On the topic of City Package and Unpackage

[Leucarum]

One that note, it completely baffles me that the game does not distinguish between cities and towns when it comes to the settlement limit. I'm not fan of the settlement limit in the first place (it feels very "gamey"), but I can see some sort of check on ICS is needed. However, I originally assumed that towns would not really count against this.

I would like to see an approach where towns and cities should be much more different: Towns should only give you basic yields (food, production, resources, maybe a bit of gold, but should overall be gold negative), whereas cities should be your source of specialized yields (science, culture, faith, gold). Towns should be controlled by their maintenance cost, but be needed to supply food and production for your cities. Your cities should be controlled by happiness (i.e. "settlement limit") and corruption.

I'd suspected having cities be 2x the settlement limit? But cities are already constrained enough now I think. I wouldn't want that on top of the increased building costs.

 

[Crashdummy]

The game keeps getting more and more restricting and less and less sandbox. More restrictions and less freedom

I guess i will just have to accept that Civilization isnt a game for me anymore, i dont have fun with the game trying to force me to play in a single way and i read people asking for even more restrictions to a game that already feels suffocating for me

Maybe i am getting old

I wish we could get a "complete freedom" mode where all this nonsense gets deactivated. Or to make Settlement limits and those restrictions to be able to be disabled. No limitson settlements, on buildings, on anything, no resets, not switching, no quests, the only limit is what the enemy allows you to do. The game is a canvas and you can do whatever you want. The old school experience

 

[rocksinmypath]

Mods, is it possible to move the last few posts to a different thread? I really enjoyed the direction this thread was originally headed in, but it’s started to evolve into another discussion about tall vs wide. Thanks!

 

[Skojardu]

Mods, is it possible to move the last few posts to a different thread? I really enjoyed the direction this thread was originally headed in, but it’s started to evolve into another discussion about tall vs wide. Thanks!

That is likely because tall makes unpacking pleasant and manageable, while playing wide, unpacking makes your empire far-flung and unruly. So you could expect a bias in favor of unpacking amongst Tall players, and an antipathy towards unpacking amongst Wide players. Classic Oklahoma situation. Will the farmers and cowboys be friends?

 

[Crashdummy]

Mods, is it possible to move the last few posts to a different thread? I really enjoyed the direction this thread was originally headed in, but it’s started to evolve into another discussion about tall vs wide. Thanks!

My last post was talking about city unpackage too. You used to be able to build as many buildings as you wanted on any given city, your constraint would be your production and if you were using it on buildings, you were not using it on Wonders or units

City unpackage came with even more restrictions to the game

 

[Gorbles]

The old school experience

The old school experience had what, three government types? Religion was (effectively) just a tech?

How old school are we talking here?

I get wanting things that the franchise is moving away from. It happens a lot. But I don't think we'd even really be having this discussion if VII was popular.

Which leads to me what I think is a genuinely interesting question: why are we? This applies to city unpacking, which isn't even new with VII, as much as it does to new things VII attempted.

But again also somewhat off-topic I think. It's just interesting that the only reason this has such traction is because the current entry isn't as much of a popular success.

Does something need to be a popular success to be enjoyable? Did VI have to be popular for me to enjoy Districts and unpacking Cities (also see: Wonders)? I don't think so, no.

 

[Crashdummy]

The old school experience had what, three government types? Religion was (effectively) just a tech?

How old school are we talking here?

I get wanting things that the franchise is moving away from. It happens a lot. But I don't think we'd even really be having this discussion if VII was popular.

Which leads to me what I think is a genuinely interesting question: why are we? This applies to city unpacking, which isn't even new with VII, as much as it does to new things VII attempted.

But again also somewhat off-topic I think. It's just interesting that the only reason this has such traction is because the current entry isn't as much of a popular success.

Does something need to be a popular success to be enjoyable? Did VI have to be popular for me to enjoy Districts and unpacking Cities (also see: Wonders)? I don't think so, no.

