Problemedical
Chieftain
Hello there! I hope you are all having a great day. Welcome to my first magnum opus of sorts: a compilation of things I would love to see implemented in future Civ games, as well as ideas and things that, from my point of view, would greatly benefit and enrich the game series. The overall goal is to create a monumental historical simulator providing a toolbox of sophisticated instruments to create and live a unique, era-spanning experience of running a sprawling empire, standing complex sociocultural changes and tests of time.
Don't get me wrong, I like the overall direction the Civ 6 has ultimately chosen to move and evolve in. Separate civic tree in particular was a thing both long needed and anticipated. However, it's hard for me to get rid of the feeling that the long evolutionary road of civics/policies mechanics on Civilization series is not only far from its endpoint, but also has led to somewhat underwhelming results in Civ 6. In their current iteration civics feel fun to play, easy to navigate, quite versatile and overall very game-y, but also extremely unimpactful. Your entire internal policy in the game consists of sweeping cards back and forth in search for a dream combination best suited for the nearest 5-10 turns. It makes leading a millenia-spanning civilization feel like a routine card game session. You are not punished for changing civics at the blink of an eye: moreover, your choices don't even matter much, because in a couple of turns there will be no trace of them left. Current system is, for me, suited best (or probably only) for a thematic board or a mobile game. A large-scale complex and immersive civilizations simulator, which I really hope Civ 7 will eventually evolve into, needs something new - a bold step forward with some side swings further on the way.
I envision new civic system consisting of two principally different primary parts: Tenets and Edicts.
Representing your society's core foundations, Tenets would be essentially reimagined permanent Policies from Civ 5, integrated with Old World- and Humankind-inspired features and tied to both cultural progress and specific game eras. Basically, you get a limited (but overall quite large, perhaps 20-30) number of Tenet slots, new slots unlocked every era. Each Tenet can be adopted in three ways: making a certain game choice (think Events and Decisions mod for Civ 5 and Humankind's choices), unlocking it via culture or satisfying a chosen Agenda (more on that later). Tenets can be changed, but at a high cost that increases depending on how many Tenets you have already adopted and how long has this specific Tenet been around in your civ, and you will have to face major drawbacks or even a period of anarchy. In real history, major and drastic sociocultural changes were never easy. Government Types would be integrated into this system as well, with a unique Tenet Slot for them. Another interesting possibility is making some Tenets mutually exclusive and give others synchrony bonuses, walking a razor's edge between overly restricting the player and making the game feel more like a grand story deeply and directly affected and shaped by the player.
Edicts, on the other hand, would be temporary bonuses than could be activated either in a single city or on the empire-wide scale. They would more closely resemble Civ 6 civics in a sense that they give relatively minor bonuses and carry out the function of rapidly adapting your game for current situation, while Tenets are about overall goals and more global things. Some Edicts would be unlocked passively when the player enters a new era, others are tied to specific Tenets or buildings. The number of Edicts that can be activated and the duration of an action of a given Edict would depend on the separate game "resource" (like Orders in Old World), Tenets (especially Government Type) and overall imperial development.
Both Tenets and Edict would comprise a "civic" tree, which I would reorganize into more of a civic "web", divided into parts corresponding to overall spheres of action (warfare, administration, trade, science, religion etc.), and each Tenets, the coexistence of which would be highly illogical in real history, would have the cost of adopting them both at the same time substantially increased as to provide a flexible but still not overall discouraging limitation system to the player.
This is my attempt at tying together Era Score and Golden/Dark Ages from Civ 6 with my proposed new political development mechanic with aim in mind to create a system that allows for unique and complex almost narrative-like game experience. I've always wanted to have the everchanging tapestry of historical epochs in a Civ game, to forge a living and breathing History with a capital H. Unfortunately, Golden Ages do not even come close to this. They have came the closest yet in Civ 6 from. my point of view, I liked Era Score and Dedications mechanics, but overall, same as with civics, I feel like the system started evolving in the right direction but got stuck halfway through.
I imagine the Ages/Eras as a perfect tool for introducing and developing role-playing element in Civ. Each Era should be a vast landscape of opportunities, decisions and changes, not a race for some score points or a section of the tech tree.
