My ideas for Civ 6

[taha_29]

Please don't flame me for this. But this is my vision for Civ 6 :|

0. 1 turn= 1 year? That is a bit too much, but 1 turn should not allow you to jump a lot of years (even in early game). I will talk more about this in just a few moments.

1. Global food supply:
Start of the game: Each city produces it's own food.
Roads: Can distribute food to cities up to 4/6/8? tiles away
Railroads: Can distribute food to cities up to 8/10/12 tiles away? (optionally also requires direct railroad connection to the city... not through some other city)
Refrigeration: Can distribute food to cities 25/30 tiles away
(Flight or Freight)+Refrigeration: True global food supply.

Pros: By the industrial age, you can have dedicated cities producing food. This is more realistic and makes the end game more manageable. The starting game is still similar to what we have right now. Also, we now get a concept of key "strongholds". Lose your grain baskets and your jeopardize your whole empire!


2. Solve 1UTP and SOD: 1UTP leads to "carpet of doom" (that is one unit in each hex). However, 1UTP was created to solve SOD. Here is another solution to solve SOD and also have a more realistic army size.
2a. Max stack level: A city occupies one hex. In game terms, that means one hex is a large area. Therefore if you have only 1 unit in that area, it looks weird. Allow, say up to 5/6/7/8 units in that one hex. (expanding on this...)

2b. A stack has a defense rating. If you have a good mix of units, like ranged + melee + siege etc, its defense is considered to be higher than a stack with just ranged or siege. A stack of siege for instance, should have a defense rating of 0 and can be butchered by melee units etc. This way you can not have a SOD, with many unit types. Also stacks should be expensive to maintain (read more on this below). This will prevent stack spam. Having all melee units is also bad. Other players can take them out with a good combination of ranged + melee.

2c. A stack should be vulnerable to flanking. So when you position your stack of units on a hex, you also choose what hex they face. Attack from a stack that is "behind" them or on their "left or right" side should incur a defense penalty

2d. A city can have one stack of army protecting them. However, a building like an army base should allow up to 5-6 stacks of army units. Army bases should be expensive with a very high upkeep, to prevent spamming them in every city. The more stacks of units in a base, the more it would cost to maintain

2e. Variable army maintenance cost: If your "stacks" are garrisoned in a base, they will cost, say 3 gold to maintain. However, the moment they leave the garrison, the maintenance cost doubles (or triples?) (that is mobilizing your army/war is expensive). This forces the players to build a strong economy before waging war. This prevents early rushes and makes the game more realistic. Waging war should be expensive.

2f. Foreign army bases: A protection pact with foreign civilization allows you to build army bases in a foreign city. These appear outside the city and allow up to 4 stacks of unit. The cost of garrisoning units in these bases is more than what it would cost you to garrison units in your own base (in your cities). Cost of foreign base can be shared between you and the foreign civ, but army cost is all yours. This will also require changes to "diplomacy" (later on this).

2g. Faster army production: Units can be produced in 1-2 turns (even with low production). However, getting too many units = maintenance cost nightmare. So you can't have a super large army in the early game, unless you have an awesome gold supply. Even then it can be prevented with increasing the cost of maintenance as you produce more and more units

3. Trust + happiness: Depending on your social policies, war should have an impact on happiness. This impact should last the duration of the war and then 3-5 turns after you end the war (people remember the horrors of war!!!). Some "Policies" should reduce this impact (if you are a militaristic civ). Starting multiple wars should result in an exponential impact on your happiness. Also, initiating a war for no reason, should cause a large impact on your happiness.

3a. Trust rating: A new rating in Civ. This represents the amount of trust that your people have in you (local trust) and how much the other civilizations trust you (global trust). Good things raise this or keeps it flat (have a lot of city-state allies, not inciting war for "x" turns, going to war with a "reason for war" etc) and bad things (inciting wars, weakening economy, low culture, hungry population etc) lowers this. Once lowered, it takes several turns to rebuild this (say 20-35 turns). (More on this)

3b. Self-sabotage: Do something nasty to yourself and blame it on other people to incite a war. Affects your trust rating (people get suspicious). If your trust rating is high, happiness is not affected to such an extent. However, if you self-sabotage to start a war and your trust is low, happiness will take a large impact. Self-sabotage should be expensive. You should lose a building (randomly selected) and things like production + gold etc should take a hit in that city.

