Should there be magic/mythology in the next game?

[Caesar of Bread]

I personally believe there should be a mode in the next game that involves magic. This may be due to me playing too much D&D, but whatever. Magic and/or mythology should be added as a mode for Civilization.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they made a whole Civ mythology spin-off game, and leave the traditional historical parts for the main series.
But in all honestly, I also enjoy the Secret Societies and Heroes and Legends modes too in the game so if it was optional, I guess I wouldn't mind. I don't think they should go more magical than that, personally.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they made a whole Civ mythology spin-off game, and leave the traditional historical parts for the main series.
But in all honestly, I also enjoy the Secret Societies and Heroes and Legends modes too in the game so if it was optional, I guess I wouldn't mind. I don't think they should go more magical than that, personally.

Yeah I agree with you on that part. If there is magic it should be optional.

 

[Xandinho]

In the main game, definitely not. It's horrible enough to have things like Bermuda Triangle and Fountain of Youth, at least they can be disabled. In game modes they wouldn't bother me as much, although they are still resources that could be invested in more historically appropriate things. I haven't played any of the game modes that have fantasy.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

In the main game, definitely not. It's horrible enough to have things like Bermuda Triangle and Fountain of Youth, at least they can be disable

I'm surprised you didn't mention the most unnatural wonder in the game Paititi? I mean it's a mythological "city."

At least the Fountain of Youth exists as Lake Okeechobee in Florida.

 

[pokiehl]

I think the current level of fancifulness is good. I like the Fountain of Youth, Paititi, Bermuda Triangle...I didn't have a problem with the equivalent wonders in Civ 5 either.

 

[Xandinho]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the most unnatural wonder in the game Paititi? I mean it's a mythological "city."

At least the Fountain of Youth exists as Lake Okeechobee in Florida.

I forgot about Paititi. I think adding Neolithic ruins as natural wonders, such as Göbekli Tepe, would be way more interesting than mythological cities. I think Paititi and Fountain of Youth would be quite interesting for a scenario though, and I would definitely play it, but in the main game they break the immersion.

 

[Krajzen]

1) Make few in - game nods to some mysterious legendary stuff
2) Leave fantasy civ to spin-offs or very open modding, I'd totally play "civilization: sword and magic" or whatever, just keep it out the main civ, I don't even want it as optional scenarios as they'd take too much dev time and resources from the main game
3) In fact, the less lame future eras in civ games the better, make them end canonically no later than 2050 AD ('fifteen minutes in the future') and don't make us spend a lot of time in generic vague sci fi which erases all individuality from all historical cultures and turns them all into "blue skyscrapers, IT hacker, eco green, corporate suit, bland mech soldiers guys"

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

3) In fact, the less lame future eras in civ games the better, make them end canonically no later than 2050 AD ('fifteen minutes in the future') and don't make us spend a lot of time in generic vague sci fi which erases all individuality from all historical cultures and turns them all into "blue skyscrapers, IT hacker, eco green, corporate suit, bland mech soldiers guys"

I guess that brings up another interesting topic in the form of sci-fi elements. I'd much rather more magical/mythological elements in a game than sci-fi. I was ok with how Civ 6 implemented it at least, limiting units to just the GDR and future cities, but I'd rather it not go any further than that.

 

[pineappledan]

3) In fact, the less lame future eras in civ games the better, make them end canonically no later than 2050 AD ('fifteen minutes in the future') and don't make us spend a lot of time in generic vague sci fi which erases all individuality from all historical cultures and turns them all into "blue skyscrapers, IT hacker, eco green, corporate suit, bland mech soldiers guys"

Even by 2050, it seems like combat will have transformed into something completely different. We haven't seen a total war scenario since WW2, but from what we can glean from the most recent wars in Yemen, Afghanistan, Nagorna-Karabakh and Ukraine:

• Even when using 40+ year-old military equipment, the use of satellite-based communications and GPS has completely changed the roll of artillery. Troops can basically instant message scattered artillery positions kilometers apart to converge on a single target with pinpoint accurate shelling in minutes. This speed and responsiveness makes artillery batteries obsolete, and they can be used like air strikes without presenting a big expensive target like a plane for the enemy to shoot down.
• Alternatively, drones can be used to paint targets for artillery at huge distances for very little risk or cost.
• We've had 5 lbs loitering munitions in the field for 10 years. These are capable of delivering a small explosive charge via remote-control, launchable by throwing from anywhere. This is equivalent to allowing an infantryman to throw a grenade 10 kilometers, making a single soldier capable of covering a huge area.
• We now know that man-portable anti-tank weapons are so good and cost-effective that tanks are at a disadvantage, and might go obsolete in the near future if something doesn't change fast.
• It's been firmly established since WWII, but it bears repeating that strategic bombing Does. Not. Work. While air superiority is still valuable, allowing one side to deliver precision strikes basically anywhere in a warzone, we've seen over and over how this does not break morale, and it does not provide a decisive edge in an asymmetric war. We have now seen the most powerful air force on the planet lose two wars despite this advantage.

Off the top of my head, In the last 10 years we have seen the development of:

• Quadcopter drone swarms for light show displays. I wonder what the military might do with thousands of coordinated swarms? (((we can all guess)))
• military applications for jetpacks
• Robot dogs with machine guns
• Laser guns for anti-air defense on ships
• A laundry list of other directed energy weapons, including the first combat deployment of them in 2019
• China, India, and the US all have ongoing railgun programs, with the US doing tests since at least 1994
• The world's first commercially available Gauss rifle (though it's not actually that dangerous)
• $35 billion dropped into an electronic warfare and drone platform masquerading as a fighter.

3 decades is a lot of time for these already invented, already weaponized technologies to get slightly better, and those are the ones we know about. It's hard to know what's even sci-fi anymore.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Robot dogs with machine guns

The question is can you pet it? If so, that might be a reasonable recon line upgrade.

 

[pineappledan]

The question is can you pet it? If so, that might be a reasonable recon line upgrade.

jetpack jumpers that can paradrop from anywhere would be my final stage for the recon line. robot dogs with guns seems like the precursor for the GDR, which will replace those hopelessly obsolete tanks.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

jetpack jumpers that can paradrop from anywhere would be my final stage for the recon line. robot dogs with guns seems like the precursor for the GDR, which will replace those hopelessly obsolete tanks.

I was actually joking. I personally don't care to see these units anytime soon, or a Future era again anyway. I'm actually more partial to a potential nomadic era before the Ancient. Maybe in Civ 8?

But yeah Spec Ops with jetpacks would make the most sense. Then again, they could also have a robodog companion.

 

[Patine]

But yeah Spec Ops with jetpacks would make the most sense. Then again, they could also have a robodog companion.

Sounds like the premise for a Saturday Moring Cartoon from the '80's.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Sounds like the premise for a Saturday Moring Cartoon from the '80's.

Or the 60's. Close enough to the Jetsons.

Learning a Saturday Morning Cartoon civic could be the Eureka towards the technology to unlock the unit.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

• Even when using 40+ year-old military equipment, the use of satellite-based communications and GPS has completely changed the roll of artillery. Troops can basically instant message scattered artillery positions kilometers apart to converge on a single target with pinpoint accurate shelling in minutes. This speed and responsiveness makes artillery batteries obsolete, and they can be used like air strikes without presenting a big expensive target like a plane for the enemy to shoot down.
• Alternatively, drones can be used to paint targets for artillery at huge distances for very little risk or cost.
• We've had 5 lbs loitering munitions in the field for 10 years. These are capable of delivering a small explosive charge via remote-control, launchable by throwing from anywhere. This is equivalent to allowing an infantryman to throw a grenade 10 kilometers, making a single soldier capable of covering a huge area.
• We now know that man-portable anti-tank weapons are so good and cost-effective that tanks are at a disadvantage, and might go obsolete in the near future if something doesn't change fast.
• It's been firmly established since WWII, but it bears repeating that strategic bombing Does. Not. Work. While air superiority is still valuable, allowing one side to deliver precision strikes basically anywhere in a warzone, we've seen over and over how this does not break morale, and it does not provide a decisive edge in an asymmetric war. We have now seen the most powerful air force on the planet lose two wars despite this advantage.

