[R&F] The Industrial Revolution should not just mean "more hammers"

[EgonSpengler]

I very much approve of the idea of making certain historical events or epochs have more impact on the game. Anything so game-changing would have to skirt the problem of "Civ A has invented guns and railroads, so Civs B, C, and D are just completely screwed." As is so often the case with games based even loosely on the real world, we actually want the game to be even, balanced, fair and suspenseful, with ups and downs for everybody, right up to the end. We can see how scared the devs were of making Golden Ages and Dark Ages very meaningful. Somehow, the game needs to retain each civ's accomplishments of previous eras as they move into new eras.

If the real world were a game of Civ VI, the United States went on a tear during the Atomic Era, but does that mean we're winning the entire game, over civs like Persia, Greece, China and France? For Civ, the desirable answer to this question has to be "Not necessarily." To use a soccer/football analogy, the game must maintain a season-long league table, even as teams win and lose matches, and go on streaks where they look either invincible or hapless. Your 4-match winning streak early in the season still counts at the end, you get to keep those points; and even if you couldn't seem to score on an empty net in the first few games, you can still try a new formation or get a new player at the transfer window.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

One way to address this - and the mid- to late-game concerns - may be in how railroads are introduced (if they are introduced to Civ 6).

What if there was a system whereby:

• The bonuses from Factories depend on the number of resources connected to them by railroad
• The bonuses from Factories extend not based on a 6 tile radius but rather based on the extent of your railroad network (the idea of Factories having both a local and aura bonus is a good one and combined with this)
• Railroads cost significant upfront investment and/or gold maintenance per tile per turn so you need a lot of bonuses flowing across a line of track to make it worthwhile to construct
• A Harbour building ("Container Terminal") could be constructed to effectively connect railroads across water
• Railroads also increase tourists and gold when connecting tiles that provide tourism (National Parks, etc.) to large population cities

Then when you move into the Industrial Revolution, you basically get a new game to play with the map figuring out how to most efficiently link your natural resources to Factories to cities, with a view to also connecting tourist locations to lower the cost of the network or to boost tourism if you're going for a cultural victory.

Hoorah! Some proposed solutions that begin to address both the Industrial Revolution and Late Game problems at once - because, of course, they are connected and have to be addressed as a System, not in isolation.

There have been some extensive discussions on adding Railroads to the game, which I won't repeat here. Suffice to say that linking Effects of all kinds of Districts/Buildings to the railroad network is exactly historical and, more important, starts to reflect the massive game changes that should take place at that time (mid to late Industrial Era). One possibility for adding Railroads that was proposed was to have a new Railroad District, which would provide a place for 'Buildings' like a Union Station (population movement, Tourism, Gold), Freight Yard (Production, Gold) and Container Terminal, which would 'stack' bonuses with Aerodromes and Harbors and all your Trade Routes passing through the city. Note that Adjacency Bonuses would apply to Harbor, Railroad, Commercial, and Industrial Districts, so a Major Industrial City on the coast (or River!) with railroad connections, Factory and Commercial infrastructure is going to be a Production Powerhouse. Now imagine how fast you can pump out Battleships in a coastal city with a Shipyard and a Railroad District connected to something like a game version of Pittsburg, Essen, or Birmingham (Railroad, Factory, lots of coal and iron resources) by Railroad n matter how far away they are - or even with a collection of 'Industrial Cities' like Pittsburg, Detroit, and Chicago or Kharkov, Tula and Chelyabinsk (for you WWII Soviet players).

Because, let's add this: Factory Influences extend to ALL cities with a Railroad District connected to the city with the factory with a Railroad District. AND ALL Factories so connected add to the amount of Production/Gold influence. - on a sliding scale, perhaps, so your First Factory gives a big boost, subsequent factories give lesser boosts to production but are additive, so a Factory is never, by itself, a Bad Idea. That gives potentially massive Production (and Gold) boosts to building factories and railroads.

That's a potentially huge set of bonuses, so what's the Downside?
Each Factory built reduces the Amenity Total in your Civ by 1. Factories in marginal cities are going to make them Very Bad Places to live, and you will, therefore, have to use some of your new Factory Production to build Amenity-Producing Buildings to make up for it. Factories and Factory worker populations, however, would also give Bonuses to Civics like Class Struggle, Capitalism, and Urbanization, and could promote some new Economic/Social Policies like Social Democracy, Trade Unionism, Child Labor, and/or Universal Suffrage

 

[acluewithout]

There are lots of great ideas in this thread... but lots of them (including some of mine) still just boil down to “more hammers”.

I just don’t think the Industrial Revolution can be reduced to more hammers.

The more I think about it, the IR should be more about city growth (people moving from the countryside to the city), housing and amenities.

Look, leaving aside whether it’s railways, or powerplants, or whatever, let’s just assume that industrialisation gives you some more hammers. It’s a big delicious hammer party. But else could the game do (if anything) to really capture the feeling of an Industrial Revolution?

Some random thoughts:

• - Perhaps make “Industrialisation” like a mini-mission to Mars. There are two techs you have to research, Industrialisation and Mass Production. These techs then let you run two new projects in your Industrial Zones.

