So if the even numbered Civs are the better ones, your expectations for 7

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Personally, I don't think this description does Civ5 proper justice - or I feel it paints an overly positive picture of Civ6. Yes, Civ6 offers you a number of different strategies, but a huge problem with Civ6 is that you often lock yourself into that strategy before you even start the game, namely at the time you pick which civilization you will play. Choose Russia? You'll all but need to play religious early and then merge into cultural. Choose Ethiopia? Well, same, basically. Choose Babylon or Korea? You know you'll have to focus on science. Choose Germany? Always go military and production. Etc. etc. Sure, there are some civs - a few? - that offer a more open approach to the game, but most of the unique features and districts very strongly shoehorn you in a specific direction. On the other hand, in Civ5, I felt like most civilizations could be taken in very different directions depending on which policy trees I chose to develop (and yes, I did use some extensive mods to make something that was not Tradition - Rationalism actually viable).

Well, to start off, I would certainly be disappointed to represent Civ VI in an overly positive light. I do think Civ VI is richer than Civ V in the sense that it engenders historical flavor more easily; however, it would be totally justified to look at the heaps of features and see them as incoherent. Civ V, especially in its final form, feels more focused and more rewarding in the end-game through ideology. There are those who prefer one strongly over the other, but I am of the opinion each does best what they alone do.

I think there are some good odds we are even saying the same thing here, but I may wrong. Yes, I agree that in Civ V most civilizations were generalists and could pursue various victories with ease. This is what I meant by calling them generic. As for Civ VI, yes, the game provides obvious victory paths for the vast majority of civilizations through comparative advantages. I suppose a good deal of fun follows from subverting or playing with these intended strategies, for instance, Russian cosmonauts. That said, in my experience, Civ VI also offers a number of leveling strategies in the form of faith, purchasing, production, and conquest that can lead to easy pivots.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

Having separate civic and tech trees, separate districts for civic and tech yields and different adjacencies was the best integrated systems in the game and was a big reason for (what ever amount of) the success Civ 6 had. The random techs mode was a acknowledgement that they system didn't offer enough variability in play. I'm guessing civ 6 will keep the former while trying to solve the latter issue.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I like the idea of a web rather than a tree, but would argue oral tradition needs its fair shot as an alternative to writing.

True.
Considering Writing would probably be considered a technology, you could still start with Oral Tradition on the "Educational" path, on the cultural web, which can give your buildings more culture if you don't slot in Great Works.
I mean some societies that had oral tradition weren't always without writing.

The big problem with a web is that since civ is meant to basically trace history, you kind of want there to be general forward progress.

I don't see that as a problem, at least for culture. I agree that for science and technology, there does need to be general forward progress.

I understand the point you're making, but Civ isn't a history simulator and generally imitates history very poorly. Since Civ's greatest appeal is as an alternate history, I think a tech web that offers alternative paths forward would be a popular feature. The current iteration of the tech tree is deterministic and rather Eurocentric; a web could alleviate that.

I'm still fine with a technology tree being linear considering that tree has to do more with military upgrades, and ultimately progress to a scientific victory.

 

[Zaarin]

I mean some societies that had oral tradition weren't always without writing.

This is a good point, and it's fair to say all societies have oral traditions, regardless of whether or not they have writing. Not everything gets written down.

I'm still fine with a technology tree being linear considering that tree has to do more with military upgrades, and ultimately progress to a scientific victory.

Put techs related to scientific victory at different extremes of the tech web. This is what Endless Space 2 did.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Put techs related to scientific victory at different extremes of the tech web. This is what Endless Space 2 did.

That would still mean you have to progress down most, if not all, branches of a technology web. At that point I don't see the difference between it being a tree or a web.

At least with culture, the way it's currently implemented, I don't see a need to progress down the path of each branch for a culture victory, or any victory at all which is why I suggested a web for it in the first place. For example, if you don't want to play the religious game there's no need to advance down a religion branch. If you are peaceful there's no need to go down a military branch etc.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Tech trees in games are more like long tech branches. A 'web' is more like a tree; agriculture or firemaking might be the trunk, and it grows into new branches of technologies. Again it would be difficult to show how separate branches connect to each other especially if your connected tech is on the other side of the diagram, but I also like the idea.

The web/tree/trunk/branch distinction is quickly blurring for me, unfortunately. I think that's partly due to the point you make about connecting across a diagram in a manner contrary to that of a tree.

