New Expansion Speculation Thread

[Rup]

Glad wasn't active for the last 2 days.

 

[Human Crouton]

No, @bumpyglint is right. Mvemba's leader ability is completely nonfunctional at the the moment. I tested it myself in a hot seat game yesterday, just to make sure. Since it's the only leader ability that's a trade off, that means it's currently all downside and no upside.

I'm not sure who should be more embarrassed. The devs for allowing it to happen, or the community for not noticing it all this time.

I've pointed it out before, at least once, and asked if anyone ever had the same experience, but nobody responded. It's weird what other tiny aspects of the game people will complain about while allowing major bugs to slide through unnoticed.

I still maintain that Mvemba's ability has been an issue since launch and has never worked. I've never seen it work in my own games, and I've even looked up youtube playthoughs to see if it worked there. I have never seen it work under any of those circumstances. If someone actually has a screen shot of it every working then please share it.

 

[AvianBritish]

something changed on SteamDB 8mins ago but I can't see what that was...

EDIT: Found it! Under History it tells you everything that changes... Turns out that they changed the depot name "LTest" to "Launcher Test"

 

[Kimurae]

If the expansion does include natural disasters; it might start a positive direction for the franchise.

I actually find the other civs especially their agendas and their interuptions to be annoying.

I almost think the main reason the AI is so screwed up is because its an attempt at emulation other players.... in some cases imature 12 year olds that put hissy fits because you built a wonder or got a great person....

But natural disasters.... its not AI, its events that challenge you to overcome them, similar to barbarians. Now imagine if other empires were more like that... obstacles you find on exploration, maybe they might have quests, but otherwise are like large city states whom are more difficult to conquer.

And victories are instead based on timing/threshold x difficulty.

That prob wont get all put into a next expansion, but imagine if Civ VII had no AI, no enemy civs, just events and quests, and challenged you on how efficient you can get based on the hand your dealt?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

If the expansion does include natural disasters; it might start a positive direction for the franchise.

I actually find the other civs especially their agendas and their interuptions to be annoying.

I almost think the main reason the AI is so screwed up is because its an attempt at emulation other players.... in some cases imature 12 year olds that put hissy fits because you built a wonder or got a great person....

But natural disasters.... its not AI, its events that challenge you to overcome them, similar to barbarians. Now imagine if other empires were more like that... obstacles you find on exploration, maybe they might have quests, but otherwise are like large city states whom are more difficult to conquer.

And victories are instead based on timing/threshold x difficulty.

That prob wont get all put into a next expansion, but imagine if Civ VII had no AI, no enemy civs, just events and quests, and challenged you on how efficient you can get based on the hand your dealt?

That doesn't sound a whole lot like a Civ game . . .

 

[Iberian]

If the expansion does include natural disasters; it might start a positive direction for the franchise.

I actually find the other civs especially their agendas and their interuptions to be annoying.

I almost think the main reason the AI is so screwed up is because its an attempt at emulation other players.... in some cases imature 12 year olds that put hissy fits because you built a wonder or got a great person....

But natural disasters.... its not AI, its events that challenge you to overcome them, similar to barbarians. Now imagine if other empires were more like that... obstacles you find on exploration, maybe they might have quests, but otherwise are like large city states whom are more difficult to conquer.

And victories are instead based on timing/threshold x difficulty.

That prob wont get all put into a next expansion, but imagine if Civ VII had no AI, no enemy civs, just events and quests, and challenged you on how efficient you can get based on the hand your dealt?

Sid Meier himself decided against putting in natural disasters and in general any negative consequences outside the control of the player. As a game designer his stance is that this mechanism doesn't create a good experience for the player.

I think he is right.

 

[Cerilis]

Sid Meier himself decided against putting in natural disasters and in general any negative consequences outside the control of the player. As a game designer his stance is that this mechanism doesn't create a good experience for the player.

I think he is right.

I largely agree, that's why I'd favour natural disasters that aren't totally random, but a consequence of your doing. Although that's maybe tricky to do. That settling near a volcano might make you vulnerable to eruptions, or settling in a marshland might get your city flooded is obvious. But what about more general places? Would settling a city on a coast already warrant it being hit by hurricanes? Maybe it requires to introduce different kind of coasts? What about earthquakes, do we need more defined continent borders for that? etc etc ...
(Manmade) global warming totally shines in that regard btw. More heavy industry and more chopping = more global warming.