At the start of each Era you would receive a number of possible Agendas. Each Agenda is essentially a quest for the player, like a hypertrophied Eureka/Inspiration requirement (, launch an early game war, secure and maintain N alliances etc.) By successfully satisfying an Agenda you would receive certain bonuses, some active only during this Era, like yield bonuses, some permanent, like Tenets. There'd be no reason to have a limit of one Agenda per Era, as with Dedication. For example, in Ancient Era you receive a set of options: Religious (build N shrines and found a religion/pantheon), Military (successfully wage an early war, building N units, killing M units and taking F cities), Expansionist (found N cities in certain terrain or in certain number of turns) and Administrative (build N buildings of certain type, reach M population, train R specialists, enact S edicts) Agendas, with later Eras adding new ones.
Here I see an opportunity for a somewhat revolutionary change in the realm of civilizations' uniques. Instead of giving each civ a rigid and predetermined set of bonuses, you could give them a combination of starting bonus (what yield bonuses, technologies and units civ starts with) and
unique Agendas which reflect their historical path and let you dynamically sculpt the remaining part of civ's uniques in the game process. For example: you are playing as England. You start off playing a generic Anglo-Saxon civ, but in Medieval Era you gain access to a unique Agenda enabling you to found a Kingdom of England, with longbows and feudal wars, in Renaissance Era - another Agenda relative to maritime expansion, colonization and piracy, and in Industrial Era - a third unique Agenda relative to British industrial development. Unique units and infrastructure would be tied to unique Tenets, which in turn you get rewarded with after satisfying the Agenda. The coolest thing about this approach is that you are not compelled to choose a predetermined path. If your England starts amidst plains and grasslands and becomes a proud nomadic nation founded upon horseback, you do not have to aim for England's uniques relative to the seas. Instead you can pursue other Agendas in this Era which better suit your background, playstyle and circumstances while not losing other parts of English uniques package, creating and living a game session-unique English civ experience a-la Crusader Kings 2. Even Alternate Leaders can be easily integrated into this approach: you start your game as Alfred the Great with the possibility to switch to Elizabeth in Renaissance Era, Victoria in Industrial Era and finish up with Winston Churchill in Modern Era.
- Getting rid of districts outside the city seams like a first and foremost step, combined with increasing the overall map scale, making the one-tile city centers wider apart and leaving more place for units and land improvement. No more board game-fitting technicolor urban sprawl from the Classical onward. Instead, you could leave the very concept of districts/quarters the same, but make them virtual, existing only at the city panel to simplify viewing all the buildings.
- Getting rid of Builders seems to be the second. The only function I see them retaining is building Roads, Forts and other infrastructure not linked to a specific city. All tile improvements would be built automatically by citizens working the tiles.
- Reworking the Specialist mechanics. This idea would probably meet some hostility and dislike, but I would make Specialists permanent. Sure, it somewhat implies that your citizens are immortal, but, on the other hand, it's not actually implied in previous games that your city has 20 people when you see a number "20" on the city screen: both are just game's way of representation. A generic base citizen would be converted to a Specialist after spending N turns working a specific tile improvement or building slot (e.g. Farmer after working a Farm for 10 turns). After that you can either plug this Specialist in a corresponding tile or slot for additional bonuses, or instead this Specialist could be made working a different slot with much scarcer results (Farmers wouldn't have an easy time working in a Mine or a Library). A long and costly re-specialization process would naturally be available. Migration systems feels like a natural extension of this new mechanics - if you have an industrial city that pumps out more Worker specialists that you have slots for in this city, unemployed Workers might move in search for a job into the nearest city, and it wouldn't be necessary for this city to be yours. Refugees and war captives could also be represented by this approach.
- The only way I could see city-external Districts from Civ 6 in my hypothetical Civ 7 is in the forms of Villages/Hamlets/Towns and Trade/Military Outposts. With a debuff to wide game style (see later) they would come as a natural way of extending your city's territory by way of "expansion nodes" without mindless city spam. You could be able to place them upon clusters of generic tile improvements (e.g. triangles of Farms for Villages, for example). This "districts" would have citizen slots, which they would need to be filled in order to grow and upgrade. With each upgrade the number of slots would increase, as would the range of Specialists working there (e.g. you would only have Farmer slots in Village, but in Town there would be slots for Merchants, Priests, Workers etc.). I also see a possibility for further town specialization depending on what tile improvements and resources are next to it and what buildings/wonders you build in them, essentially making them "generic districts" of sorts, as well as a town clustering/merging mechanics much later into the game.
Military Outposts/Military Settlements, on the other hand, would work akin to a crossbreed between player-owned Barbarian camps and Civ 6 encampments created by veterans (promoted military units) on the outer edge of your borders with aim to control adjacent territory, extract resources from it and provide support and protection for military units. Later they would evolve into Military Settlements, where you could build buildings like Barracks or Training Grounds and train units (the type of unit trade would be dependent upon which unit founded the settlement: if you have a lot of experienced cavalry, some of those units could found you military settlements, where you would be able to train better cavalry units).
