suggestions for civ 7

[luca 83]

Here’s my wishlist for civ7:


1.Improved AI


2.Spherical maps
I think it’s time to abandon the cylindrical maps based on Mercator projections because there’s a distortion of the areas as you approximate the poles and the tundra and ice tiles end up being overrepresented in the map as compared to what they are in real life.


3.Bring back health and corruption
Health should be a factor conditioning city growth. Jungles, swamps and floodplains should reduce health hindering growth, while food diversity, aqueducts and sanitation should improve health, increasing city growth. Corruption should be a factor determining the expansion of your empire. Number of cities and distance from the capital increase corruption and you loose production and revenue from those cities. Courthouses and certain civics could reduce corruption.


4.Stack of doom instead instead of carpet of doom
The limit of 1 unit per tile forces you to disperse the units across several tiles. This makes the map a complete mess, which is visually displeasing. But worse than that, it becomes cumbersome to move even half a dozen units every time you want to attack an enemy with a reasonable sized army.


5.End the two-tile ranged attacks
Not only it’s unrealistic to have an archer firing arrows at two-tiles distance, but this also makes the ranged units overpowered compared to melee units. With such system, the melee units act as supporting units to ranged units, when it should be the other way around.


6.Military units should not move too far in early and middle game
It is not realistic to send a military unit halfway across the globe to discover distant lands and fight barbarians far away endlessly, while immediately receiving information about what’s going on thousands of miles from your empire. Soldiers get demoralized and eventually they want to return home. Plus, military units are more costly the more distant they are. There should be a penalty to military units if they moved too far away from your borders. They could need more wages, they could loose hit points, or there should be a probability of defection for every turn they spent outside the borders of your empire. Certain civics or unit promotions could render the unit more loyal and able to travel farther. Exploration should be made in a more consistent way using scouts, spies, embassies, exchanging maps with other civs, or after establishing trade routes. Same thing should apply to sea vessels. If you send a ship too far away you should wait for it to return to get information of the new lands discovered – he might even not return!


7.More action in the ancient and classical age please
In the early game, human players and AI spend a lot of time establishing and developing the empire, rushing through the tech tree. Sometimes you never get to use units from the ancient and classical age and much of the action takes place only in the middle game, when the medieval age is approaching. Maybe a penalty to the tech-tree rush should be in place so that you have more time to build armies and engage in war with the AI in the ancient and classical age.


8.End of the districts and adjacency bonuses
For me this was the worst decision ever in the franchise. It’s simply too overwhelming, requires too much micromanagement and forces you to make decisions early in the game that cannot be reverted. I would like to see more flexibility as the game develops.


9.More - much more! - eureka moments
In fact, the logic of eureka moments in CIV 6 is reversed, because eureka moments should be moments when someone makes a discovery or makes a technological or cultural breakthrough, rather than boosts that make you closer to discover something. But finally, the devs implemented a system where the technological and cultural breakthroughs depended not just on what you CHOOSE to discover and on what direction you want your scientists to work, but also on what’s happening in the game and within your empire – we could call it people’s science. It doesn’t make sense to “research” sailing when you don’t have access to the sea. On the other hand, if your citizens work sea tiles, it would be logic that each sea-tile contributes an amount of research to sailing. If your citizens work a tile with copper, it would be logic that each copper-tile contributes an amount of research to bronze working and so on.


10.Exposure and access to resources should precede technology and not the other way around
Under the current system, you must research horseback riding or iron working to discover a source of horses or iron. It would make more sense if it was the other way around. After all, if you end up NOT discovering any source of horses of iron, what was the point of researching the technology? The human being contemplates the horse, wonders how he can take advantage of it and learns how to tame and ride the horse. It should be kept in mind, however, that, e.g. iron working should take longer to develop than bronze working, because in real life iron is not find in its native state and is harder to work as compared to copper, which occurs in its native state and requires lower temperatures to work.


