Hello. I’ve been playing for Civ6 for some time. I love the game, and have some ideas that potentially could make it even better. This is coming from the perspective of having 1111 hours played on Steam of which about 99% was multiplayer.
I have the feeling that expansive play is in general more viable than staying on few cities. That wasn’t so in Civ5, where you could successfully stay even on 1-4 cities and still be on top. In Civ6 it is not the case, among other things because of the fact that wonders and districts take space on map, so you have limited number of tiles to work. In Civ5 you could also focus your strategy on specialists so that you get plenty of benefits from them. With right policies and wonders there was huge yield from each one of them.
In Civ6 however, specialists cannot compare to citizens allocated on tiles. Even unimproved tiles often give more yields than specialists. For example from ordinary hill with no forest you can get 2 production and 1 food whereas by placing citizen in workshop you only get 2 production. Recent update that gave more yields after building tier 3 building was small step in right direction, but that doesn’t change the fact that you only use specialists when you run out of space to allocate your citizens on.
My suggestion is to provide tools to make viable strategy of playing using specialists, which would also encourage building populous cities. That would add another interesting dimension to the gameplay. Here are some of my ideas:
- Wonders that give specialists additional yields.
- Policies that give specialists additional yields.
- New green district, could be available in classical or medieval era: “Guilds of craftsmen” or something like that. When you build it, you get +1 production from each specialist in city (or only from adjacent districts). Tier 1 building gives you additional +2 gold from those specialists. Tier 2 building gives additional +1 production from them and additional citizen slot in each/adjacent district. Maybe with different amounts, but you get the general idea. This way you need to invest by allocating tile in your city and production to get value from your specialists in this city.
- There could also be additional building for neighborhood improving specialists, but I like idea of new district more.
- Change foreign ministry – this is just a thought - I would love to see tier 2 government plaza building giving boost to specialists, and since foreign ministry seems weak compared to other choices, it would be cool to either just buff it ( ie it also gives envoys) or redesign it so that it gives +1 gold to specialists globally, even on top of discount for levying units. Could be renamed to ministry of finance.
This brings me to another problem. Levying units can be too easily undone. In games I played every time player levied units, someone else, often his opponent, took over city state which was owner of these units, making them instantly betray and attack him or at least become neutral. Your opponent will always try to take your levied army from you in the worst moment and if he can’t, he’ll bribe someone else to do it. To be honest I can’t recall a single instance when levied units were used successfully without being preemptively turned. That may not be the case in your games or singleplayer, but I would suggest some changes in that regard, for example:
- Levied units are obliged to finish the contract in full, even if city state changes suzerain.
- You can’t send envoys to city state with which you’re at war (Lately I had a war where crucial city state changed side 6 times in 15 turns. It would also prevent that.).
What do you think? Those are just some raw ideas, but I think game could improve if something along those lines would be implemented.
I have the feeling that expansive play is in general more viable than staying on few cities. That wasn’t so in Civ5, where you could successfully stay even on 1-4 cities and still be on top. In Civ6 it is not the case, among other things because of the fact that wonders and districts take space on map, so you have limited number of tiles to work. In Civ5 you could also focus your strategy on specialists so that you get plenty of benefits from them. With right policies and wonders there was huge yield from each one of them.
In Civ6 however, specialists cannot compare to citizens allocated on tiles. Even unimproved tiles often give more yields than specialists. For example from ordinary hill with no forest you can get 2 production and 1 food whereas by placing citizen in workshop you only get 2 production. Recent update that gave more yields after building tier 3 building was small step in right direction, but that doesn’t change the fact that you only use specialists when you run out of space to allocate your citizens on.
My suggestion is to provide tools to make viable strategy of playing using specialists, which would also encourage building populous cities. That would add another interesting dimension to the gameplay. Here are some of my ideas:
- Wonders that give specialists additional yields.
- Policies that give specialists additional yields.
- New green district, could be available in classical or medieval era: “Guilds of craftsmen” or something like that. When you build it, you get +1 production from each specialist in city (or only from adjacent districts). Tier 1 building gives you additional +2 gold from those specialists. Tier 2 building gives additional +1 production from them and additional citizen slot in each/adjacent district. Maybe with different amounts, but you get the general idea. This way you need to invest by allocating tile in your city and production to get value from your specialists in this city.
- There could also be additional building for neighborhood improving specialists, but I like idea of new district more.
- Change foreign ministry – this is just a thought - I would love to see tier 2 government plaza building giving boost to specialists, and since foreign ministry seems weak compared to other choices, it would be cool to either just buff it ( ie it also gives envoys) or redesign it so that it gives +1 gold to specialists globally, even on top of discount for levying units. Could be renamed to ministry of finance.
This brings me to another problem. Levying units can be too easily undone. In games I played every time player levied units, someone else, often his opponent, took over city state which was owner of these units, making them instantly betray and attack him or at least become neutral. Your opponent will always try to take your levied army from you in the worst moment and if he can’t, he’ll bribe someone else to do it. To be honest I can’t recall a single instance when levied units were used successfully without being preemptively turned. That may not be the case in your games or singleplayer, but I would suggest some changes in that regard, for example:
- Levied units are obliged to finish the contract in full, even if city state changes suzerain.
- You can’t send envoys to city state with which you’re at war (Lately I had a war where crucial city state changed side 6 times in 15 turns. It would also prevent that.).
What do you think? Those are just some raw ideas, but I think game could improve if something along those lines would be implemented.