- In Civ 6 the more cities you settle, the easier the game is to win for you (apart from annoying amounts of micromanaging, of course, but even those are not often necessary). In my ideal Civ 7, the more cities you have, the harder it would become to maintain the integrity and stability of your empire. Maintenance (especially of road network) and corruption should scale positively with increased number of cities and distance to your capital, while loyalty and stability, on the other hand, should scale negatively. I am not personally a fan of Civ 5's techs and civics cost scaling, and I don't think this kind of limitation does a good job.
- Governors and Great People should merge together. It would both make perfect sense and be very cool to have your Great Scientist "retire" to become a science-oriented Governor, leading your very first Academy of Sciences. Imagine the variability and flexibility the game with something like 40 possible Governors would have. Of course, it would be hard and resource-demanding to create something like a 3-tier upgrade path for every new "Governor" as in 6, but it is not necessary: 2-3 abilities tops or even one would suffice. In this case you'd have a choice each time you earn a GP: use them up right away for a strong, but temporary (era-long) empire-wide bonus, or make them Governor for a weaker initially, but permanent city-specific bonus. Furthermore, I would love to see new types of Great People: Great Diplomats/Politicians, Great Administrators, Great Physicians, Great Philosophers and the list goes on.
- Another major addition I have long anticipated would be the system of Classes/Strata. From the very start of the game your society would be divided among three classes: warriors, priests and farmers. Later Eras would see changes in societal structure of your civ, reflecting historical phenomena like, for example, rising of polis aristocrasy in Classical Era, feudal class system in Medieval Era or emergence of working class in Industrial Era. Each Class would draw power/influence from the number of respective specialists in your empire, as well as specific Tenets, especially Government Types, Edicts and Agendas. Each Class, if dominant in the societal structure of your civ, would provide you with an array of bonuses to its respective field (various military-related bonuses from Warrior class) as well as inevitable drawbacks (in a society dominated by warriors and zealots science and arts would have a hard time flourishing).
Hope you enjoyed reading this, please feel free to drop any bit of feedback or your own ideas and suggestions. My imperfect English is to be blamed for any lack of clarity in explaining concepts, so feel free to ask questions as well.
Spoiler 1. Civics/policies system overhaul :
Don't get me wrong, I like the overall direction the Civ 6 has ultimately chosen to move and evolve in. Separate civic tree in particular was a thing both long needed and anticipated. However, it's hard for me to get rid of the feeling that the long evolutionary road of civics/policies mechanics on Civilization series is not only far from its endpoint, but also has led to somewhat underwhelming results in Civ 6. In their current iteration civics feel fun to play, easy to navigate, quite versatile and overall very game-y, but also extremely unimpactful. Your entire internal policy in the game consists of sweeping cards back and forth in search for a dream combination best suited for the nearest 5-10 turns. It makes leading a millenia-spanning civilization feel like a routine card game session. You are not punished for changing civics at the blink of an eye: moreover, your choices don't even matter much, because in a couple of turns there will be no trace of them left. Current system is, for me, suited best (or probably only) for a thematic board or a mobile game. A large-scale complex and immersive civilizations simulator, which I really hope Civ 7 will eventually evolve into, needs something new - a bold step forward with some side swings further on the way.
I envision new civic system consisting of two principally different primary parts: Tenets and Edicts.
Representing your society's core foundations, Tenets would be essentially reimagined permanent Policies from Civ 5, integrated with Old World- and Humankind-inspired features and tied to both cultural progress and specific game eras. Basically, you get a limited (but overall quite large, perhaps 20-30) number of Tenet slots, new slots unlocked every era. Each Tenet can be adopted in three ways: making a certain game choice (think Events and Decisions mod for Civ 5 and Humankind's choices), unlocking it via culture or satisfying a chosen Agenda (more on that later). Tenets can be changed, but at a high cost that increases depending on how many Tenets you have already adopted and how long has this specific Tenet been around in your civ, and you will have to face major drawbacks or even a period of anarchy. In real history, major and drastic sociocultural changes were never easy. Government Types would be integrated into this system as well, with a unique Tenet Slot for them. Another interesting possibility is making some Tenets mutually exclusive and give others synchrony bonuses, walking a razor's edge between overly restricting the player and making the game feel more like a grand story deeply and directly affected and shaped by the player.
