesting city shapes.
- It also is more lenient on the following but without completely removing the associated challenges:
- Coastal cities: With the way the border expansion actually works, if deep ocean tiles remain as useless as they are in 6, coastal cities are at an even greater disadvantage.
- Cities near mountains: Similar reason.
- Cities that are close together: Two neighbouring cities that compete for tiles are given the option of expanding away from each other.
- With this system, the game doesn't really deviate much from the way I believe the devs expect it to be played.
- Trade-off between buying a new tile and working an old one is still meaningful.
- Player will not be able to buy a tile every time they want to because of the finite wallet. I believe late-game is meant to be largely about more specialists and more urban districts to home specialists vs. keeping rural districts. That conundrum exists because the borders stop expanding at some point while population keeps growing. With the new system, while a city's borders can continue to expand in the late game but with constraints, so the challenge is still present. At the same time, it allows for some interesting urban development strategies. For instance, two cities somewhat far away from each other can "crawl" towards each other to eventually meet in the middle. The moment they meet is significant because urban districts in the middle see an explosion of yields from adjacencies.

 

[rocksinmypath]

No. The last thing we need is more clutter and yet another arbitrary currency to manage. Faith was bad enough.

It's not arbitrary if it has a very specific and well-defined purpose. Faith is problematic because it overlaps too much with gold. There's a meaningful difference between gold and production because one is pooled in from all your cities and can be spent anywhere, the other is local in both how it's earned and how it's spent. Faith is identical to gold in this regard, and of course, because of Monumentality, what you'd use both currencies to purchase (e.g. builders, settlers) also greatly overlaps. Before Monumentality, I didn't play the game, but from what I've heard, there was this problem that faith was basically useless in games you didn't play religion. Diplomatic favour is also problematic because a) there's not a whole lot of useful stuff you can do with it, and b) you can trade it for gold, which basically makes it... gold.

 

[aieeegrunt]

It's not arbitrary if it has a very specific and well-defined purpose. Faith is problematic because it overlaps too much with gold. There's a meaningful difference between gold and production because one is pooled in from all your cities and can be spent anywhere, the other is local in both how it's earned and how it's spent. Faith is identical to gold in this regard, and of course, because of Monumentality, what you'd use both currencies to purchase (e.g. builders, settlers) also greatly overlaps. Before Monumentality, I didn't play the game, but from what I've heard, there was this problem that faith was basically useless in games you didn't play religion. Diplomatic favour is also problematic because a) there's not a whole lot of useful stuff you can do with it, and b) you can trade it for gold, which basically makes it... gold.

Those are good points. With how awful Faith is and the general Civ6 development trend of everything they touched they made worse I just assumed it was another bucket to fill

I still wish that Customization VI let you remove Religion entirely like it does for World Congress.