VII is not as popular as the previous entries because its a worse game, and because its boring for most people

Not everything needs to be popular, there are niche franchises. But VII is part of a successful and popular franchise, and if an entry of a popular franchise is not popular is because it did a LOT of things wrong

One of those things, in my opinion, is what we are discussing in this topic is to keep adding restrictions to a game that already had too many and to get away even more from the sandbox experience that forged the franchise

Unpacking isnt new, but unpacking in VII is even more restrictive than the unpacking in VI, and less readable, those are mistakes

 

[Gorbles]

One of those things, in my opinion, is what we are discussing in this topic is to keep adding restrictions to a game that already had too many and to get away even more from the sandbox experience that forged the franchise

I don't think the "oldschool experience" would be popular, is my point, even if you could define exactly what that is.

"less restrictions" is not a coherent design goal. Neither is "the sandbox experience that forged the franchise" (because you haven't defined what this experience is, and I'm willing to bet it's a subjective set of likes that not everyone shares).

To take unpacking as an example, beforehand, you shoved anything you wanted into your city tile. Now, you have to think more about placement. Where you see a restriction, I see increased depth. Mechanics have rules. Your "sandbox" experience, to me, suggests that you simply want less mechanics, or simpler mechanics, in your ideal Civ. game.

 

[UWHabs]

I do think the current unpacking is a little restrictive. 2 buildings per tile, only building out from the centre does limit you in ways the series never has before. But I don't necessarily hate being restricted, since it does make you think. The old civ 5 and earlier ways where you can just build everything everywhere gets a little more boring. The fact that I might only have 6 tiles in a city to build on, meaning I'm only getting 12 buildings total, means I have to plan.

Now, I do think there's things that they could improve. I really think in the current context increasing building limits in later eras could make sense. If we have a limit of 2 in antiquity, 3 in exploration, and 4 in modern, first I'd probably want to bring back more building options, but it means you might not have to sprawl out as much. I do wish that you could "decomission" those old ageless warehouse buildings to move them around. I wish that if I have a fully overbuildable tile, that I could replace that with a wonder. And I wish that at least in the modern era, you were not limited to connected urban districts (why can't I build a remote satellite campus for my university?).

 

[Gorbles]

I do think the current unpacking is a little restrictive. 2 buildings per tile, only building out from the centre does limit you in ways the series never has before. But I don't necessarily hate being restricted, since it does make you think. The old civ 5 and earlier ways where you can just build everything everywhere gets a little more boring. The fact that I might only have 6 tiles in a city to build on, meaning I'm only getting 12 buildings total, means I have to plan.

Now, I do think there's things that they could improve. I really think in the current context increasing building limits in later eras could make sense. If we have a limit of 2 in antiquity, 3 in exploration, and 4 in modern, first I'd probably want to bring back more building options, but it means you might not have to sprawl out as much. I do wish that you could "decomission" those old ageless warehouse buildings to move them around. I wish that if I have a fully overbuildable tile, that I could replace that with a wonder. And I wish that at least in the modern era, you were not limited to connected urban districts (why can't I build a remote satellite campus for my university?).

Oh for sure, there are improvements that can be made. I haven't thought too deeply on them, but there have already been some good ideas posted for the devs to at least explore (like increasing building limits - I'd imagine the main constraint there is art, but they've done wilder things in expansions previously).

 

[stealth_nsk]

I do think the current unpacking is a little restrictive. 2 buildings per tile, only building out from the centre does limit you in ways the series never has before. But I don't necessarily hate being restricted, since it does make you think. The old civ 5 and earlier ways where you can just build everything everywhere gets a little more boring. The fact that I might only have 6 tiles in a city to build on, meaning I'm only getting 12 buildings total, means I have to plan.