11.Ore sources should not be infinite
Each source of ore should have a variable amount that you could extract for a while and once it was depleted you should have to prospect for new sources. This would make the game more dynamic and unpredictable in terms of exploiting strategic resources.


12.Colonies and outposts
There should be the option to build a colony or outpost to exploit a resource far away from your empire without having to build a city (as in Civ3).


13.Option of playing without civ-specific or leader-specific traits
Civ-specific and leader-specific traits are fun but they make more sense in scenario games. For me it would be more interesting if you and the AI made your decisions based on your starting location and on how the game develops, and not on predefined traits, that condition your gameplay through the rest of the game. This way each game would be more unpredictable, unique, and fun to play.

. How to solve the problem of the troops would you return to unite together? Or would you find another way?

 

[Krajzen]

I want more choice what to do with religions, and by "more choice" I don't mean "more bonuses to choose from", but more fundamental stuff changing the nature of how different religions work

For starters, it is bizarre how in civ5-6 the modern era arrives and religion works exactly the same way as in the medieval era. Maybe that's because devs come from America, abnormally religious for a modern western state, but there are many countries in 2020 already in which religion is basically irrelevant both politically and socially. I want the ability to play as a secular state with no official religion, which is tolerant towards many religions and disables their state benefits for some other (powerful) stuff. I want the ability to play as an officially atheist state. With my state ideology being able to replace or even persecute actual religions, or even work analogically to them; many people have pointed at the similarity of hardcore communist ideologies to religious zeal... I'm not sure if state atheism should require communist ideology or not.

Also, it is bizarre how all religions in civ6 are essentially different flavours of Islam (yes, Islam, not even Christianity). All religions in civ6:
- Are universal religions which have the idea of "conversion" and "missionaries", and the goal to convert the entire world. Well, the only major religions in history which actually had these concepts were Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Manichaeism. I want the ability to play as religions which have no "missionaries" and universal aspirations (think of Hinduism, Confucianism etc) and instead spread only through culture and trade, and get other fundamental benefits. I also want the ability to play as ethnic religions such as Judaism, Sikhism etc.
- All religions in civ6 are founded by prophets who radically break with prior pantheons. I want the ability to play as religions which don't require prophets and steadily evolve from basic pantheons - such as Hinduism, Greek religion etc.
- All religions in civ6 are essentially suspicious/hostile towards other religions, with no benefits of any kind from coexistence. I want thea bility to play as syncretic and tolerant religions and some incentive to tolerate other faiths and have multireligious society. Think of Roman empire and ancient Middle East, parts of modern world, huge part of history of India and China (Hinduism and Buddhism often blended into each other for example) etc.
- I want to be able to found and support multiple religions in one playthrough, yes also in the same time. This is what Indian and Chinese civilizations did after all.


Also, some other stuff which would be nice:
- The ability to set an official attitude towards specific other religions, with severe internal and diplomatic consequences, advantages and disadvantages
- Church mechanic for some religions, slightly separating the religion from the state, with advantages and disadvantages
- Holy wars if there are multiple civs of the same religion: the target city is chosen, and they all race to take it
- Spontaneous heresies and reformations sometimes spawning, creating problems and opportunities
- Religions with or without monastic orders, with or without a separate priest class
- Religions which support vegetarianism, higher yields from vegetarian resources, lower from meat (like Hinduism)
- All citizens of the world always having some sort of religion, because it always feels so weird when you have "no religion" pops in early eras; for example, all pops at start follow "animism", then "pantheism x", then "religion z", and only since industrial era they can have "no religion" (as only then did open lack of faith start manifesting at a large scale, outside small elite circles)


A lot of this proposed stuff contradicts with the concept of religious victory, and that's wonderful, because it should never come back - it makes completely no sense, it is boring, and honestly, in the contest between "deeper religions which seem more realistic" and "arcade religions to fit victory condition" I think the former should always win

 

[Zaarin]

