Little things you'd like to see in Civilization VII

[Bonyduck Campersang]

The ability to SHIFT+CLICK multiple units and issue commands to several units at once.

How would that work? In a one-unit-per-tile game? The pattern of the final positions of the units would correspond to the pattern or shape of the starting positions of the units? Like in a RTS game?

 

[pineappledan]

How would that work? In a one-unit-per-tile game? The pattern of the final positions of the units would correspond to the pattern or shape of the starting positions of the units? Like in a RTS game?

Yup. And if they can't make that position then they will go as far as they can towards that position. I imagine this would be less useful for moving land units, since there is lots of terrain, mountains, borders, etc that block paths, but it would be invaluable for managing navies, where all the tiles are virtually the same and there are large spaces with undifferentiated and unclaimed tiles.

You could also make it so you could multi-select your units and have them attack a single enemy unit. If they are in range they will attack in an order determined by the computer (if you care about the order you would have to select them individually), and if they are out of range you will have to reissue a command to that unit. Could save a bunch of time queuing up attacks, especially against cities.

 

[Patine]

Caravans that originate from desert cities should continue to use camels. Otherwise, they should use horses.

Or maybe caravans could calculate the amount of desert tiles they have to go through. If the majority are desert, they use camels. Otherwise, they use horses.

What about lama, donkey, ox, sled-dog, etc. caravans?

 

[Patine]

In a one-unit-per-tile game?

That would be another flaw to fix, but it's a bigger scope thing, and not a, "little thing." One-unit-per-tile," was one of the more ridiculous development decisions made, and I would hope - AGAINST ALL HOPE - Civ7 actually has the good sense to shed it.

 

[Xandinho]

I'd like to see again the table with demographics and economics and the world rankings, I don't know why those things were taken out - the world rankings especially were quite amusing.

And I think units boarding ships should maybe make a comeback. I love the naval game, but that's too bland in Civ6, there isn't any incentive to produce a strong navy.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

I'd love if the family members/friends of the leaders make appearances as well. It would be interesting to see the royal family or leader's council in the game (at least for me)

 

[Patine]

I'd love if the family members/friends of the leaders make appearances as well. It would be interesting to see the royal family or leader's council in the game (at least for me)

Political marriages by family members of Republic, Democracy, and Communism style governments make the leader of said nation look very bad at home, indeed...

 

[historix69]

Bring back Civ 1 diplomats as a unit and use them to establish embassies, spy enemy cities, etc.
Don't magically establish embassies in foreign countries which are hundreds of tiles/turns away or even out of reach because the player lacks technologie to travel there ...

 

[Patine]

Bring back Civ 1 diplomats as a unit and use them to establish embassies, spy enemy cities, etc.
Don't magically establish embassies in foreign countries which are hundreds of tiles/turns away or even out of reach because the player lacks technologie to travel there ...

It was even better in Civ2, where you had such Diplomats, and then they upgraded to Spies, with another move allowance space and several more abilities, with the Espionage tech, and Spies got a buff under a Communist Government.

 

[historix69]

Realistic Map Making.

At the start of the game (in ancient times) the player usually lacks technologie and communication to process the information discovered by individual units into a complete map.
So before map making the map should be dark except for the area the currently selected unit or settlement can see. Moving a unit would reveal tiles which become visible but would blacken the tiles which are no longer in view.

Once map making tech is discovered, units would explore the map and create individual map pieces, but to add them to and synchronize them with the player's main map , the units would need to return to the capital/palace.
A unit travelling the world but never returning home might create a huge individual map, but if the unit never returns home this individual map may never be integrated into the main map and the unit also does not have knowledge of other units' explorations.
To reduce overall effort for exploring, different units should be able to explore and synchronize their individual maps abroad and then just one (fast) unit has to travel home to synchronize with the main map.
Units travelling through an own settlement would automatically synchronize their maps with the settlement. New units would automatically start with their settlement's map.

