Ripe for return of sliders?

[jjkrause84]

Watching a few longer gameplay videos it looks like they've done a lot of work to try to balance Gold, Science, Culture and Faith in a way that no Civ has really accomplished before. It make me wonder of the possibilities of reintroducing sliders. I think it would really add substantial depth to the game. You can change how focused you are on any of the four 'resources' based on the short and long-term needs of your nation. You can sort of rush an important tech at the expense of gold or cultural shortcomings in the meantime, or try to off-set deficiencies in your Civ based on poor terrain or other limitations.

I dunno. What do you think?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Sliders would not work as it would remove the importance of the different districts.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It was really terrible mechanics

There were some people trying to reintroduce something like sliders in Civ5 with mods, so we could expect something like this in Civ6.

 

[jjkrause84]

Sliders would not work as it would remove the importance of the different districts.

How so? Surely it would only add a level of granularity. For example: earning extra gold that you don't need, but not producing enough culture? Invest in culture for a while! Makes more sense than endlessly piling up gold you don't even want, right?

It is a really easy and intuitive system that would allow the player lots of little fine-tuning opportunities that may be fun and interesting.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Gold are a resource with many uses not just an upkeep resource that it was in civilization IV.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Also, I must admit, has anybody ever used anything but the Science slider in 4?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Yes but very seldom.

 

[Deggial]

Sliders obsolete careful planning.
As you write yourself: "... earning extra gold that you don't need ..."
Why do you earn more gold than needed anyway? Didn't you plan your cities well enough? Did you skip cultural districts for financial ones and find yourself lacking in culture?

With sliders, it's easy to overcome those fails. If gold is the one universal "currency" that enables all other developments, why bother with those districts at all?

No, getting rid of those crutches was a briliant decision and I don't want them to return.

Beside this, the new government system is very versatile and it should be easy (and interesting) to adopt to your current needs.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

How so? Surely it would only add a level of granularity. For example: earning extra gold that you don't need, but not producing enough culture? Invest in culture for a while! Makes more sense than endlessly piling up gold you don't even want, right?

It is a really easy and intuitive system that would allow the player lots of little fine-tuning opportunities that may be fun and interesting.

The problem is that it's easier to do that than to plan in advance and figure out a way to also produce enough culture. In Civ IV, you could get away with delaying Banks and Marketplaces for a long time by simply running the slider at full gold % for a while if you were strapped for cash. That choice was neither fun nor interesting, but the no-brainer go-to option every single time (like the Civ V National College). The removal of the sliders was a good thing for Civ, without question.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions

 

[Magil]

Gold are a resource with many uses not just an upkeep resource that it was in civilization IV.

Er, I mean... you could bribe city-states with it (which most people don't think was a terribly interesting mechanic)... other than that, I'm having a hard time coming up with things you could do with gold in V that you couldn't do in IV (or III for that matter). Research agreements I guess? That's just paying gold for tech in a more roundabout way though.

For the OP though, I would not expect a return of the slider. Personally I don't think it would be a bad thing, it was a solid, working mechanic, but it was also a little opaque. They're trying different mechanics to fuel science/culture this time. Didn't work in V, but maybe they'll do better this time.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Are we talking about civilization V or VI. In VI you can use gold to get great people and rushbuy both buildings and units. It is also used as a trade currency with other civs.

 

[Magil]

Are we talking about civilization V or VI. In VI you can use gold to get great people and rushbuy both buildings and units. It is also used as a trade currency with other civs.

My mistake, misread the post. In VI, you can use it to sponsor Great People, but that's about the only use for it I've seen that hasn't been in past Civ titles (and the costs seem too high to utilize it for that purpose on any kind of regular basis). I guess buying tiles counts, when comparing to non-V titles.

 

[LDiCesare]

Also, I must admit, has anybody ever used anything but the Science slider in 4?

Quite often.
Culture everythime I went for a cultural victory obviously.
Espionage sometimes too when the neighbours were doing too much of it.
And I sometimes went all gold for 2 or 3 turns in order to be able to trade some techs or upgrade some units before a war.
It allowed a lot of flexibility and gave some sense of power over the game. At the same time, it was set to be at max science by default so you could mostly ignore it if you wanted to, so it was fine.

I'm not sure it would work well in V/VI, because of how yields work.

 

[King Jason]

I'm with Denkt on this one. Also, unit upgrade costs seem absurd right now. To Upgrade from an Archer to Composite, and then to Crossbow in civ5 is about 180 gold on standard speed. To upgrade from an Archer to Crossbow in civ6 is 200 gold on quick speed that we've seen. Horseman to knight was what, 100 gold on standard speed? Chariot to Knight was 190 gold on quick in civ6.

Furthermore, Units and Buildings require maintenance and these costs increase the more advance something is. For example, a Library may cost 1 gold per turn, but a university may cost 2. A warrior may cost 1 gold per turn, but a knight might cost 3.

Then there are the other uses for gold - The purchasing of tiles will be commonplace in this game - a regular part of the strategy utilized to develop and plan your cities since you'll want your districts in very specific spots and can't leave that up to the culture crawl. You can purchase buildings and units as usual and then you can spend gold towards great people which is probably the largest advantage you can acquire with gold. Oh, and of course there are the diplomatic uses.

I don't think gold is going to have any shortage of uses in this one.