Ahem. Individual Firing Units, from conventional artillery pieces to rocket launchers to missile platforms, have been addressable digitally from anywhere and could converge their fires on any target within range since the 1980s. We were teaching it at the US Army's Artillery School at the time. In fact, this is simply an 'upgrade' from the basic Fire Direction Center system developed in the US Army in the late 1930s, which potentially allowed anybody with a radio or telephone who was in contact with the FDC and knew how to read a map to call in artillery fire on any target he could see (Note the fact that basic map reading was taught to every US Army soldier in Basic Training from 1940 on - the only army in the world to do so). Or as one German Tactical Bulletin put it: "If you are attacking an American unit . . . your attack must be complete in less than hour, for at the end of that time every American gun within range will be firing on you, and your attack will be smothered in fire."
As an artilleryman, I used to say my job was "to kill people and blow things up." - a far too accurate description, then and now.

The modern Main Battle Tank, and the fantasy GDR and any other Large Land Target is obsolete: there are simply too many weapons, from too many different range envelopes, that can target them and destroy them. When an individual soldier can call down everything from a drone-launched Hellfire missile to a ground launched 200 kilometer range cruise or Ballistic weapon, every tank has to have a suite of anti-air weapons to survive discovery. That makes them, basically, a burden on the troops, not a source of support and combat power.

On the other hand, there has been a great deal of research on 'augmenting' the individual infantryman, from Exo-Skeletons to body armor to individual Stealth measures (including camouflage and 'invisibility' lightbending garments) to satellite communications and surveillance gear to enhanced vision and personal weapons and etc., etc.

Heinlein, as usual, may turn out to be a better Prophet than the professionals, with his Mobile Infantry super-enhanced individual soldier as the real result of Near-Future Tech.

 

[pineappledan]

I forgot about the exosuit stuff, but that still seems the most far off, since it’s dependent on us finding some more portable, lighter power supplies. Right now the weight of the batteries and their charge times majorly offsets any field advantage.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

I think adding Neolithic ruins as natural wonders, such as Göbekli Tepe, would be way more interesting than mythological cities.

This is a really interesting concept that would solve the issue of Ancient Era wonders like Stonehenge predating the Ancient Era.

It would still make sense for Holy Sites to gain adjacency from them, too. You can easily argue that your people have deemed these ruined cities as former cities of the gods, or of their mythological ancestors.

 

[Henri Christophe]

I like the main idea of a mythological civ.
Because each civ have it's own particular mythological background who can be explorated.
I would love to play with Aztecs and be able to ride a Quetzalcoalt at battle.

 

[Zegangani]

I really hope NOT. There are already many other Games with same premise and that are actually built around that theme, just play those. Why add those things in a Game that is more built around History (where a Quetzalcoalt wasn't a Horse-like Animal that was used in real Battles), Realism or at least Immersion, (believable) What-If Scenarios...etc.

Just like People have noted, non-historical Elements shouldn't even be a Game Mode or a Scenario, as they would just take precious dev Time/Resources that should be better spent on bug-fixing and balancing if not on the Game Mechanics.

In other words, if you want Mythology/Legends you can play Age of Wonders 4, which seems to be a good Game. Civ is a historical Game, and should stay so. I'm ok with a Civ Spin-Off or a new Title making a History-meets-Mythology Game, but the main game should refrain from any Fantasy/Mythology nonesense.

PS: Sci-Fi elements make sense to a certain degree (if done well), but summoning "Heroes" & "Vampires" doesn't, not in the slightest.