 

[WillowBrook]

something changed on SteamDB 8mins ago but I can't see what that was...

EDIT: Found it! Under History it tells you everything that changes... Turns out that they changed the depot name "LTest" to "Launcher Test"

Welcome to the steamdb stalker club.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I bet it tests the launcher.

 

[row2infinity]

Sid Meier himself decided against putting in natural disasters and in general any negative consequences outside the control of the player. As a game designer his stance is that this mechanism doesn't create a good experience for the player.

I think he is right.

I'm kind of surprised by this. The events in 4 were probably my favorite part of that edition. Especially the choices you had to make as a direct result of the disaster in that little window that would pop up. It was so interesting to me to have those little extra stories.

 

[Disgustipated]

Civ 3's consequences for volcanos were a bit rough, I wouldn't want a return of that. But I'm okay with natural disasters. And it doesn't have to be damage to a city, perhaps a volcano will destroy the buildings in your campus or holy site next to those mountains. That sounds fair.

As mentioned higher up, we need a counterbalance. There needs to be massive crop yields for a plentiful harvest. An asteroid that can maybe provide raw materials or increase science output. Those are just examples, it doesn't have to be exactly that. Perhaps some mechanism to ensure the good events balance out the bad events. Otherwise people will complain about getting screwed over by RNG.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I bet it tests the launcher.

That explains why the launch configuration launches Launch Pad instead of civ. Still haven't figured out what Launch Pad does.

 

[Weraptor]

Could it be the modding tools?

 

[Gedemon]

Modding is another fun tangent. Personally, as a games modder of some history myself, I'd actually encourage people to push the actual tools to their limits. I get that it's tempting to ask for the thing that will grant you as much control as possible, but likewise, if you're not using the tools that are already out there, Firaxis aren't going to see the usage metrics that make them go "hey, we can use this customer base as argument for more time on tools". The DLL situation in 6 is already going to be different to 5 (with additional licensed stuff built in and so forth). It's only going to get more complicated in terms of providing modding support that isn't through the sanitised, official-tools channels.

To tie this back to expansion wishes (I will ramble endlessly about modding hypotheticals if allowed), it'd be a good work-for-reward thing for their social media to maybe highlight the work of prominent modders. Show what can be done with the current tools.

You're right, there is a lot that we can do without the source code, much more than what's most people think.

There are not many, but you can find some mod here or on steam that does a few interesting things out of the box with what we have.

And well, I've got this project of mine... Yes, I think I could code new features in Lua for for a few months, maybe even one/two years before reaching the point where everything I could do without the DLL access is done. But in the end I will need it.

Diplomacy. Units control (counter-fire, first strike...). Limited stacking. And teaching the new mechanisms to the AI of course (let just say that air combat is a new mechanism too, shall we ?)

IMO, your point goes both way, there was a lot of modders at the beginning of civ5 era that refused to move from civ4 because of the absence on the source code on civ5. Some have said that its late release could have been one of the reason for the quasi-absence of total conversion/overhaul for civ5. And then Firaxis can come and say: "look, you don't need the source, there is no-one left to use it"

And that's true, the longer they wait, the less we'll be left.

I mean who's going to start to invest the time required for a total conversion not knowing if he will be able to finish it. Ok, I'm one fool. But who else ?

If the expansion does include natural disasters; it might start a positive direction for the franchise.

I actually find the other civs especially their agendas and their interuptions to be annoying.

I almost think the main reason the AI is so screwed up is because its an attempt at emulation other players.... in some cases imature 12 year olds that put hissy fits because you built a wonder or got a great person....

But natural disasters.... its not AI, its events that challenge you to overcome them, similar to barbarians. Now imagine if other empires were more like that... obstacles you find on exploration, maybe they might have quests, but otherwise are like large city states whom are more difficult to conquer.

And victories are instead based on timing/threshold x difficulty.