Edit :
For a simple approach the amount of map data to be stored for each unit should be insignificant for today's standard.
The exploration map would have binary entries (0,1) for explored/unexplored map tiles.
For a Giant Map ca 90 x 180 = 16200 tiles this results in 16200 bit or 2025 bytes or ca 2 kb.
Since exploration is continuous, the exploration map will always feature large regions with one value, so a standard file compression should reduce the 2 kb data to even smaller size.

However if you add more realism and store additional data for each tile like
- date (turn) of last exploration
- observed tile features (forest, jungle)
- observed player built infrastructure (roads/railroads, improvements, settlements)
then the amount of map data can largely increase ...

 

[Evie]

The idea that people didn't have a reasonable general idea of geography before map making was invented is simply ahistorical.

They may not have been able to draw it in a scale map accurately conveying every detail, but they were able to recount "we journeyed X days toward the rising sun and encountered a great mountain with metal shining like the sun, past which we found a great river, and on the other side of that river we found a wood, and thus to know the general location - in terms of days of travel and directions traveled in and relation to one another - of all things of interest in their surrounding.

Limiting geographic knowledge to only after the discovery of map making would only make for frustrating gameplay with no historical underpinning for it.

As to the idea that units need to travel back to the capital to transfer their map, this is an overly simulationist argument that ignores the way the game work. If you are able to send orders to a unit (as you are, since you are telling them where to move), then logic dictate that thr same unit can send their reports or maps back to you in exactly the same way. There's no need for a burdensome requirement to return home to get the map. This also eliminate a lot of wholly unnecessary programing that would be required to sustain each settlement and unit having
their own map, and avoid a system that would be micromanagement hell.

 

[historix69]

Limiting geographic knowledge to only after the discovery of map making would only make for frustrating gameplay with no historical underpinning for it.

Map Making is one of the ancient world techs, maybe 500 BC, so players would get the tech early in the game unless they focus on other parts of research.

If you are able to send orders to a unit

Regarding the "order" system :
Imagine the player would start with an avatar unit like a Great General, so the player could view and give direct orders only to all nearby units and cities. Then the player could place longtime orders, eg a unit should explore for a couple of turns, should guard an area, a city should produce a certain building, etc and the player would move the avatar and his entourage to the next location of interest ... this would add a lot of Fog of War and realistic uncertainty to the early game.
As a compensation, the avatar could give combat and economic boni to units, cities, workers while the avatar resides at a place.

 

[Evie]

While limited orders could be an interesting concept, limitation based on where your "ruler unit" ism sounds, no offense meant, like a horrendous gameplay experience on every level (and one that would still eat absolutely ridiculous amount of computer resources - the game being required to keep track of which parts of the map count as explored for every single unit in the game).

A turn is measured in years. More than enough time to send messengers back and forth between units and your capital wherever you may be in the world. We do not need nitpicky simulationism. in a game on this scale.

And the map making idea still does not reflect either history nor good gameplay, so, why?

 

[historix69]

And the map making idea still does not reflect either history nor good gameplay, so, why?

Good gameplay and especially a good implementation without using too much resources is definetly a problem.

About history :
A unit which is exploring the unknown at full speed can hardly send back messengers every turn, especially if the unit is moving further and further from home.
Travel speed in Civ games is definetly not historically accurate. It took Sir Francis Drake 2-3 years to sail around the world in 1577-80, which in Civ would correspond to maybe 1-3 turns (depending on game speed). Depending on map size (and maritime speed boni), sailing around the world in Civ may take dozens of years (or even centuries on bigger maps). (I usually play on Giant Earth Map if possible.)

My interpretation of exploration is that there were many explorers in history, but we only know about those who returned ... so the important part of exploring for me is that the explorer survives and returns and shares the collected information.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Map Making is one of the ancient world techs, maybe 500 BC, so players would get the tech early in the game unless they focus on other parts of research.