Having separate civic and tech trees, separate districts for civic and tech yields and different adjacencies was the best integrated systems in the game and was a big reason for (what ever amount of) the success Civ 6 had. The random techs mode was a acknowledgement that they system didn't offer enough variability in play. I'm guessing civ 6 will keep the former while trying to solve the latter issue.

You make a good point about integration. I do like how Eurekas/Inspirations partly serve to link Civics and Technologies in an often frustrating though logical way. This partly addresses the point above. One way to avoid unsightly connections across the tree would be to split the tree. Go figure! Additionally, I agree that the random tech mode helped to break up reliance on beelining. Mods also helped to more logically redistribute links among technologies.

Since Civ's greatest appeal is as an alternate history, I think a tech web that offers alternative paths forward would be a popular feature. The current iteration of the tech tree is deterministic and rather Eurocentric; a web could alleviate that.

Moving toward alternative paths and away from Eurocentric determinism would be great!

Part of me likes that tech and culture can be to a certain degree imbalanced, representing societies that are sophisticated in one way and less so in another, but the actual implementation, like so many things in Civ6, is lacking. A good real life example of this kind of mismatch is the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest, who technologically were Mesolithic but culturally were Classical-to-Early-Medieval. But in Civ6 it's too easy to be extremely off balance if you focus on one tree and ignore the other.

Yes, while there are good examples of the culture/technology mismatch (if we accept this division), it is somewhat off-putting from a gameplay perspective that you can have 3x of one yield compared to the other and still enjoy full steam ahead. One way to address this (aside from merging the trees again) could be adding a relative cost to exceeding one over the other. Additionally, whatever tech graph results, I would like to see more of the nonintuitive links between culture and technology that have developed historically.

 

[UWHabs]

The web/tree/trunk/branch distinction is quickly blurring for me, unfortunately. I think that's partly due to the point you make about connecting across a diagram in a manner contrary to that of a tree.


You make a good point about integration. I do like how Eurekas/Inspirations partly serve to link Civics and Technologies in an often frustrating though logical way. This partly addresses the point above. One way to avoid unsightly connections across the tree would be to split the tree. Go figure! Additionally, I agree that the random tech mode helped to break up reliance on beelining. Mods also helped to more logically redistribute links among technologies.



Moving toward alternative paths and away from Eurocentric determinism would be great!


Yes, while there are good examples of the culture/technology mismatch (if we accept this division), it is somewhat off-putting from a gameplay perspective that you can have 3x of one yield compared to the other and still enjoy full steam ahead. One way to address this (aside from merging the trees again) could be adding a relative cost to exceeding one over the other. Additionally, whatever tech graph results, I would like to see more of the nonintuitive links between culture and technology that have developed historically.

For techs, it's harder to spread out, because then you get weird things like being able to launch a moon landing without ever researching mining or bronze working. I'd agree with a lot of the above that there should be more paths, and more ways through, but I think given that techs tend to be much more related to each other, you can never get too far from the basic tree idea.

But culture definitely flows much more loosely. Although maybe the correct way to handle it would be to instead of having the trees completely separate, maybe the best answer would actually be to tie them together but with branching. So, for example, once you research Computers, that should spawn a mini culture tree around Social Media, Information Warfare, Distributed Sovereignty, etc... Researching Military Tactics would open a tree around Naval Tradition, Mercenaries, etc...Cartography spawns a tree around Exploration, Mercantilism, etc...

If you did it like that, and also included a bunch more civics based on cultures and techs from around the globe, that could somewhat naturally lead to a system that somewhat balances both moving forward, tying to the tech tree, but also letting you expand based on the direction you want to head to. Although in a system like that, you'd obviously have to figure out what happened when you ran out of civics you have unlocked, what happens there.

 

[bene_legionary]

That would still mean you have to progress down most, if not all, branches of a technology web.

I'd say being able to research all parts of a technology 'web' qualifies for a scientific victory. After all that means you're doing well in multiple areas of science, whereas in Civ 6 you're encouraged to research everything you can... because you have to research to keep up, and there's little choice anyway. In another way this means some civs will have to specialise more in the tech 'web' (militaristic civs have to go for the militaristic sections) because they have less capacity to research techs and must choose the ones that benefit them the most, but scientific civs can go further and research all parts of the 'web' because they have that capacity. It would also confuse beelining, which is a boring strategy.