Edicts, on the other hand, would be temporary bonuses than could be activated either in a single city or on the empire-wide scale. They would more closely resemble Civ 6 civics in a sense that they give relatively minor bonuses and carry out the function of rapidly adapting your game for current situation, while Tenets are about overall goals and more global things. Some Edicts would be unlocked passively when the player enters a new era, others are tied to specific Tenets or buildings. The number of Edicts that can be activated and the duration of an action of a given Edict would depend on the separate game "resource" (like Orders in Old World), Tenets (especially Government Type) and overall imperial development.
Both Tenets and Edict would comprise a "civic" tree, which I would reorganize into more of a civic "web", divided into parts corresponding to overall spheres of action (warfare, administration, trade, science, religion etc.), and each Tenets, the coexistence of which would be highly illogical in real history, would have the cost of adopting them both at the same time substantially increased as to provide a flexible but still not overall discouraging limitation system to the player.
Spoiler 2. Eras, Dedications and Agendas :
This is my attempt at tying together Era Score and Golden/Dark Ages from Civ 6 with my proposed new political development mechanic with aim in mind to create a system that allows for unique and complex almost narrative-like game experience. I've always wanted to have the everchanging tapestry of historical epochs in a Civ game, to forge a living and breathing History with a capital H. Unfortunately, Golden Ages do not even come close to this. They have came the closest yet in Civ 6 from. my point of view, I liked Era Score and Dedications mechanics, but overall, same as with civics, I feel like the system started evolving in the right direction but got stuck halfway through.
I imagine the Ages/Eras as a perfect tool for introducing and developing role-playing element in Civ. Each Era should be a vast landscape of opportunities, decisions and changes, not a race for some score points or a section of the tech tree.
At the start of each Era you would receive a number of possible Agendas. Each Agenda is essentially a quest for the player, like a hypertrophied Eureka/Inspiration requirement (, launch an early game war, secure and maintain N alliances etc.) By successfully satisfying an Agenda you would receive certain bonuses, some active only during this Era, like yield bonuses, some permanent, like Tenets. There'd be no reason to have a limit of one Agenda per Era, as with Dedication. For example, in Ancient Era you receive a set of options: Religious (build N shrines and found a religion/pantheon), Military (successfully wage an early war, building N units, killing M units and taking F cities), Expansionist (found N cities in certain terrain or in certain number of turns) and Administrative (build N buildings of certain type, reach M population, train R specialists, enact S edicts) Agendas, with later Eras adding new ones.
Here I see an opportunity for a somewhat revolutionary change in the realm of civilizations' uniques. Instead of giving each civ a rigid and predetermined set of bonuses, you could give them a combination of starting bonus (what yield bonuses, technologies and units civ starts with) and
unique Agendas which reflect their historical path and let you dynamically sculpt the remaining part of civ's uniques in the game process. For example: you are playing as England. You start off playing a generic Anglo-Saxon civ, but in Medieval Era you gain access to a unique Agenda enabling you to found a Kingdom of England, with longbows and feudal wars, in Renaissance Era - another Agenda relative to maritime expansion, colonization and piracy, and in Industrial Era - a third unique Agenda relative to British industrial development. Unique units and infrastructure would be tied to unique Tenets, which in turn you get rewarded with after satisfying the Agenda. The coolest thing about this approach is that you are not compelled to choose a predetermined path. If your England starts amidst plains and grasslands and becomes a proud nomadic nation founded upon horseback, you do not have to aim for England's uniques relative to the seas. Instead you can pursue other Agendas in this Era which better suit your background, playstyle and circumstances while not losing other parts of English uniques package, creating and living a game session-unique English civ experience a-la Crusader Kings 2. Even Alternate Leaders can be easily integrated into this approach: you start your game as Alfred the Great with the possibility to switch to Elizabeth in Renaissance Era, Victoria in Industrial Era and finish up with Winston Churchill in Modern Era.
Spoiler 3. Cities, Population and Administration :
- Getting rid of districts outside the city seams like a first and foremost step, combined with increasing the overall map scale, making the one-tile city centers wider apart and leaving more place for units and land improvement. No more board game-fitting technicolor urban sprawl from the Classical onward. Instead, you could leave the very concept of districts/quarters the same, but make them virtual, existing only at the city panel to simplify viewing all the buildings.
- Getting rid of Builders seems to be the second. The only function I see them retaining is building Roads, Forts and other infrastructure not linked to a specific city. All tile improvements would be built automatically by citizens working the tiles.