(and the costs seem too high to utilize it for that purpose on any kind of regular basis).

High costs are exactly what promote a healthy need for gold as a resource as opposed to the opposite. If you're never generating up the amount needed to upgrade your units then all of your veterans would remain in the stone age.


But that's slightly off topic - Others have already mentioned the main problem is that sliders basically nullify the idea of strategic city planning. If I can spam commercial hubs and use them to invest in science - why wouldn't I? That narrows the path toward an optimal play style by finding the most worth-while yield (science usually), building your infrastructure primarily around that one, and then just use the slider to make up in the other areas as needed.

 

[jjkrause84]

Also, I must admit, has anybody ever used anything but the Science slider in 4?

The problem with Civ 4 was that science was too important, and culture and espionage too unimportant. In a more balanced system (which Civ 6 appears to be) all of a sudden you have to make a choice (i.e. 0% Culture for the entire game wouldn't be an option, whereas it was the default position for Civ 4).

 

[jjkrause84]

Sliders obsolete careful planning.
As you write yourself: "... earning extra gold that you don't need ..."
Why do you earn more gold than needed anyway? Didn't you plan your cities well enough? Did you skip cultural districts for financial ones and find yourself lacking in culture?

With sliders, it's easy to overcome those fails. If gold is the one universal "currency" that enables all other developments, why bother with those districts at all?

No, getting rid of those crutches was a briliant decision and I don't want them to return.

I couldn't disagree more. First off, actually having control of your budget is not a 'crutch'....it is a direct (if at times crude) representation of what government actually do: they make decisions about where to spend limited resources on a regular basis.

Sliders could never overcome inadequate planning or implementation. Instead, they allowed the player to tweak at the margins to suit their needs or desires. They add granularity without adding too much complexity.

At least in Civ 5 I ALWAYS found myself with way more gold than I would ever need by about mid-game. It just piles up after a while and you simply run out of things to spend it on. Giving the player the choice to either run a very tight budget, or to build up a surplus, or to invest in different aspects of the game offer the player a whole bunch of interesting choices that have the potential to change every single time they play the game. It is a nice and easy-to-implement balancing act.....not a 'crutch'.

 

[jjkrause84]

But that's slightly off topic - Others have already mentioned the main problem is that sliders basically nullify the idea of strategic city planning. If I can spam commercial hubs and use them to invest in science - why wouldn't I? That narrows the path toward an optimal play style by finding the most worth-while yield (science usually), building your infrastructure primarily around that one, and then just use the slider to make up in the other areas as needed.

This assumes that Gold > Science (or whatever) is the optimal way to do it, which it doesn't have to be. That sort of exploit can very easily be taken care of in game design and balancing (i.e. by making bulidings and districts crucial for generating sufficient science/culture/faith). You shouldn't be able to fund science or culture or faith exclusively with gold (or even primarily). It is more about asking the player to set priorities on multiple levels at once.

Again, granularity.

 

[Ryika]

Interestingly enough I have been playing around with "sliders" a lot lately as the Beyond Earth Mod that I'm working on has a system that allows players to increase yields at the cost of decreasing other yields.

And I personally think it works rather well in the correct environment, and as long as the amount of Yields you can exchange is somewhat limited, ans they're based on a shared resource that is somewhat limited. I currently use a system where you can give up up to 25% of your growth for extra Energy Income, and up to 25% of your Energy Income for Culture, Science, or Production.

I think the main reason why I think it works in my mod is that it's very much based around the idea of having to balance the different yields. Have much science but not enough production and you will simply unlock stuff that is too expensive to build. The sliders help with that - decrease science a bit, increase production, and you can overcome a medium difference, however, because the "sliders" are limited you cannot overcome bigger problems with them. They also give a feeling of empire control without resulting in huge amounts of micro-management.

With that said though... I actually don't think sliders would really fit the design of Civilization 6. The very idea is to have cities that are extremely specialized and to add specializations into a bigger whole. Having sliders would just delude the role of those specializations.

 

[King Jason]

If the investment of one resource into another isn't overtly meaningful then there's no real reason for it. Buildings and districts are already crucial to generating sufficient yields. What you're suggesting is being able to use those yields and to prop up the others in some fashion. This is either done in a major way or in a minor way. I outlined the problem with doing it in a major way, and you seem to agree.

In terms of augmenting the other yields in a minor way, then I would say this sort of cross-polination between the investments you make in one yield being able to pay off in other yields is already in the game. If you have a civilization strong in science, your empire will gradually increase in it's gold output due to access to new technologies. For example, there's one tech that adds +1gold to all quarries. So Your investment in science is spilling over into your gold. To say nothing of the fact that you might have a commercial hub with a market, but it's science that allows you to get a bank there too.

Conversely, if you have a heavily gold-focused empire, you have the ability to purchase Great people - often times ones that unlock Eureka boosts. So you literally just spent money on research. How is this any different than having a slider that was heavily focused on gold, swap toward a heavy focus in science for a few turns. It's functionally different, but the result is the same.

Even the Culture tree is involved in this process as you have policies that speed up production by 50 to 100%, or policies that reduce the cost of purchasing tiles, upgrading units, or unit maintenance. In these cases, you're essentially turning culture into production and gold.

So unless your asking to be able to allow for major inputs from your science to allow for increases in gold production.. I already see the idea of why you want the slider as existing in the game.