Now, I do think there's things that they could improve. I really think in the current context increasing building limits in later eras could make sense. If we have a limit of 2 in antiquity, 3 in exploration, and 4 in modern, first I'd probably want to bring back more building options, but it means you might not have to sprawl out as much. I do wish that you could "decomission" those old ageless warehouse buildings to move them around. I wish that if I have a fully overbuildable tile, that I could replace that with a wonder. And I wish that at least in the modern era, you were not limited to connected urban districts (why can't I build a remote satellite campus for my university?).

Restriction of 2 buildings per tile is a combo of visual concept (they look pretty detailed that way) and overbuilding - you actually could build up to 6 buildings at the same location. So:

1. From visual perspective allowing up to 4 buildings would mean those buildings need to be really small like in Civ6. It's possible, but doesn't fit current assets and won't look better.
2. from gameplay perspective, increasing limit doesn't make much sense, because due to overbuilding there's already little reason to grow cities past antiquity. We'd need a lot of new buildings to compensate this and we'll need time to build it which again means completely different game.
3. Also, it would work bad with unique districts.

If we speak about future games, that's generally the choice between Civ6 (specialized districts without overbuilding) and Civ7 (small number of buildings with overbuilding) approaches. There are some variations, like specialized districts could have free slot for additional buildings or there could be options to select in those buildings (like between barracks and stables in Civ6), but those are details.

Not connecting urban buildings is a question.

1. From immersion perspective I'd say in Civ7 terms those remote areas are represented by small towns (I just wish we get the ability to switch tiles between settlements for those small towns to be more manageable).
2. From visual perspective, the idea was to have separate urban and rural areas on the map. I don't think it was really achieved, but the idea was fine.
3. From gameplay perspective it all tied to how adjacencies work, how resources are worked and so on. It's really hard decision to make for a particular game.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Respectfully disagree. I like Antiquity for the exact same reason I liked BERT's early game - there is so much to do, but the actions have meaningful results vs. instabuying everything in a city's production queue (which is lategame V, BE and VI for me). Rising Tide for me really made the early game come alive with the artifact hunt and narrative choices it got you to make.

Exploration and Modern have issues with their design that need polishing (see developer intent to look at Victories and I think Legacy Paths?), and the start of each subsequent Age can feel a bit disorienting for me (a lot of rejigging to support optimal paths for the new Victory types), but that's mainly because I play Antiquity all the time. But I like that it gives me something new to do.

Ya that is the thing. In Civ6, finding a good location for a campus with +4 science is exciting when you only have a few cities, because that might increase your science by a third.

Deciding whether to build that Campus, or maybe a few more warriors because your army is small and vulnerable is a big decision.

Later on in the game when you have a ton of cities you will not even notice the science yield increase and a few more melee units is also negligible.

It just starts to feel like a chore.

 

[Crashdummy]

from gameplay perspective, increasing limit doesn't make much sense, because due to overbuilding there's already little reason to grow cities past antiquity. We'd need a lot of new buildings to compensate this and we'll need time to build it which again means completely different game.

This alone should be a big red alert to realize something is wrong. The fact that there is little reason to grow Cities past Antiquity. Cities dont grow, which break immersion

ABout what is a sandbox experience, i never thought i would have to define sandbox, and i think the fact that people are asking for definitions to basic stuff saus a lot. And yes, restrictions and sandbox are opposite, because the point of a sandbox game is to allow the player to do whatever they want

Having predetermine objetives for example goes against the sandbox concept

In terms of unpacking, the 2 buildings per tile restriction also goes against the sandbox concept, and you can call it depth as much as you want, but the reality is that the player gets less freedom

I dont know if my point is popular or not, i am a boomer after all so maybe it isnt. Current gaming has objetives that are different to what we had back in the day and its ok, its natural for that to happen

 

[stealth_nsk]

This alone should be a big red alert to realize something is wrong. The fact that there is little reason to grow Cities past Antiquity. Cities dont grow, which break immersion

Actually Civ7 does this specifically pretty well. It introduces several additional districts in Modern (like railway station), which causes city spread in modern, while in previous ages city spread is limited and is mostly about reusing the same space.