3c. Reason for war: A screen (like the diplomacy screen), where you talk to your council members/cabinet/house/senate etc. If you don't want to self-sabotage, you can convince them (through options on the screen) that a war is needed (maybe because you are going short on some resource that you want?). If you have a "reason for war", the happiness impact is greatly reduced (maybe down to 1?)

3d. Trust + happiness can somehow be programmed to be locked with the idea of "revolution". So therefore, if you try to wage a lot of war with low trust and low happiness, a revolution might be triggered. During this time, you need your army to be near your cities and not away, waging some war! Revolution spawn enemy units outside your cities that must be dealt with. Also during revolution, things like science, culture, production and gold takes a hit. Trust + happiness + variable army maintenance cost prevents constant war and forces you to focus on building your economy, culture, production, food up first.

Other things can also lead to a "revolution". For instance, if people are unhappy for many consecutive turns (30-40?) or short bursts of many turns, dwindling food output, a "sense" of weakening economy (for many turns (70-100?) etc. Need to flesh this out more properly.

3e. This is where 1 turn=1 year pictures in. You have a lot of time to wage wars, but you can't always be in a persistent state of war all the time. This will also require re-balancing research, production etc in the early years.

4. Diplomacy overhaul: Having foreign army bases and trust + happiness + reason for war, opens up a lot of diplomacy options.
4a. Civs can't just break up friendships etc without incurring a large cost (in gold+happiness+trust etc).
4b. A lot of additional diplomatic options: Pledge to protect carries some weight if you put an army base in the foreign country.
4c. Breaking up treaties etc will cause your "trust rating" to take a nosedive. Immediately declaring war (5-20 turns) after a friend treaty expires also causes trust to take a nosedive, causing it more difficult to incite new wars.
4d. The diplomacy system should take "trust" into account.
4e. The diplomacy routines in the AI should also take into account trade worth. If someone is trading valuable luxury/strategic resources, it would avoid war. More gold should come from "international trade" than from any other form! Waging war on a major trading partner can be disastrous for the economy. The downside of this is that games with fewer players will not be possible or extremely hard.
4f. Declaring war on a civ where you have a foreign base will have huge ramifications. Your global trust will go down and will remain down for 50-75 turns? Of course, a self-sabotage can help you here

5. City spam: This should be prevented by bringing back Civ 4's system of city upkeep. Newer cities require upon other cities to survive (economically and food wise). Creating lots of small cities can cause happiness + food + gold strain on your economy.

6. Better AI: We need better AI to get any of this done!!!! (stating the obvious)

7. I love the idea of "super-civs". That is something akin to European Union. Need some "industrial era" tech or policy to unlock ("New World Order"?)
7a. New victory condition - The Great Union: Create a super-state
7b. 2 or more civs can create a super-state. More civs are able to join after a voting process. Max of 3 (or 4 if lots of players on map) allowed in a super-state.
7c. Super-state capital different from civ's own capital. Gets special bonus to "Defense", and gets a burst in gold production. Extra gold distributed to all civs.
7d. Civs can leave super-state. But can't be hasty about this, because it can have an effect on trust+happiness as well as economical implications.
7e. Different levels in the unions:
Economic unity: Super-state capital generates extra gold, that is shared across other civs in super-state
Border unity: Open borders for all civs
Military unity: Civs operate their own army, but cost is shared by everyone for all things including army bases
7f. Will need to address a lot of imbalance issues: Mainly, a super-state can overwhelm non-super states. Therefore, trust and happiness take bigger hits. Individual civs in super-state need their own "reason for war" (read point 3c) to join the war. Individual civs go to their own wars (the super-state does not need to join). Also, if a war is started alone (without the approval of super-state), during the duration of the war (and 10 turns after it ends), the cost of one's military is shared by one's own-self (even though you might have Military Unity). Reason of war can be expanded to convince both your own council/cabinet/senate and super-state senate.
7g. This idea needs to be fleshed out more....

