One thing for the job of two

[Jonathan]

@nzcamel you should appreciate that nz was the first country to give women the vote and therefore a real democracy... The first ever.

Times change, attitudes change, and people themselves change. Electorates have gradually become a higher proportion of the population, and it wasn't just a case of adding women: there were also limitations on voting rights for men, which have since been relaxed.

At some time in the future, someone may be commenting that xxx was the first country to give children the vote and therefore the first-ever real democracy. Currently we don't even think of giving children the vote. But there must be at least some children who are more intelligent and better informed than some adults. Mind you, I suppose a line probably has to be drawn somewhere. It's hard to imagine babies voting, unless something transformational happens to babies.

 

[nzcamel]

Times change, attitudes change, and people themselves change. Electorates have gradually become a higher proportion of the population, and it wasn't just a case of adding women: there were also limitations on voting rights for men, which have since been relaxed.

At some time in the future, someone may be commenting that xxx was the first country to give children the vote and therefore the first-ever real democracy. Currently we don't even think of giving children the vote. But there must be at least some children who are more intelligent and better informed than some adults. Mind you, I suppose a line probably has to be drawn somewhere. It's hard to imagine babies voting, unless something transformational happens to babies.

Indeed there is pressure in the West from some in the left wing to lower the voting age to 16 (in countries where 18 is the voting age...which is most of them). If 16, why not 14? Personally I'd sooner see it rise to 20 before it dropped to 16! But yeah...who knows.

 

[Robo-Star]

Lol. Have you heard the term "liberal arts"? That is conceptual thought in universities!

Precisely.
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[nzcamel]

Precisely.
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So universities should contribute culture in game?

 

[Robo-Star]

So universities should contribute culture in game?

Like in Civ4?

 

[nzcamel]

If you like.
That universities contribute to conceptual thought does not undermine to seperate research trees regardless.

 

[Robo-Star]

That universities contribute to conceptual thought does not undermine to seperate research trees regardless.

More one-and-a-half than two...centers of learning (libraries, universities, monastaries, population) producing a single "education" yield that contributes to the tech tree, with each tech requiring less education if certain "inspired" prerequisites are met...

 

[nzcamel]

More one-and-a-half than two...centers of learning (libraries, universities, monastaries, population) producing a single "education" yield that contributes to the tech tree, with each tech requiring less education if certain "inspired" prerequisites are met...

Yet I get that the single strand of education made science too important. The split works well for allowing a more competitive game.

 

[need my speed]

So universities should contribute culture in game?

Yes, and libraries too. Civilization IV captures this almost perfectly; I'd argue markets and harbours should also contribute to culture. Not laboratories, nor banks, nor drydocks, though, to name some other related buildings.

Science is 'hard science'; physics, chemistry, and so forth. Culture is 'soft science' - management theories, social science, such things - as well as the exchange of ideas, views, rites, practices, and so forth. Government, therefore, is a cultural thing, and not a scientific thing, in Civilization games.

As for democracy - perhaps the Netherlands?

 

[nzcamel]

Yes, and libraries too. Civilization IV captures this almost perfectly; I'd argue markets and harbours should also contribute to culture. Not laboratories, nor banks, nor drydocks, though, to name some other related buildings.

Science is 'hard science'; physics, chemistry, and so forth. Culture is 'soft science' - management theories, social science, such things - as well as the exchange of ideas, views, rites, practices, and so forth. Government, therefore, is a cultural thing, and not a scientific thing, in Civilization games.

Agreed.

As for democracy - perhaps the Netherlands?

Give us some examples of at least a notable portion of the population getting a vote.

 

[DocRock]

One of my main issues with the Civic system is that it seems to run out of ideas after midgame. It barely matters what you choose at the end, you will never use thise cards anyway. In 5, the best things (Rationalism and Ideologies) were something to look forward to. Or you could crazy with stuff like Honor - Commerce - Autocracy and leave the railroad trail.

TBH the whole civic tree is pretty boring and useless after you hit your final form of government.

 

[nzcamel]

I think both late research trees could do with some work.

 

[callan]

you should appreciate that nz was the first country to give women the vote and therefore a real democracy... The first ever.

I say that because a democracy is a majority rule.... As females often live longer than men and are not so decimated in war they are typically at least half if not the majority.

I do think I should qualify this by pointing out that Ireland has had full enfranchisement since the foundation of the Free State (1922) and later guaranteed in our Constitution. We would certainly have gotten there sooner it's just we didn't get to have a country until we rid ourselves of our, shall we say, legacy colonialisation issues. Indeed we had been trying to declare an egalitarian Republic since at least the Rebellion of 1798, which would have put us the best part of a century ahead of the Kiwis! To be fair I can't be certain that would have included female emancipation but the very latest date I would set would be the Fenian Rising of 1867 as the emancipation of both sexes was a founding pillar of the Fenian Brotherhood.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

For me what it comes down to is that for all its fancy features this game is relatively simple. Once you understand how and why to expand aggressively in the early game you win through brute strength on Deity. That takes away a lot of the incentive to explore the game mechanics, and takes a lot of the fun out of finding innovative ways to use them. Ultimately very few of the decisions feel important because victory is assured. @Victoria personally I really want it to be just the ai and game balance. I'm sore about a few creative decisions, and I'm not a 100% convinced of some of the game mechanics but if I blame that I'll lose interest in the game. As it is I'm holding out hope that the problem can be fixed with more patches and/or mods. It's hard to keep an open mind about all the new ideas when the game itself is fundamentally lacking. You have a valid point about Civ V's civic tree through; you had to commit to them which made them very important decisions. In the current game if you find that you chose the wrong policy it's not a problem because you'll get a chance to change it in a few turns. I'm on the fence though because the flexibility of the new system does add to the game even though something is lost. That's the kind of thing I don't want to be critical of yet because it would be easy to blame a good (but different) mechanic for a bad gaming experience. One way or the other I've been playing less.