ABout what is a sandbox experience, i never thought i would have to define sandbox, and i think the fact that people are asking for definitions to basic stuff saus a lot. And yes, restrictions and sandbox are opposite, because the point of a sandbox game is to allow the player to do whatever they want

Having predetermine objetives for example goes against the sandbox concept

All games have predetermined objectives in form of win conditions. And for intermediate objectives, even if the game doesn't have explicit ones, implicit objectives are still there. Even though in Civ6 you don't have legacy paths rewarding your expansion in Antiquity and Exploration, you have to expand to win the game. I honestly don't understand how making those objectives explicit hurts sandbox experience, but yeah, immersion is subjective.

In terms of unpacking, the 2 buildings per tile restriction also goes against the sandbox concept, and you can call it depth as much as you want, but the reality is that the player gets less freedom

This point I don't get at all. How number of buildings per tile limits freedom? Especially considering that unlike Civ6 you could mix and match different buildings within quarter, so Civ7 looks like having much more freedom here?

 

[Krikkit1]

T

This alone should be a big red alert to realize something is wrong. The fact that there is little reason to grow Cities past Antiquity. Cities dont grow, which break immersion

ABout what is a sandbox experience, i never thought i would have to define sandbox, and i think the fact that people are asking for definitions to basic stuff saus a lot. And yes, restrictions and sandbox are opposite, because the point of a sandbox game is to allow the player to do whatever they want

Having predetermine objetives for example goes against the sandbox concept

In terms of unpacking, the 2 buildings per tile restriction also goes against the sandbox concept, and you can call it depth as much as you want, but the reality is that the player gets less freedom

I dont know if my point is popular or not, i am a boomer after all so maybe it isnt. Current gaming has objetives that are different to what we had back in the day and its ok, its natural for that to happen

The player also gets less freedom because you can’t use as many nukes as you would like on turn 1 of Antiquity.
While having cheat codes and scenario builders are important, the core game will have limitations.
Some are needed for the game to be fun.

 

[Crashdummy]

T

The player also gets less freedom because you can’t use as many nukes as you would like on turn 1 of Antiquity.
While having cheat codes and scenario builders are important, the core game will have limitations.
Some are needed for the game to be fun.

You see, but thats a limitation based on gameplay to overcome. You cant throw nukes in Turn 1 in Antiquity not because the game artificially stops you, its because using Nukes is a consequence of an in-game action which is to discover the appropiate technology. But if you invested enough in Science, you could have Nukes while your enemies had Howitzers. That is freedom

Meanwhile, Ages restricting how much Science you can get within a single Age is an artificial restriction that reduces freedom and takes the game away form a sandbox game

You have the perfect difference there

 

[vorlon_mi]

This alone should be a big red alert to realize something is wrong. The fact that there is little reason to grow Cities past Antiquity. Cities dont grow, which break immersion

ABout what is a sandbox experience, i never thought i would have to define sandbox, and i think the fact that people are asking for definitions to basic stuff saus a lot. And yes, restrictions and sandbox are opposite, because the point of a sandbox game is to allow the player to do whatever they want

Having predetermine objetives for example goes against the sandbox concept

In terms of unpacking, the 2 buildings per tile restriction also goes against the sandbox concept, and you can call it depth as much as you want, but the reality is that the player gets less freedom

I dont know if my point is popular or not, i am a boomer after all so maybe it isnt. Current gaming has objetives that are different to what we had back in the day and its ok, its natural for that to happen

I played the most Civ3, for almost 20 years. Most games I won by space ship, with the second-most-frequent VC being domination.
On lower difficulties, yes, they player could "do whatever they want" and win whichever way they want. However, if one wanted to win by single-city-culture (something I have not achieved), one needed to use focused tactics and strategies. Winning by UN vote took planning, not sandboxing. At higher difficulties, one needed to expand rapidly and build a military to fend off the aggressive AI. Peacefully expanding, just doing whatever wanted risks losing the game at levels above Emperor. Yes, you could build (almost) every building in every city. Yes, you could found (and conquer) 50 cities or more.