8. Religion needs to be brought back in some form. Haven't thought a lot about this though.

9. Better UN: Combined with super-states, trust, happiness, the newer diplomacy model, UN can actually be a powerful thing! Haven't thought about this much though, other than somehow going to war with allies.

 

[taha_29]

Forgot to add:

- More hexes on the map. London is only 6 hexes!!! We need way larger maps!!!

 

[taha_29]

9. Larger maps (put in as a reply earlier. Putting this in as a point): We need larger maps. A country like UK should actually be 100-200 hex maps. Asia should be several thousand.

10. Era bonus/loss: Each time you reach a new era, you should get a few bonuses (for that era and a few losses). This applies to everyone. Hence in each age your game play changes slightly.

For example, in the Industrial era, your bonus is "Mass Production". This puts an emphasis on international trade. Having trade pacts with other civs would become the dominant way of generating income during this age (gold production in city is cut by 65%, production increases by 15-25%, trade deals with other civs generate 100% more gold?). Your national trade routes generate 10% more gold

A loss in this era would be "Birth control" (lol?): Your population grows at half the speed. (I just made that up, without thinking about it too much). This also prevents late game expansion="iastic" tendency and also makes the game slightly more realistic, without becoming too boring.

A benefit/loss of the Industrial era could be: Fiat Currency -> Your gold is valued against a de-facto standard. Like happiness in Civ 5, you must keep your gold above the de-facto standard. Hence you must focus a lot on your economy. Your gold is kept above the de-facto standard by focusing on buildings that generate production, gold and maybe even science. This simulates the modern day currency - everything is measured against the dollar.

Each era can have multiple bonuses and losses if need be.

10. The importance of Trade: Trade should be a more integral part of the game. International trade is where most of your gold/income should come from (especially in late game). There should be techs / era bonuses,losses to encourage this. This makes warring with your major trading partner a very big choice (prevents endless backstabbing even in MP).

I know a lot of people will say that these changes/additions will discourage war completely. But to which I will say two things - Civ has never been a war game. It is a strategy game. Secondly, these changes focus more on trying to go to war with allies and not just march in all alone. Domination victory should be victory with allies combined (either through United Nations or through super-civ state), but in the end having the largest economy (just an example).

 

[Gatsby]

1.Global food supply -I like this idea, and it is very similar to an idea I proposed for a national Food Bank for Civ6 (see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=413829)


2. Solve 1UTP and SOD - agreed, this is a top priority for Civ6

2a. Max stack level - I agree with this too

2b. A stack has a defense rating - this sounds alot like an army system in which all units are combined into one group and fight in unison, in which case I like it

2c. A stack should be vulnerable to flanking - agree with the general concept of flanking, but not your particular interpretation of it. I think a flanking machanic in Civ6 should work a lot like the "surround and destroy" mechanic in the Civ4:BTS mod Rise of Mankind - A New Dawn (ROM-AND) i.e. the more tiles/hexes your units occupy surrounding an enemy army's tile, the greater your combat bonus against that army.

2d. Army bases - I think this could still turn out to be game-breaking even with high maintenance costs because it would make city defense overpowered. It should however be possible to give units within cities special defensive bonuses with promotions, tile improvements (e.g. radar towers) and city buildings.

2e. Variable army maintenance cost - I agree that preparing for and waging a war should be expensive and involve genuine tradeoffs. Variable army maintenance costs already exist to some extent in Civ4.

2f. Foreign army bases -I like the idea of occupied forts, especially those outside your own territory, costing gold maintenance because it is realistic and makes it more difficult to maintain an imperial stance in the game

2g. Faster army production - not sure about this, it could have a big impact on game-balance. Galactic Civilizations had an interesting approach in which each 'city' could build one military unit as well as one city improvement at the same time. ROM-AND also had pretty cool innovation called multiple production, in which queuing several units or improvements to be built in a city would cause several units/improvements to be built in one turn if there was enough production overflow from whatever the city was already producing.