I want more choice what to do with religions, and by "more choice" I don't mean "more bonuses to choose from", but more fundamental stuff changing the nature of how different religions work

For starters, it is bizarre how in civ5-6 the modern era arrives and religion works exactly the same way as in the medieval era. Maybe that's because devs come from America, abnormally religious for a modern western state, but there are many countries in 2020 already in which religion is basically irrelevant both politically and socially. I want the ability to play as a secular state with no official religion, which is tolerant towards many religions and disables their state benefits for some other (powerful) stuff. I want the ability to play as an officially atheist state. With my state ideology being able to replace or even persecute actual religions, or even work analogically to them; many people have pointed at the similarity of hardcore communist ideologies to religious zeal... I'm not sure if state atheism should require communist ideology or not.

Also, it is bizarre how all religions in civ6 are essentially different flavours of Islam (yes, Islam, not even Christianity). All religions in civ6:
- Are universal religions which have the idea of "conversion" and "missionaries", and the goal to convert the entire world. Well, the only major religions in history which actually had these concepts were Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Manichaeism. I want the ability to play as religions which have no "missionaries" and universal aspirations (think of Hinduism, Confucianism etc) and instead spread only through culture and trade, and get other fundamental benefits. I also want the ability to play as ethnic religions such as Judaism, Sikhism etc.
- All religions in civ6 are founded by prophets who radically break with prior pantheons. I want the ability to play as religions which don't require prophets and steadily evolve from basic pantheons - such as Hinduism, Greek religion etc.
- All religions in civ6 are essentially suspicious/hostile towards other religions, with no benefits of any kind from coexistence. I want thea bility to play as syncretic and tolerant religions and some incentive to tolerate other faiths and have multireligious society. Think of Roman empire and ancient Middle East, parts of modern world, huge part of history of India and China (Hinduism and Buddhism often blended into each other for example) etc.
- I want to be able to found and support multiple religions in one playthrough, yes also in the same time. This is what Indian and Chinese civilizations did after all.


Also, some other stuff which would be nice:
- The ability to set an official attitude towards specific other religions, with severe internal and diplomatic consequences, advantages and disadvantages
- Church mechanic for some religions, slightly separating the religion from the state, with advantages and disadvantages
- Holy wars if there are multiple civs of the same religion: the target city is chosen, and they all race to take it
- Spontaneous heresies and reformations sometimes spawning, creating problems and opportunities
- Religions with or without monastic orders, with or without a separate priest class
- Religions which support vegetarianism, higher yields from vegetarian resources, lower from meat (like Hinduism)
- All citizens of the world always having some sort of religion, because it always feels so weird when you have "no religion" pops in early eras; for example, all pops at start follow "animism", then "pantheism x", then "religion z", and only since industrial era they can have "no religion" (as only then did open lack of faith start manifesting at a large scale, outside small elite circles)


A lot of this proposed stuff contradicts with the concept of religious victory, and that's wonderful, because it should never come back - it makes completely no sense, it is boring, and honestly, in the contest between "deeper religions which seem more realistic" and "arcade religions to fit victory condition" I think the former should always win

All of this, 100,000%.

 

[BuchiTaton]

A lot of this proposed stuff contradicts with the concept of religious victory, and that's wonderful, because it should never come back - it makes completely no sense, it is boring, and honestly, in the contest between "deeper religions which seem more realistic" and "arcade religions to fit victory condition" I think the former should always win

I agree, but must point that if this is the case then also cultural victory is point less. I mean if the idea is to win by religion it is correct to want your religion to be a "christian-muslim" like because in fact these are the ones really about universal conversion to control everything using a beliefs system.
Cultural victory would be similar because your culture is supposed to be the more influential and make everybody be more found of you, think and do more like you, but if we think about customs, traditions, esthetic and other cultural elements those are a "light" version of the role of what religions could have on the way of life and belief of people.