 

[Formica]

Been a long time since I posted here, but I feel compelled on this topic.

I think making Civics another tech tree and the Card mechanism is possibly the single best innovation in Civ 6. Just my opinion and I'm not saying anyone else is wrong. But for me it's one of the changes they made that have me continuing to play despite the unpatched problems. I do agree with some of the folks here saying that some of the latter cards seem less useful, but at the same time I get the sense that's just because some of the remaining balance issues make them less attractive. Or perhaps they're more useful for victory conditions I haven't tried yet/aren't attractive due to bugs and balance. Once the AI is brought up to a good, playable state, and some tweaks are made to some of the later cards, I think it'll go from "good but needs fixing" to "great".

I feel like Civ 6 was rushed just as 5 was to make the ship date, but that this time they concentrated on getting all the systems they wanted in place and triaged the AI to get it out the door. With 5 they seem to have triaged religion and cultural victory to make ship and pushed those out to the first expansion. I personally am waiting for the following AI improvements:

1. AI capable of fighting wars aggressively and not so easily manipulated/baited
2. Fix/remove the AI gets a pile of gold if bankrupted phenomenon (this feels like a triage measure to make the ship date in particular)
3. Balance AI missionary spam/generally balance religious combat
4. Add more info to the interface and generally make the UI more useful (or a mod akin to Civ 4's Basic Unchanged Gameplay mod)

Fix those things and the game gets eminently more playable, and more complete in vanilla than 5 was by a long shot. With the Civ series being one of the few remaining types of games that have single player as a focus, it's really a shame the AI wasn't prioritized more to make the ship date. Despite this, I think 6 is a great game, and with some fixes and tweaks I think for me it'll eclipse 4 as the best title in the series. I have 3000+ hours in 5 (Steam says 4606 but I'm guessing a third of that is idle time) and I think I'll hit that in 6 as well so long as Firaxis gets a good couple patches in soon.

But again, that's just my opinion. Okay, back to lurking for a few years... (or maybe not!)

 

[Victoria]

To me the cards are great, its the mechanic of getting them I am saying is a repetition that doubles the tasks you were doing in a science tree in civ V.

 

[Acken]

I think the main issue is that the civics unlocked in the civic tree are not exciting enough. There are only a few you care about and they are mostly passive bonuses.

That problem also exists in the tech tree though.

While I like the gov system, I felt more excited by finishing a policy tree in civ5 (until you always finished the same ones I guess).

I think some of it also has to do with how the game is too easy right now making a lot of things underwhelming compared to completely out of balance options.

 

[Disgustipated]

People finding later cards less useful? How?

Some of the later cards are extremely powerful. My main problem is sometimes changing policies crashes my game, and I end up using older ones. Especially if you are going for a cultural victory I aim for Social Media. There are a couple other polices good for cultural victory as well.

 

[need my speed]

Give us some examples of at least a notable portion of the population getting a vote.

Fair enough. Other examples I would have tossed out would be the Roman Republic, the Scandinavian Things (or whatever their name would be in various countries), the councils / consuls of northern Italy (that, admittedly, only lasted very shortly), Poland-Lithuania, and England.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I agree w OP. There are other things I dislike about VI that are higher on the list of why I stopped playing it, but if those were fixed and I got to 200 odd hours, I imagine I would be quitting for the civics mess

V's policy trees were incredibly flawed (every version of the game just shifted the "best" tree from one to another without adding balance). But evaluated strictly in terms of "making you care about the game," they got an A.

Two best things about V trees were: 1: Burying the largest happiness bonuses behind pre-requisits made culture really sexy. The pyramid system in BNW ideologies was a more varied analogue of the same thoughtful investment, so it was good, but flawed (it felt stupid to choose between several weak Tier 1s). And, 2: You were a-la-carte defining your civ as the game went on, adding your own chosen "uniques." Even though you had little control and no way to go back on base policies, the permanence did a better job of making policies feel like the leader's will imprinting on his or her citizens.

Now swapping policies and governments doesn't define my civilization, it just defines my next few turns' build order, ugh.

Anyway I thing, and suggested over in Ideas, that the solution should just be a stupid blend of both things.

VI doesn't need more complicated mechanics in it right now. I am in favor of doing things the simplest way:

1 Civics are not earned by culture. The current concept bubbles are unlocked en masse by tech progress. Buy a concept bubble by spending a Great Politician. Great Politicians can be bought at any time with half the next GP cost for any type of great person except prophet. Now you have unlocked your concept bubble and the cards are available just exactly like the current system. So "Civics" is totally divorced from culture. (Obviously, initial Politicians should only cost about 20 of any gp type before the cost goes up to match regular GP x .5. Obviously, we should have some type of GP point generating civic available for free at the beginning of our chiefdom. Bla bla bla)

The nice thing is you can choose to ignore politicians and leave a lot of bubbles un-used, the next era's will still all unlock later. So the micro only comes after you invest in it, it is not free. That makes it more rewarding and not like "why don't you just give me these bonuses by default if they are so easy to get and swap."

2 Culture goes to policies. As a placeholder, even the BE free-for-all trees (no tech unlocks) can be put in at first. The good policies are geared toward global production bonuses, global amenity bonuses, and global percentages to this and that, to make them meaningful.