The web/tree/trunk/branch distinction is quickly blurring for me, unfortunately. I think that's partly due to the point you make about connecting across a diagram in a manner contrary to that of a tree.

Rough sketch, but my college cut me off Photoshop and Mac doesn't have Paint.net. It's a possible solution, I hope that it won't be convoluting or hard to understand- and it's better than having all of the lines going everywhere. Ideally, the icons would be clickable and directs you to the tech that needs it, or would have an info box like CK3. The icons should be bigger too.

Clarification: the bookmark symbol with the 'Drama and Poetry' emblem means that 'Writing' is a prerequisite for 'Drama and Poetry', but because 'Drama and Poetry' is in another region of the 'web', a line would be hard to follow. The symbol under Drama and Poetry' pointing up with the 'Writing' emblem shows that 'Writing' is a prerequisite of 'Drama and Poetry', if the player is looking from the other side.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

If you did it like that, and also included a bunch more civics based on cultures and techs from around the globe, that could somewhat naturally lead to a system that somewhat balances both moving forward, tying to the tech tree, but also letting you expand based on the direction you want to head to. Although in a system like that, you'd obviously have to figure out what happened when you ran out of civics you have unlocked, what happens there.

One option is to make them more expensive, similar to unlocking policies from Civ 5.
Another option is to not even use culture as a yield, but unlocking policies other ways such as using Great People, other policy points?

 

[Zaarin]

That would still mean you have to progress down most, if not all, branches of a technology web. At that point I don't see the difference between it being a tree or a web.

That would only be true for those pursuing a science victory. If you're winning a science victory, you ought to be both deep and wide in the web.

 

[bene_legionary]

If there are more techs, which I believe there will be, I'd also expect a tech's prerequisites to light up and the rest of the menu to darken, so that it'd be easier to follow. Especially helpful for the tech web, but also useful for the tech tree, and would help new players familiarise themselves with the game. Although I'd like to see Firaxis fix up their other UI first!

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

For techs, it's harder to spread out, because then you get weird things like being able to launch a moon landing without ever researching mining or bronze working. I'd agree with a lot of the above that there should be more paths, and more ways through, but I think given that techs tend to be much more related to each other, you can never get too far from the basic tree idea.

Agreed, some of the possible tech paths in Civ VI are ridiculous. I do like that they kind of balanced the naval/research/culture top half against the military techs below, but in general I preferred the rebalancing of a mod, perhaps Real Tech Tree, that creates more dependencies. In general, I am strongly against an interpretation where research takes precedence over culture, though I think your Computers scenario probably holds up well.

Rough sketch, but my college cut me off Photoshop and Mac doesn't have Paint.net. It's a possible solution, I hope that it won't be convoluting or hard to understand- and it's better than having all of the lines going everywhere. Ideally, the icons would be clickable and directs you to the tech that needs it, or would have an info box like CK3. The icons should be bigger too.

Clarification: the bookmark symbol with the 'Drama and Poetry' emblem means that 'Writing' is a prerequisite for 'Drama and Poetry', but because 'Drama and Poetry' is in another region of the 'web', a line would be hard to follow. The symbol under Drama and Poetry' pointing up with the 'Writing' emblem shows that 'Writing' is a prerequisite of 'Drama and Poetry', if the player is looking from the other side.

Thank you for taking the time to sketch it out for me. I definitely like how the bookmark could serve to connect distant branches without all the spaghetti.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Agreed, some of the possible tech paths in Civ VI are ridiculous. I do like that they kind of balanced the naval/research/culture top half against the military techs below, but in general I preferred the rebalancing of a mod, perhaps Real Tech Tree, that creates more dependencies. In general, I am strongly against an interpretation where research takes precedence over culture, though I think your Computers scenario probably holds up well.



Thank you for taking the time to sketch it out for me. I definitely like how the bookmark could serve to connect distant branches without all the spaghetti.

This is how Civ 4 tech tree felt like, it was more depending on certain prerequistes but the bulk of it came down to "or" techs, though one had to be researched, so they utilized that for single techs.

I actually wouldn't mind that system being brought back, offers more paths and also helps with removing the awkward "Internet without Computers" debacle.

 

[shaglio]

I think they could easily merge the Science and Culture trees back together while still allowing culture to remain relevant. They just need to color code the Science techs as blue and the Cultural advancements as pink. When you're researching the former, your Science-per-turn will get applied and when you're researching the latter, your Culture-per-turn will be applied.