At the end culture-religion, diplomacy, economy, science and military are just means to achieve dominance, separated by very thin and blurry lines. But if Firaxis want to keep the religious and/or cultural victory I think they are right on thinking on some aggressive model like the one from chirstianity/islam, the only thing that non-proselytizing religion could be good at is defending themselves againts conversion but there are not reason to achieve religious victory being a religious minority.

Of course the other option is to forget all the absurd religious and diplomatic "mana" systems and make those be parameters of your POP that interact with them through politics, decisions and actions, instead of more and more "points" accumulating and expending.

 

[Zaarin]

I agree, but must point that if this is the case then also cultural victory is point less. I mean if the idea is to win by religion it is correct to want your religion to be a "christian-muslim" like because in fact these are the ones really about universal conversion to control everything using a beliefs system.

Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism were pretty universal, too. Zoroastrianism turned ethnic because of persecution by Muslims and Hindus; Manichaeism never won enough of the population in the West or in China to act like a universal religion--but it did in Central Asia for a time.

At the end culture-religion, diplomacy, economy, science and military are just means to achieve dominance, separated by very thin and blurry lines. But if Firaxis want to keep the religious and/or cultural victory I think they are right on thinking on some aggressive model like the one from chirstianity/islam, the only thing that non-proselytizing religion could be good at is defending themselves againts conversion but there are not reason to achieve religious victory being a religious minority.

I think religion should be a means to an end, not an end in itself. Religion will help you get to other victory conditions, but it's not a victory condition itself.

Of course the other option is to forget all the absurd religious and diplomatic "mana" systems and make those be parameters of your POP that interact with them through politics, decisions and actions, instead of more and more "points" accumulating and expending.

Yes, I really like the idea of divorcing religion from the state and attaching it to population instead. (States can adopt/persecute/reform/schism religions, but religions themselves should be independent. This can lead to interesting situations such as having a state religion that is different from the majority population religion--something that's happened often enough in history.)

 

[BuchiTaton]

I would like a victory system based on your Control of world´s total, this control is measured in percentage and can be achieved by different ways and sources:
- DIPLOMACY: Others leaders Opinion of you when your actions and decisions coincide with theirs agendas and personalities so they will favor you. This apply not just for the main playable nations but also to minor factions like city states.
- CULTURE: Is about the Affinity of your own and foreign population to your politics, based on population identity parameters (Heritage, Religion, Profession) so the most your ideology matches theirs the more approval and loyalty they would give you. Still promote and/or force your traditions, religion and political ideology would be an useful way to convert them, so you can become like them or make them like you.
- ECONOMY: Your percentage of Monopoly over the production of strategic resources, luxuries, trade routes and the debt of the other nations. Corporations and even Turism (of course would have their cultural related part also) and Patents (related to science) will help you here.
- MILITARY: This is very obvious, the use of the force to gain the Domain over the territory, but not just direct annexation there are also other relations of submission like tributaries, vassals, protectorates and puppet states.
- SCIENCE: Be ahead in the research of technology for the Progress of your nation, of course be the only one with some top Weapons of Mass Destruction could be good enough to force your will, but there is also the level of Development with health related parameters like Life Expectancy, Enviromental Quality and the prestige from Milestones, awards from Sciene (Nobel like) and Sport (Olimpics like), and of course the Supremacy in the space, computing, genomics and energy.

This still open the way for a Religion like victory for example for Arabia and Spain use your holy warriors and missionaries to conquer and convert a huge part of the world at medieval and Early Modern time and if you manage to control/claim the Caliphate/Papacy you would gain the support of leaders and populations that share your affinities and then recognize your authority.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I'd also include advanced late game aerial units, like civ beyond earth... The Flying Medusa orbital unit was a spectale to use...
Allow for Navy armadas of different kinds of ships, return of transport ships, medical ships, and refueling ships for later era's oil/diesel based naval units...
Civ 7 should really make Sea control way more relevant... and that includes river navigation... this implies that a whole new kind of map generation is included, where water is really king...
I don't mean a complete dynamic plate tectonics/climate system, but an approximation would be very nice. A red dead for a volcanic eruption spanning on every tile of the map for 100 turns would be something new, i guess?? Same for lava rivers, and tsunamis...