Regarding the "order" system :
Imagine the player would start with an avatar unit like a Great General, so the player could view and give direct orders only to all nearby units and cities. Then the player could place longtime orders, eg a unit should explore for a couple of turns, should guard an area, a city should produce a certain building, etc and the player would move the avatar and his entourage to the next location of interest ... this would add a lot of Fog of War and realistic uncertainty to the early game.
As a compensation, the avatar could give combat and economic boni to units, cities, workers while the avatar resides at a place.

Map Making predates Literacy: they've identified a local terrain map in Brittany from the early Bronze Age about 5500 years ago, long before anybody in the region was writing anything down: graphics is easier than alphabets or heiroglyphs!
Also, the North American Natives had map/terrain representations giving 'way points' and landmarks for travelers. Unfortunately, they were so different from contemporary European map-making conventions that none of the European scholars recognized them until the mid-twentieth century. Again, map making predating written language by a wide margin.

An 'Avatar' on the map is simply adding another layer between the gamer and the game.
I have played board games, computer games, and miniatures rules in which you 'switched hats' while in the game, changing the position and persona you were playing from artillery Lieutenant to Brigadier to Marshal to Weather God and back again, and the chief result was to keep the gamer utterly confused as to what he was supposed to be doing at any given moment.
The game is complex enough without adding an extra layer of complication that is unnecessary.

 

[Patine]

Regarding the "order" system :
Imagine the player would start with an avatar unit like a Great General, so the player could view and give direct orders only to all nearby units and cities. Then the player could place longtime orders, eg a unit should explore for a couple of turns, should guard an area, a city should produce a certain building, etc and the player would move the avatar and his entourage to the next location of interest ... this would add a lot of Fog of War and realistic uncertainty to the early game.
As a compensation, the avatar could give combat and economic boni to units, cities, workers while the avatar resides at a place.

Oh, joy, joy, fun, fun! An in-game regionalized administrative corruption simulator!

Good gameplay and especially a good implementation without using too much resources is definetly a problem.

About history :
A unit which is exploring the unknown at full speed can hardly send back messengers every turn, especially if the unit is moving further and further from home.
Travel speed in Civ games is definetly not historically accurate. It took Sir Francis Drake 2-3 years to sail around the world in 1577-80, which in Civ would correspond to maybe 1-3 turns (depending on game speed). Depending on map size (and maritime speed boni), sailing around the world in Civ may take dozens of years (or even centuries on bigger maps). (I usually play on Giant Earth Map if possible.)

My interpretation of exploration is that there were many explorers in history, but we only know about those who returned ... so the important part of exploring for me is that the explorer survives and returns and shares the collected information.

And, of course, Micronesian navigators' "stick charts."

 

[Evie]

A unit exploring the unknown at full speed also could not be receiving order every turn.

But everything about unit movement is an abstraction meant to make unit movement bearable. We trade off how fast units would really move for a much greater control over them that makes the game playable. That includes seeing their maps.

 

[historix69]

An 'Avatar' on the map is simply adding another layer between the gamer and the game.

It would add some historical roleplay and POV to the early game. Probably with late Medieval Age or Renaissance this feature could become obsolete.

In European Medieval Age, many kings travelled their kingdoms instead of ruling from a capital.
see

Itinerant court - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Patine]

It would add some historical roleplay and POV.
In European Medieval Age, many kings travelled their kingdoms instead of ruling from a capital.

see

Itinerant court - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yes, and that's how the Barons of England were able to ambush John to force him to sign the Magna Carta. But, I don't think it adds much to the gameplay experience.

 

[pineappledan]

Not exactly what’s being discussed, but I suggested for a Germanic civ ability, for civ 7, I suggested that one of its abilities be that it can move its capital to any city on era change.

Moving your capital around was Dido’s ULA in civ 6. If a loyalty system makes a return, that would allow you to re-Center and prop up your imperial Center of gravity, or could be used offensively to pull/destabilize a certain border region into your loyalty sphere. It would also have ramifications if certain policy, wonder, and infrastructure bonuses redound to your capital