Civilizations that choose to focus in either Science or Culture will have a quick time researching some techs while having a slower time researching the others, and will experience bursts and slogs as they move through the tree. Civilizations that focus on both Science and Culture at an equal rate will have more steady, moderate progress through the tree.

 

[kaspergm]

I think they could easily merge the Science and Culture trees back together while still allowing culture to remain relevant. They just need to color code the Science techs as blue and the Cultural advancements as pink. When you're researching the former, your Science-per-turn will get applied and when you're researching the latter, your Culture-per-turn will be applied.

Civilizations that choose to focus in either Science or Culture will have a quick time researching some techs while having a slower time researching the others, and will experience bursts and slogs as they move through the tree. Civilizations the focus on both Science and Culture at an equal rate will have more steady, moderate progress through the tree.

I actually think this idea brings up some interesting points. I like how it might prevent you from just blazing through the tree by only focusing on one of the two yields because you'd encounter "roadblocks" requiring the other yield.

 

[Joe78man]

Better AI, definetelly, not only the diplomacy but also the constructions, units building and placing. And please, bring back the "show enemy moves" option, it's very anoying to have a unit attacked and killed by a unit I wasn't aware it was in sight already

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I think they could easily merge the Science and Culture trees back together while still allowing culture to remain relevant. They just need to color code the Science techs as blue and the Cultural advancements as pink. When you're researching the former, your Science-per-turn will get applied and when you're researching the latter, your Culture-per-turn will be applied.

Civilizations that choose to focus in either Science or Culture will have a quick time researching some techs while having a slower time researching the others, and will experience bursts and slogs as they move through the tree. Civilizations that focus on both Science and Culture at an equal rate will have more steady, moderate progress through the tree.

If I ever make a Civ game I am stealing this idea xD - I actually like it.

I also think it would work beautifully with Eurekas/INspirations to boost/reduce the cost of each civic/tech.

 

[Gedemon]

I think they could easily merge the Science and Culture trees back together while still allowing culture to remain relevant. They just need to color code the Science techs as blue and the Cultural advancements as pink. When you're researching the former, your Science-per-turn will get applied and when you're researching the latter, your Culture-per-turn will be applied.

Civilizations that choose to focus in either Science or Culture will have a quick time researching some techs while having a slower time researching the others, and will experience bursts and slogs as they move through the tree. Civilizations that focus on both Science and Culture at an equal rate will have more steady, moderate progress through the tree.

I've used a mixed implementation in my mod, with tech/civics grouped back into one progress tree and more yields (academic, military, naval, economic, social, inspiration, exploration, craftsmanship), then each research item had multiple affinities level with the yields.

then the yields were gained passively (from infrastructures/population, civ-like) and from actions (small multiple "boosts"), for example if you had a military oriented infrastructure and were fighting frequently, you had more military yields which were either applied to the current research (if it had a military affinity) or split between any unlocked research with a military affinity making you progress on multiple research simultaneously, sometime gaining one without directly researching it (some still required a bit of academic yields, ie the current science, to be finalized)

 

[aieeegrunt]

I've used a mixed implementation in my mod, with tech/civics grouped back into one progress tree and more yields (academic, military, naval, economic, social, inspiration, exploration, craftsmanship), then each research item had multiple affinities level with the yields.

then the yields were gained passively (from infrastructures/population, civ-like) and from actions (small multiple "boosts"), for example if you had a military oriented infrastructure and were fighting frequently, you had more military yields which were either applied to the current research (if it had a military affinity) or split between any unlocked research with a military affinity making you progress on multiple research simultaneously, sometime gaining one without directly researching it (some still required a bit of academic yields, ie the current science, to be finalized)

I love the idea of more specific yields, and especially situational specific ones. A land locked civ should struggle very hard to research naval/sea technologies. The fact that it usually takes several builds and at least a decade to make an aircraft carrier that doesnt completely suck, and at least a decade to dial in the air crew is a good example

In Civ Georgia can just throw beakers at it and become USN level competent.

 

[Xur]

1, 2, 3 and 4 are all true to the original civ gameplay. The later versions dropped unit stacking and adopted hex tiles. Civ6 even dropped workers. I dont think you can compare 1:1.

In my opinion civ4 is the best of the original civ versions, and civ5 is the best of the new versions (perhaps because it reminds me more of the old). Civ6 is a boardgame and I wanted a PC game.