And I omitted the most important feature to absolutley avoid... auto-built roads, and auto-route merchants units, which always ends up in pirate/enemy territory, or automatically chose the shortest route...
Merchant are an important military factor, and should follow possibly fortified waypoints, and generally the route. YOU decide it to take. Let alone the land/sea swapping, and the ability to build roads, which
one would need on LAND but can't bc of stupid auto-routing... the single more game-annoying feature of Civ Vi... please... not ever again...

Roads, bridges on rivers, should help movement, and are essentials for military control.
Rome without roads would have been nothing. Without bridges could not have conquered Celtic France France. In Civ VI bridges are obnoxius.

Mini-map play end of game return also, with added features, video animation bonuses unlockable here and there?? Short battle replays, or detailed press style cronicles... not just a victory screen, hey, you won, that's it...

The Heroes for example would fare a really nice end game addition to the resume of your game, the epic of King Arthur was a real event, so for the ones that like the game to be more realistic and less fantasy, I would keep some aspects of it as well! With video animations of course unlockable on the mini-map-press- whatever end screen that would last some minutes and not two seconds...

 

[Lazy sweeper]

In fact, archeologists now put major emphasis on what they call the "secondary products" Revolution, when people discovered how to make cheese out of the diary they got from cattle, sheep and goats. Cheese, and smoked or otherwise preserved meat, could be stored until the end of winter, which before then had been an annual "starving time" in the tribes and settlements. Earliest (DNA) evidence of domesticated cattle is from about 8500 BCE, earliest cheese residue from containers from about 6500 BCE (in cultures with both domestic sheep/goats and cattle) and earliest direct evidence of a draft animal (oxen) pulling a plow (a simple "bow ard") from about 6000 BCE. When the skeletons of domestic cattle are from animals that lived for 5 years or more, they were draft and milk animals. When they were killed for meat, they rarely got older than two years and were almost all killed in late winter.
And incidentally, the earliest evidence of a 'Cattle Cult" or cattle as a religious symbol dates from about 5300 BCE and by the Bronze Age "horns of divinity" altars and Cattle-related Gods and Goddesses are found all over the Near East, Crete, Greece, and later among the Celts and Norse in Europe. Cattle were also a symbol of wealth or an actual counter of individual wealth in ancient Mesopotamia, and some of the first copper 'tokens' (metal proto-coins) were shaped like a stretched cowhide.
From all of which we have to assume that cattle had considerable importance in culture, economics and religion as well as being a food and production resource source.

Cool. 6500 BCE would be a good start. We would need Some Pre-historic tech tree to go along with that. Incan Mais is believed to have been genetically selectioned and modified for several thousands years, I don't know how long back in time exactly, but I'm pretty sure it could break the 24.000 years barrier or even longer, but it was suggested, can't remember the sources, it had to begin before 12.000 BCE, given also South America as South Africa, did not feel the Ice age that much as other parts of the ancient world. Also Ancient Copper casts, had the shape of Cattle skin, some have been found near south Spain. Why that particular shape I have no idea thought and could be no related to the cattle/Ox... just a coincidence? I assume that is what you were referring as tokens.. but they were more like ingots?? Pretty heavy I would say.

 

[nzcamel]

Something I'd love to see in 7 (which I have discussed elsewhere) is if they stick with 1UPT, that it only applies to Civ's at war with each other. I see no need for it to apply to non-warring Civ's, which would make moving around the map easier, especially for the AI. The one change I would make to my previous take on it, is that a good practical and thematic time for it to kick in would be when/if you denounce another Civ. From that point on your two sides open hostility towards each other prevents units being in such close proximity, for fear of... oh I dunno, a war breaking out!?
In terms of units currently sharing the same hex, the civ who initiates the denouncement - it is their units that are forcefully moved to the nearest hex empty of potential hostiles.