I played some Civ4 BTS. That game had much more aggressive AI, more likely to become a runaway, even at Prince/Regent difficulty. The sandbox aspect was present -- build as many cities as you want, build cottages or farms -- but one could also tank the economy by expanding too fast.

While both of those games had lots of flexibility, both had mechanics which risked losing the game if you just "did whatever you wanted."

I played a lot less Civ5, because I couldn't build cities or conquer them the way I wanted to. The global happiness mechanic was a buzz kill for me.

I enjoyed Civ6 because I could found and conquer as many cities as I wished. Yes, each city had a bigger tile footprint, but I was free to choose which districts to put down, and how many.
I still prefer winning by spaceship, but Civ6 requires many more turns to get to all of the necessary techs than did Civ3 or Civ4. I could "do whatever I want", build an empire of 20+ cities, but unless I focused on conquering capitals, I wouldn't stumble into a victory. I needed to build the Statue of Liberty, to ensure that an AI didn't snipe the diplo victory.

Unpacking the cities in Civ7 has more constraints on what goes where. I agree that's less sandbox than my trusty ol' Civ3. But I don't have rose-colored glasses for Civ3; I still needed to work to win.

 

[Gorbles]

You see, but thats a limitation based on gameplay to overcome. You cant throw nukes in Turn 1 in Antiquity not because the game artificially stops you, its because using Nukes is a consequence of an in-game action which is to discover the appropiate technology. But if you invested enough in Science, you could have Nukes while your enemies had Howitzers. That is freedom

Meanwhile, Ages restricting how much Science you can get within a single Age is an artificial restriction that reduces freedom and takes the game away form a sandbox game

You have the perfect difference there

Saying tech trees aren't artificial but city unpacking is (apologies if you don't mean this for city unpacking) doesn't mean anything. They're both gameplay systems devised by the developers. If you accept the tech tree as "organic", then why is another gameplay mechanic not?

Could it be because you're so used to tech trees you can't see the fundamental similarities in an intentional pacing mechanic designed to provide strategic depth?

 

[Krikkit1]

You see, but thats a limitation based on gameplay to overcome. You cant throw nukes in Turn 1 in Antiquity not because the game artificially stops you, its because using Nukes is a consequence of an in-game action which is to discover the appropiate technology. But if you invested enough in Science, you could have Nukes while your enemies had Howitzers. That is freedom

Meanwhile, Ages restricting how much Science you can get within a single Age is an artificial restriction that reduces freedom and takes the game away form a sandbox game

You have the perfect difference there

Ages don't restrict how much science you can get... you can research Future techs as much as you want.... being able to research Astronomy is a consequence of the in-game action that advances the age progress to 100%.

All of the restrictions are artificial... some may feel more or less natural to you, some may make it more or less fun for you, but some are necessary or you just have a massive scenario builder.

 

[Crashdummy]

Ages don't restrict how much science you can get... you can research Future techs as much as you want.... being able to research Astronomy is a consequence of the in-game action that advances the age progress to 100%.

All of the restrictions are artificial... some may feel more or less natural to you, some may make it more or less fun for you, but some are necessary or you just have a massive scenario builder.

Ages restrict which techbnologies you can get. I have you an example in the very post you quoted of something you could do before and you cant now that you decided to ignore

No, not all restrictions are artificial. Some are consequences of gameplay. You have to do X to enable Y. Others are artificial, you cannot place more than two buildings per tile. You cant progress your science past Z technology. There is nothing you can do about it, there is no gameplay to work around it. Why you cant do it? Because the Devs decideds to split the game in 3 parts. Its artificial, its not because of gameplay