- Reworking the Specialist mechanics. This idea would probably meet some hostility and dislike, but I would make Specialists permanent. Sure, it somewhat implies that your citizens are immortal, but, on the other hand, it's not actually implied in previous games that your city has 20 people when you see a number "20" on the city screen: both are just game's way of representation. A generic base citizen would be converted to a Specialist after spending N turns working a specific tile improvement or building slot (e.g. Farmer after working a Farm for 10 turns). After that you can either plug this Specialist in a corresponding tile or slot for additional bonuses, or instead this Specialist could be made working a different slot with much scarcer results (Farmers wouldn't have an easy time working in a Mine or a Library). A long and costly re-specialization process would naturally be available. Migration systems feels like a natural extension of this new mechanics - if you have an industrial city that pumps out more Worker specialists that you have slots for in this city, unemployed Workers might move in search for a job into the nearest city, and it wouldn't be necessary for this city to be yours. Refugees and war captives could also be represented by this approach.
- The only way I could see city-external Districts from Civ 6 in my hypothetical Civ 7 is in the forms of Villages/Hamlets/Towns and Trade/Military Outposts. With a debuff to wide game style (see later) they would come as a natural way of extending your city's territory by way of "expansion nodes" without mindless city spam. You could be able to place them upon clusters of generic tile improvements (e.g. triangles of Farms for Villages, for example). This "districts" would have citizen slots, which they would need to be filled in order to grow and upgrade. With each upgrade the number of slots would increase, as would the range of Specialists working there (e.g. you would only have Farmer slots in Village, but in Town there would be slots for Merchants, Priests, Workers etc.). I also see a possibility for further town specialization depending on what tile improvements and resources are next to it and what buildings/wonders you build in them, essentially making them "generic districts" of sorts, as well as a town clustering/merging mechanics much later into the game.
Military Outposts/Military Settlements, on the other hand, would work akin to a crossbreed between player-owned Barbarian camps and Civ 6 encampments created by veterans (promoted military units) on the outer edge of your borders with aim to control adjacent territory, extract resources from it and provide support and protection for military units. Later they would evolve into Military Settlements, where you could build buildings like Barracks or Training Grounds and train units (the type of unit trade would be dependent upon which unit founded the settlement: if you have a lot of experienced cavalry, some of those units could found you military settlements, where you would be able to train better cavalry units).
- In Civ 6 the more cities you settle, the easier the game is to win for you (apart from annoying amounts of micromanaging, of course, but even those are not often necessary). In my ideal Civ 7, the more cities you have, the harder it would become to maintain the integrity and stability of your empire. Maintenance (especially of road network) and corruption should scale positively with increased number of cities and distance to your capital, while loyalty and stability, on the other hand, should scale negatively. I am not personally a fan of Civ 5's techs and civics cost scaling, and I don't think this kind of limitation does a good job.
- Governors and Great People should merge together. It would both make perfect sense and be very cool to have your Great Scientist "retire" to become a science-oriented Governor, leading your very first Academy of Sciences. Imagine the variability and flexibility the game with something like 40 possible Governors would have. Of course, it would be hard and resource-demanding to create something like a 3-tier upgrade path for every new "Governor" as in 6, but it is not necessary: 2-3 abilities tops or even one would suffice. In this case you'd have a choice each time you earn a GP: use them up right away for a strong, but temporary (era-long) empire-wide bonus, or make them Governor for a weaker initially, but permanent city-specific bonus. Furthermore, I would love to see new types of Great People: Great Diplomats/Politicians, Great Administrators, Great Physicians, Great Philosophers and the list goes on.
- Another major addition I have long anticipated would be the system of Classes/Strata. From the very start of the game your society would be divided among three classes: warriors, priests and farmers. Later Eras would see changes in societal structure of your civ, reflecting historical phenomena like, for example, rising of polis aristocrasy in Classical Era, feudal class system in Medieval Era or emergence of working class in Industrial Era. Each Class would draw power/influence from the number of respective specialists in your empire, as well as specific Tenets, especially Government Types, Edicts and Agendas. Each Class, if dominant in the societal structure of your civ, would provide you with an array of bonuses to its respective field (various military-related bonuses from Warrior class) as well as inevitable drawbacks (in a society dominated by warriors and zealots science and arts would have a hard time flourishing).
Hope you enjoyed reading this, please feel free to drop any bit of feedback or your own ideas and suggestions. My imperfect English is to be blamed for any lack of clarity in explaining concepts, so feel free to ask questions as well.
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