Sorry if this has been discussed earlier in the thread but I haven't read it all yet

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Cool. 6500 BCE would be a good start. We would need Some Pre-historic tech tree to go along with that. Incan Mais is believed to have been genetically selectioned and modified for several thousands years, I don't know how long back in time exactly, but I'm pretty sure it could break the 24.000 years barrier or even longer, but it was suggested, can't remember the sources, it had to begin before 12.000 BCE, given also South America as South Africa, did not feel the Ice age that much as other parts of the ancient world. Also Ancient Copper casts, had the shape of Cattle skin, some have been found near south Spain. Why that particular shape I have no idea thought and could be no related to the cattle/Ox... just a coincidence? I assume that is what you were referring as tokens.. but they were more like ingots?? Pretty heavy I would say.

I've argued for 10,000 BCE as a start date, because it's just before the earliest certain evidence of agriculture and before the most important domesticated animals: sheep, goats, cattle. At that date a few parts of the world already have fired pottery/ceramics, woven fibers and textiles, and 'boating' - that is, Cyprus and other islands have people on them, and they didn't get there by walking! There are also stone towers, monuments like Gobekli Tepe, so evidence of 'stone working'.

That would allow a 'nomadic Neolithic' start and the development of the nomads into settled villagers and then city-builders. Between 10,000 and 4000 BCE, then, you'd have the Technologies of Agriculture, Animal Domestication/Husbandry, Pottery, Metal-Working (Gold, Sllver, Lead, and Copper were all worked before 4000 BCE) and the 'advanced developments' of primitive Irrigation ("flood irrigation"), Diary Products, Carpentry (mortice-and-tenon joints in wooden planks found in Germany to line a well before 5000 BCE) and Sailing (sails shown on rock art in Egypt around 6000 BCE)

Copper ingots - so called not because they were heavy, but because they had no markings of any kind - were being used by 3000 BCE in Sumer and other parts of Mesopotamia - they have found weighing scales with 'standard' measured weights to weigh the copper against. Since the copper was used as 'tokens' to represent 'real' things of value, some of them were in the shape of rectangles with the sides concave - like a stretched cow hide. The ones I saw were small enough to fit in your hand, so purely tokens and there is no telling if the actual weight of the metal had any significance. Cattle, by the way, were traded earlier, so they were apparently considered a measure of 'wealth' even after the actual trading was done in representational cattle instead of real animals on the hoof.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^ In addition to 10k BC Beginnings. (which I agrees alot. much of 'ancient tech' actually completed before 4,000 BC Beginnings) the other game begins should be Nomadics. but hey what are mechanics that permits this because all Civ games reserach mechanics requires AT LEAST one owned city present.

 

[Zaarin]

the epic of King Arthur was a real event

I mean, it depends on how you define "real." While modern scholarship is more or less in agreement that there was a real Brythonic king or chieftain who was the basis of the Arthur myths, I think it's safe to say that 1) the historic Arthur was nothing like the legends that grew around him and 2) the legendary Arthur has been far more historically significant than his historic counterpart, being the basis of court culture across Western Europe as well as the bedrock of English nationalism.

 

[Eddie Verdde]

If I could ask for just one thing to be improved in Civ7, that would be the game pace. Basically I would like to spend more time in the ancient and classical eras.

When playing Civ6 I usually reach the classical era by 1800 BC and the medieval era by 800 BC, even without campus. It's very frustrating to fly through the tech tree and having the option to research feudalism and build pikemen when you were still just trying to have a decent bronze age army or deciding whether to build the Colossus or the Hanging Gardens.

This has been a problem in almost every iteration of the game and no one seems to come up with a solution. I've seen a couple of mods that slow the tech rate but not without creating inbalances in the other systems of the game.

How do you guys feel about this?