3. Trust + happiness - this is basically the same concept as War Weariness, which has been around since at least Civ2. I don't agree that war weariness should last after the war ended, because surely the relief and joy that the war was over would work against unhappiness about the war.

3a. Trust rating - what you call "local trust" is very similar to the stability concept of the Civ4:BTS mods Revolutions and Rhys and Fall of Civilization. Your "global trust" idea is very similar to the reputation mechanic which has been around in some form since at least Civ2.

3b. Self-sabotage - I like this idea, it would add a machiavellian aspect to foreign relations. You should also be able to sabotage another player and make it look like a third player was responsible, as a way to cause a rift or war between your rivals.

3c. Reason for war - not sure what I think about this one either. It is an interesting idea, but I think a decent war weariness mechanic would make it largely redundant. Your idea also seems to be predicated on the idea that leaders must and will always be honest to their people about why they go to war. If you really believe this, then I have some Nigerian Yellowcake to sell you

3d. Trust + happiness can somehow be programmed to be locked with the idea of "revolution" - A great idea, and something similar has already been done for the Revolutions and Rhys and Fall of Civilization mods.

3e. 1 turn=1 year - might work, but there is a good chance it would make the early game very slow and tedious. The availability of different game speeds e.g. marathon kind of already serve this purpose anyway.

4a. Civs can't just break up friendships etc without incurring a large cost - agreed, Civ6 diplomacy should be designed as plausibly as possible

4b. Pledge to protect carries some weight if you put an army base in the foreign country - yes, this is a good idea

4c. Breaking up treaties etc will cause your "trust rating" to take a nosedive - like I said, Civ2 had something similar. The problem with Civ2 was that at the higher levels your reputation didn't really count for much because the AI ganged up on you anyway. How would you prevent this in Civ6?

4d. The diplomacy system should take "trust" into account - it kind of already does (in Civ4 at least), but it might help to make it more explicit. Different leaders should give different weighting to trust/reputation based on their personalities.

4e. The diplomacy routines in the AI should also take into account trade worth - agree with this, but I don't think that trade should always be the dominant source of income for civs.

4f. Declaring war on a civ where you have a foreign base will have huge ramifications - a good idea.

5. City spam - agree with bringing back a Civ4-style city maintenance system, but instead of food dependency new cities should give a stability penalty as well after an empire exceeds a certain size.

6. Better AI - this should go without saying.

7. "Super-civs" e.g. European Union - the EU is still composed of sovereign independent states, they just happen to co-ordinate alot on economic and foreign policy etc. Civ6 should have an expanded array of agreements for Civs to enter into with one another (e.g. research pacts, free trade agreements, intelligence-sharing pacts, pollution reduction treaties) rather than one all-encompassing "union" pact which would reduce diplomatic flexibility.

7a. New victory condition - The Great Union: Create a super-state - and who would get the victory bonus?

7b-7g Super-states - don't agree with this idea, see my response to point 7. Plus your superstate idea sounds like it would be very complex to implement and add relatively little to gameplay. How would the AI treat the super-state mechanic, would they use it as a way to gang up on the human player?

8. Religion needs to be brought back in some form - strongly agree. I have put some thought into it, see the link above.

9. Better UN - needs more detail

9. Larger maps - sounds nice in theory, but there is only so much a personal computer can handle. The larger the map, the more strain it will put on a computer, especially later in games when the map is full of cities and units etc. For really large maps, you would probably need to scale-up unit movement accordingly as well, although this already needs to be done for naval units in particular (e.g. like it was in Rhys and Fall of Civilization)

10. Era bonus/loss - this already happens doesn't it? For example, the advent of railroads, discovering biology increases food output from farms. Imo players should not be given freebies just because; they should have to work for rewards. Your idea sounds like it would force players to play in a certain rigidly-defined way if it were taken too far.

10. The importance of Trade - as stated, I don't agree that trade should be where most of your gold/income should come from, although there should be plenty of scope for commerce/happiness/health/diplomacy benefits to encourage it. Keep in mind that alot of wars are about resource-aquisition as well. Players should be faced with a challenging strategic decision between trading for a resource or going to war for direct control of it. There should also be interesting tradeoffs involved in whether or not to trade with other civs, so that trading resources does become the best possible strategy and therefore limit strategic options for the player.

