Hi all,
I'm a long time fan of Civ but I can't help but feel like Civ, in Civ 5 and now even more so in Civ 6, has become very complicated at the expense of real decision making. Civ 5 and 6 seem to have sacrificed fun gameplay to try and mimic history, but I always thought civ was about creating your own history and story, not reenacting what really happened.
I'm a long time Civ player but I haven't played many hours in Civ 6 and I can't help but find myself being played by the game rather than me playing the game. Everything seems so restrictive and confusing to the point of frustration. When I discover that a decision i made 30 turns ago has a negative impact on my options now really gets in the way of my fun playing the game.
What I want to do is make a simplified Civ 6 mod, removing a lot of the restrictive and unbeknown wrong move options from the game in an attempt to make it more accessible to new players and provide a simpler more open gameplay offering for players that don't want to play in the specific way the developers seemed to want you too.
Things I want to change:
Wonders:
All players of previous civ games just want to build wonders and see what they do and what they look like, however in Civ 6 a lot of wonders are locked off and it's frustrating to discover that the wonder you were beelining for is not buildable because you don't have a river or mountain nearby. Solution: Remove wonder restrictions but add in buffs for building wonders in those locations if possible. Building stone henge when you have access to stone will build it faster for example.
Technology Boosts:
I often feel forced to abandon my plans because by chance a different plan is now cheaper. This happens when I incidentally complete a eureka moment. This doesn't feel emergent to me, it feels like the game is playing me rather than me playing the game. Seeing as it's a simple thing to remove and rebalance once gone I feel like this is a good feature that could be simplified out of the game for new players.
Districts:
Placing districts is a cool fun new concept in civ and I love how cities spread across the map. However I hate it as a new player how I don't know what districts will come up and how I might screw myself over in the long run placing something in the wrong location. I'm totally convinced I know how to solve this feeling but I'm going to try removing adjacency bonuses as a first step to simplifying districts for new players.
Trade Routes / Roads:
I've never been a big fan of trade routes. They seem tacked on and artificial. They are annoying when you have to tell them to go to the same city over and over and their bonuses aren't that meaningful to me. I also feel they confuse the idea of trading with other civilizations through the leader screens. Automating the construction of roads through trade routes is also a step of obfuscation to a new player, it feels hidden and unintuitive that you need a trade unit to build roads. I feel like trade routes need to be removed until I can think of something simpler and roads should be built by builders like previous civ games.
Leader Traits:
Leader traits have always annoyed me in Civ 5 and Civ 6. They are very specific and hard to use. I liked Civ 4 where traits were broad and could be used in a number of ways and were generally very useful in a number of start locations. Solution: adjust leader traits to be more consistent with how civ 4 worked and base them on a broad idea of that leader's personality rather than specific civilisation's real world history.
That's all I have marked out in my head so far. I was wondering what others might think about a mod like this. What other simplifications you would like to see and ideas and feedback you might have about what I've suggested.
The idea here is not to remove complexity from the game but rather remove a lot of restriction and allow players to really play the way they want to play. Open up more strategies and allow more risk/reward specialisation options for a player to pursue rather than constantly being forced to play a balanced style of game.
Side note:
I've not modded Civ much before but I am a game developer by trade so I feel like I should have a good chance of making this mod successfully.
I'm a long time fan of Civ but I can't help but feel like Civ, in Civ 5 and now even more so in Civ 6, has become very complicated at the expense of real decision making. Civ 5 and 6 seem to have sacrificed fun gameplay to try and mimic history, but I always thought civ was about creating your own history and story, not reenacting what really happened.
I'm a long time Civ player but I haven't played many hours in Civ 6 and I can't help but find myself being played by the game rather than me playing the game. Everything seems so restrictive and confusing to the point of frustration. When I discover that a decision i made 30 turns ago has a negative impact on my options now really gets in the way of my fun playing the game.
What I want to do is make a simplified Civ 6 mod, removing a lot of the restrictive and unbeknown wrong move options from the game in an attempt to make it more accessible to new players and provide a simpler more open gameplay offering for players that don't want to play in the specific way the developers seemed to want you too.
Things I want to change:
Wonders:
All players of previous civ games just want to build wonders and see what they do and what they look like, however in Civ 6 a lot of wonders are locked off and it's frustrating to discover that the wonder you were beelining for is not buildable because you don't have a river or mountain nearby. Solution: Remove wonder restrictions but add in buffs for building wonders in those locations if possible. Building stone henge when you have access to stone will build it faster for example.
Technology Boosts:
I often feel forced to abandon my plans because by chance a different plan is now cheaper. This happens when I incidentally complete a eureka moment. This doesn't feel emergent to me, it feels like the game is playing me rather than me playing the game. Seeing as it's a simple thing to remove and rebalance once gone I feel like this is a good feature that could be simplified out of the game for new players.
Districts:
Placing districts is a cool fun new concept in civ and I love how cities spread across the map. However I hate it as a new player how I don't know what districts will come up and how I might screw myself over in the long run placing something in the wrong location. I'm totally convinced I know how to solve this feeling but I'm going to try removing adjacency bonuses as a first step to simplifying districts for new players.
Trade Routes / Roads:
I've never been a big fan of trade routes. They seem tacked on and artificial. They are annoying when you have to tell them to go to the same city over and over and their bonuses aren't that meaningful to me. I also feel they confuse the idea of trading with other civilizations through the leader screens. Automating the construction of roads through trade routes is also a step of obfuscation to a new player, it feels hidden and unintuitive that you need a trade unit to build roads. I feel like trade routes need to be removed until I can think of something simpler and roads should be built by builders like previous civ games.
Leader Traits:
Leader traits have always annoyed me in Civ 5 and Civ 6. They are very specific and hard to use. I liked Civ 4 where traits were broad and could be used in a number of ways and were generally very useful in a number of start locations. Solution: adjust leader traits to be more consistent with how civ 4 worked and base them on a broad idea of that leader's personality rather than specific civilisation's real world history.
That's all I have marked out in my head so far. I was wondering what others might think about a mod like this. What other simplifications you would like to see and ideas and feedback you might have about what I've suggested.
The idea here is not to remove complexity from the game but rather remove a lot of restriction and allow players to really play the way they want to play. Open up more strategies and allow more risk/reward specialisation options for a player to pursue rather than constantly being forced to play a balanced style of game.
Side note:
I've not modded Civ much before but I am a game developer by trade so I feel like I should have a good chance of making this mod successfully.
Gold