 

[nzcamel]

If I could ask for just one thing to be improved in Civ7, that would be the game pace. Basically I would like to spend more time in the ancient and classical eras.

When playing Civ6 I usually reach the classical era by 1800 BC and the medieval era by 800 BC, even without campus. It's very frustrating to fly through the tech tree and having the option to research feudalism and build pikemen when you were still just trying to have a decent bronze age army or deciding whether to build the Colossus or the Hanging Gardens.

This has been a problem in almost every iteration of the game and no one seems to come up with a solution. I've seen a couple of mods that slow the tech rate but not without creating inbalances in the other systems of the game.

How do you guys feel about this?

One thing that probably made this harder for the devs to get right in Civ 6 was the addition of the eurekas and inspirations. I love them as a concept, and like their implementation, but suspect that if they're retained in 7 it will make it all the harder for the average game to be "paced" right.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

One thing that probably made this harder for the devs to get right in Civ 6 was the addition of the eurekas and inspirations. I love them as a concept, and like their implementation, but suspect that if they're retained in 7 it will make it all the harder for the average game to be "paced" right.

Agree that the Eureka/Inspirations system was a grea addition, but what contributed to the pace problem was that at the same time they provided means to speed up Civic and Technology progress they reduced the number of Techs overall by about half. That alone produced a massive technology pace problem in the game, and ever since the game came out the Technology pace has been about twice as fast as it should have been. I don't think I have ever played a game past 250 - 300 turns without bumping up against Future Tech. That makes the game on standard pace settings about half as long as it was designed for (500 turns, supposedly)

I would like to see the Eureka system retained, but the Eurekas be much more closely aligned with the requirements for the given Technology than they are now, and then as a 'slow down' feature, make the requirements to even start researching a technology something more than the Tech requirements.
For example, why would your Civ even bother researching any naval technologies (Sailing, Navigations, etc) if it has no cities on the coast, no Harbors, no naval Trade? Late in the game you could build Universities or Technical Institutes to 'direct' research in any direction, but for most of the game, progress comes where people Need progress: better food production, better defense against enemies, better answers to disease, climate, death and/or taxes. Research for the sheer love of research is decidedly rare for most of human history.

 

[jsciv69]

If I could ask for just one thing to be improved in Civ7, that would be the game pace. Basically I would like to spend more time in the ancient and classical eras.

When playing Civ6 I usually reach the classical era by 1800 BC and the medieval era by 800 BC, even without campus. It's very frustrating to fly through the tech tree and having the option to research feudalism and build pikemen when you were still just trying to have a decent bronze age army or deciding whether to build the Colossus or the Hanging Gardens.

This has been a problem in almost every iteration of the game and no one seems to come up with a solution. I've seen a couple of mods that slow the tech rate but not without creating inbalances in the other systems of the game.

How do you guys feel about this?

Even on Standard Speed it seems the Ancient and Classical eras are sped through. So I propose a few tweeks that can address that problem.

Starting Age. I would like a starting age of 6000 or 8000 BCE. By 10,000 years ago much of the planet had been reached. So it goes to have a starting date the reflects that.
Year Increments. Instead of 25 year increments, let's reduce it to 15 or maybe 10.
Multi-tasking. let's be able to research more than one tech. at a time
City Production Multi-choice. Let cities work on more than one project, and allow units to be built at the same time.
Cheaper and easier unit upgrades. This way we are not still fighting with Knights in the 20th Century
The idea is to be as prepared for the later era's as possible. I would also like strategic resources to not be rationed that way they were in Civ V and Civ VI. That way we can build Armies and Navies properly. Just a few ideas to balance things out.