That prob wont get all put into a next expansion, but imagine if Civ VII had no AI, no enemy civs, just events and quests, and challenged you on how efficient you can get based on the hand your dealt?

That's a U-turn, one I'm pondering since some time.

Not sure it fits the serie, but a spin-off à la Colonization, maybe.

Or a mod

But yes, back in the day I'm afraid I was in the bandwagon asking Firaxis to "make an AI that should try to win the game". Of course we should have been more careful of what we've wished for, but who would have thought that they had understood "make an AI that should try to win the game pretending he was the average player on the internet". I suppose we should be grateful that the civ5/6 AI doesn't rage-quit, but I think it's its only quality.

Sid Meier himself decided against putting in natural disasters and in general any negative consequences outside the control of the player. As a game designer his stance is that this mechanism doesn't create a good experience for the player.

I think he is right.

I disagree, natural disasters could be the negative consequence of a choice ("ho, look, the soil seems fertile near this steaming mountain. And we've got hot water nearby too, perfect spot for the winters to come"), and still fit that prudent game's designer stance.

And yet we need challenge, everything shouldn't be under control, what's important is to provide a way to counter and get a benefice from any event, if you can overcome it.

 

[Xur]

Sid Meier himself decided against putting in natural disasters and in general any negative consequences outside the control of the player. As a game designer his stance is that this mechanism doesn't create a good experience for the player.

I think he is right.

Some of the best games punishes you harder than any wife you'll ever find. Rimworld, CK2, xcom (their own ffs), FTL... a cookie-cutter game that doesn't punish you is boring and repetative.

 

[BTSeven7]

I don’t see how natural disasters are ever going to be a compelling addition. The whole game from the bottom up is designed to have almost no randomness outside of the original map roll. It will take 3 days for this board to figure out how to avoid natural disasters with one strategy and then they are useless.

It would make more sense to me if they continued down the path of playing the map. Loyalty is really another addition to the map and how you play it and that makes sense. Certain tiles have a negative factor associated with them and you incorporate that in the strategy. Natural disaster could be similar I guess and instead of -24 your city will easily flip unless you strategize a way to stop it, you get -24 that your city will flood or become lava flow unless you strategize to stop it.

Again doesn’t sound very compelling. Then again I really don’t understand the choice to add governors. Or at least so many wildly ineffective ones and one super one to build pyramids and the oracle.

 

[Myomoto]

Disasters could have initially negative effects, that eventually become positive, by following a little series of 'mini-quests' as was in Beyond Earth. I really liked the little events that would pop up and ask you to build a certain building or unit, to get a certain outcome.

Adding diasters could help shake up the game a bit. I feel like the emergency system was intended for this, but honestly it has been a total failure. Rarely will the AI ever participate in the emergencies, and even when they do, they will fail spectacularly.

I'm also really hoping for a return of the world congress and ideaologies from V. The late-game badly needs something to affect the status quo, otherwise the game will always just feel like it's over when you start snowballing in the mid-game, and you just keep hitting next turn until you win.

 

[Cerilis]

Disasters could have initially negative effects, that eventually become positive, by following a little series of 'mini-quests' as was in Beyond Earth. I really liked the little events that would pop up and ask you to build a certain building or unit, to get a certain outcome.

Adding diasters could help shake up the game a bit. I feel like the emergency system was intended for this, but honestly it has been a total failure. Rarely will the AI ever participate in the emergencies, and even when they do, they will fail spectacularly.

I'm also really hoping for a return of the world congress and ideaologies from V. The late-game badly needs something to affect the status quo, otherwise the game will always just feel like it's over when you start snowballing in the mid-game, and you just keep hitting next turn until you win.

Heh, Beyond-Earth style events. I havent even thought about that. ^^" (No building quests though pls)

 

[Xur]

Firaxis have the emergency system from RF, so if they'd use that for disasters then there's actual choice and gameplay from all players. It would no longer matter that disasters are all negative - other civs could donate builders or gold to help the inflicted player, and in return maybe get lowered warmongering penalty with all other civs.

 

[WillowBrook]

Meanwhile, in "real" news, the smoke branch has been updated for the first time since October 8. Also, various changes were made to launch configurations unrelated to ltest.