 

[taha_29]

2c. A stack should be vulnerable to flanking: Agree with your vision. I just laid out my initial thoughts about it. Certainly needs to be improved/balanced

2d. Army bases - I think this could still turn out to be game-breaking even with high maintenance costs because it would make city defense overpowered. It should however be possible to give units within cities special defensive bonuses with promotions, tile improvements (e.g. radar towers) and city buildings.:

This actually leads to the concept that cities cannot be taken over without the aid of siege units and later (even air support?). Prevents early rush and requires careful mix of units for a successful city takedown

In fact I love your ideas of upgrade. Each upgrade should add a defense against a certain category of unit. Laying siege to a city should be that... an actual siege

4c. Breaking up treaties etc will cause your "trust rating" to take a nosedive - like I said, Civ2 had something similar. The problem with Civ2 was that at the higher levels your reputation didn't really count for much because the AI ganged up on you anyway. How would you prevent this in Civ6? Haven't played Civ2 so I don't know what the mechanic was like, however, the AI roughly behaves like it does right now, with the added danger of getting "pissed" based on your trust rating.

7a. New victory condition - The Great Union: Create a super-state - and who would get the victory bonus?
This ties in with your thread. "The game should be about "standing the test of time" rather than winning". This victory condition will be part of the new set of victory conditions (in addition to the old ones). Put it under "cooperative/allied/united victory conditions" - Multiple people "stand the test of time". Every civ also get an additional reward in the end. For instance, in a super-state, the civ with the largest economy is termed an "Economic giant", the largest culture is called the "Culture Bomb" etc

7b-7g Super-states - don't agree with this idea, see my response to point 7. Plus your superstate idea sounds like it would be very complex to implement and add relatively little to gameplay. How would the AI treat the super-state mechanic, would they use it as a way to gang up on the human player? That is an interesting question. This was more for humans only multi-player games. In SP, the AI would pretty much the human up.

 

[taha_29]

I actually had one additional idea that I forgot to put down before:

12. Strategic resource overhaul: Civ 4's mechanic was too forgiving (endless supply). Civ 5 mechanic is too expansion-iastic (expand to acquire more). A middle ground would be this:
12a. Strategic resource as a "maintenance resource": For instance, a swordsman costs 1 iron to maintain (only gold to build). Now, say you have an iron mine that provides a maximum of 2 iron per turn - either use it or loose it.

The way to use it would be to have two swordsman (just an example) and those 2 iron resources would be spent on maintaining them (1 iron for each swordsman). If you have no unit that requires iron to be maintained, that iron is lost (meaning you don't actually accumulate strategic resource. Also gives you a sense of the resources being "perishable/half life" etc). This also means that you cannot build more units than you have the strategic resource to support them. Also, loosing a unit would mean you can build another one of those! Different units will have different maintenance cost (stating the obvious)

If you loose the strategic resource supporting your units, whatever unsupported units you have, will loose combat effectiveness (attack + defense ratings takes a hit) and eventually die (removes the idea of capturing resources, spamming units and then loosing the resource). So for instance:
a. 2 iron mines providing 2 iron resource each (total of 4 iron/turn)
b. You have 4 swordsman (consuming 1 iron each for maintenance)
c. You loose one of the iron mines
d. Now, two of your swordsman (randomly picked, or let the user choose (optional micromanage)) will loose combat effectiveness.
e. You have 4/6/8 turns to re-capture the strategic resource or you will loose the unsupported units.

12b. Expiration time: To add a bit of expansion-ism to the game, all strategic resources should expire after several "eras" or turns. Meaning you can't count on them on being there forever. Certain resources expire faster (like uranium?). Others expire slower (coal?). Certain resources never expire (horses, can't you just breed more of them )?

Side note: Civ 4 was the first Civ game I played and I only played it for a short while before Civ 5 came out. Recently, I find myself going back to Civ 4 (some things in that game are way more realistic and the general feel I get is that I am building an empire. Civ 5 feels like I am playing Panzer General or something).