 

[nzcamel]

Agree that the Eureka/Inspirations system was a grea addition, but what contributed to the pace problem was that at the same time they provided means to speed up Civic and Technology progress they reduced the number of Techs overall by about half. That alone produced a massive technology pace problem in the game, and ever since the game came out the Technology pace has been about twice as fast as it should have been. I don't think I have ever played a game past 250 - 300 turns without bumping up against Future Tech. That makes the game on standard pace settings about half as long as it was designed for (500 turns, supposedly)

I would like to see the Eureka system retained, but the Eurekas be much more closely aligned with the requirements for the given Technology than they are now, and then as a 'slow down' feature, make the requirements to even start researching a technology something more than the Tech requirements.
For example, why would your Civ even bother researching any naval technologies (Sailing, Navigations, etc) if it has no cities on the coast, no Harbors, no naval Trade? Late in the game you could build Universities or Technical Institutes to 'direct' research in any direction, but for most of the game, progress comes where people Need progress: better food production, better defense against enemies, better answers to disease, climate, death and/or taxes.

Regarding reducing the tech tree by half, wasn't that more to do with the creation of the second "tech" tree in civics?

Research for the sheer love of research is decidedly rare for most of human history.

Necessity is the mother of all invention - Anon(?)

 

[nzcamel]

Even on Standard Speed it seems the Ancient and Classical eras are sped through. So I propose a few tweeks that can address that problem.

Starting Age. I would like a starting age of 6000 or 8000 BCE. By 10,000 years ago much of the planet had been reached. So it goes to have a starting date the reflects that.
Year Increments. Instead of 25 year increments, let's reduce it to 15 or maybe 10.
Multi-tasking. let's be able to research more than one tech. at a time
City Production Multi-choice. Let cities work on more than one project, and allow units to be built at the same time.
Cheaper and easier unit upgrades. This way we are not still fighting with Knights in the 20th Century
The idea is to be as prepared for the later era's as possible. I would also like strategic resources to not be rationed that way they were in Civ V and Civ VI. That way we can build Armies and Navies properly. Just a few ideas to balance things out.

On year increments, they reduce over the game.
I'm not opposed to the multi-tasking thing, either in research or in city builds, but it would obviously be at a slower rate. I would even consider including a penalty for splitting your greatest minds/trades people.
Disagree completely with cheaper and easier unit upgrades. If you're fighting with knights in the 20th century, it is in other areas that the blame lies.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Regarding reducing the tech tree by half, wasn't that more to do with the creation of the second "tech" tree in civics?

Only partly. To use what I've found to be a useful comparison, Civ VI has 68 Technologies, Humankind has 92. Exactly 4 of the Humankind game's Technologies are Civics in Civ VI (Craftsmanship, Theology, Feudalism, Mercantilism), so there really wasn't a lot of overlap or substitution of Tech for Civic. And since the Civics use a different set of 'currency', having the second Tree doesn't directly affect how fast the Tech Tree itself gets researched - except where Civics provide Eurekas for Technologies and vice-versa, which simply speeds up both of them and contributes to the Pace Problem,

 

[nzcamel]

Only partly. To use what I've found to be a useful comparison, Civ VI has 68 Technologies, Humankind has 92. Exactly 4 of the Humankind game's Technologies are Civics in Civ VI (Craftsmanship, Theology, Feudalism, Mercantilism), so there really wasn't a lot of overlap or substitution of Tech for Civic. And since the Civics use a different set of 'currency', having the second Tree doesn't directly affect how fast the Tech Tree itself gets researched - except where Civics provide Eurekas for Technologies and vice-versa, which simply speeds up both of them and contributes to the Pace Problem,

Humankind doesn't have Civics though does it?
And while getting a nice thematic name is important for what a tech or civic does, it's less the names I'm interested in, in regards to pacing, and more the numbers of both, in 6 vs the number of techs in 5 and before.

I don't think the number of techs or civics is a big pacing problem though. With less, they should cost more. With more they should cost less, in both cases to get a similar pace. Obviously if someone goes gung-ho on science then they'll race through and vise versa. It's not that some games shouldn't be longer or shorter... It's that you'd hope the average game is not too far off the desired turn limit.