• - Once you compete these two industrial projects, your economy “Industrialises”. You gain an extra wild card slot, have access to “Industrial” Policy Cards (powerful cards that also have significant gold or amenity costs), you can access tier 3 governments (once you have the right civics), and you cities all get a +10% growth.

• - You get Era score for being the first to Industrialise. Also, once (say) three Civs have industrialised it triggers an Industrial Revolution Emergency, which pits the non-industrialised civs against the industrialised ones. Basically, the non-Industrialised have x turns to industrialise. If they do, the get a boost in Era score and bonus science; if they don’t, their cities get negative loyalty against the industrialised nation’s.

• - Seperately, I’d be happy to see tier 3 buildings buffed, or even railways introduced, but these should give extra housing and amenities either instead or or in additon to just more and more extra hammers.

 

[masda_gib]

With Industrialization, a lot poeple moved from the land into the cities. Stuff and ideas could be produced at a much greater scale in factories but also in other fields (factories, mass media, ...).
One way to bring this change of working in the countryside to working in specialised industries would be to let Industrialization massivly boost specialist yields. Maybe just double them.

 

[Jarms48]

I wouldn't mind seeing the factory / powerplant production overlap again if Civ provided alternate buildings based on your cities local resources. Each unique type within range stacks, but if you build two of the same type within range you only get the benefit from one.

Types of factories for example:
- Silk Manufactory: Requires Silk.
- Cotton Processing Plant: Requires Cotton.
- Coking Plant (replaces vanilla Factory): Requires Coal.
- Smelting Mill: Requires Iron.
- Copper Refinery: Requires Copper.
- Silver Smelting Plant: Requires Silver.

Types of power plant for example:
- Coal Power Plant: Requires Coal.
- Oil Power Plant: Requires Oil.
- Nuclear Power Plant: Requires Uranium.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

There are lots of great ideas in this thread... but lots of them (including some of mine) still just boil down to “more hammers”.

I just don’t think the Industrial Revolution can be reduced to more hammers.

The more I think about it, the IR should be more about city growth (people moving from the countryside to the city), housing and amenities.

Are you sure the Industrial Revolution wasn't just more hammers? Everything else you've described may be attributable to how those hammers were made and what was made with those hammers.

I think someone else has already covered off all of these, but in Civ terms, it's an opportunity to make specialists more valuable and make the cost of buying housing and amenities more affordable to support a higher population, ideally with a pollution mechanism so there's a longer term consequence that you need to manage. As I mentioned before, it may be interesting to tie this to a railroad system and that in turn can impact other game mechanics such as tourism, and the idea of also tying it to your specific resources is a good one, possibly in the form of manufactured luxuries for trade.

With a few underlying mechanics like this, it will feel like a revolution in terms of how you're playing the game. Which would be good, because right now the playing the 1800s feels much the same as playing the 800s.

 

[Maledict]

This also gets at one of my long running bug bear issues with Civ - how they represent England. Great Britain was the first place on earth to industrialize (by a long way - almost a century). That provided the economics and resources and tech to build the global empire. It’s a huge turning point in history.

But Britain has never had any bonus even vaguely linked to the fact it was the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Its always ships and redcoats. For some reason, the fact that possibly the single biggest change in human society since we started living in cities happened in Britain is completely ignored.

 

[acluewithout]

@Trav'ling Canuck Yes. Pretty sure.

Industrialisation wasn’t just the ability to make more stuff. It required and was a massive change in how societies were organised and how economies functioned (...or is that saying the same thing in different ways...).

Civ’s “More Hammers” model doesn’t represent that, because those extra hammers don’t have any “societal” or “economic” impact on the game - you just build more stuff.

(...actually, you don’t build more stuff, because the cost of stuff goes up faster than the extra hammers you get, but that’s a more complicated point...)

@Maledict Yes. Completely.

That said, at least in Vanilla, England could be a bit of an industrial powerhouse through shipyards and extra trade routes. But that’s not quite the same thing.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

(...actually, you don’t build more stuff, because the cost of stuff goes up faster than the extra hammers you get, but that’s a more complicated point...)

Which from a game balance perspective, reflects a particular design philosophy that isn't necessarily wrong, but sure takes some the fun out of seeing massive changes in your empire.

 

[UWHabs]

Are you sure the Industrial Revolution wasn't just more hammers? Everything else you've described may be attributable to how those hammers were made and what was made with those hammers.

I think someone else has already covered off all of these, but in Civ terms, it's an opportunity to make specialists more valuable and make the cost of buying housing and amenities more affordable to support a higher population, ideally with a pollution mechanism so there's a longer term consequence that you need to manage. As I mentioned before, it may be interesting to tie this to a railroad system and that in turn can impact other game mechanics such as tourism, and the idea of also tying it to your specific resources is a good one, possibly in the form of manufactured luxuries for trade.

With a few underlying mechanics like this, it will feel like a revolution in terms of how you're playing the game. Which would be good, because right now the playing the 1800s feels much the same as playing the 800s.

Yep, I'd agree here. I think what needs to happen is multi-fold - more specialist spots, and more powerful specialist spots. Likely what it should be:
-Tier 1 building has 1 specialist spot. Tier 2 has 2, and Tier 3 has 3. So a city with a workshop/factory/PP can run 6 specialists in the industrial zone, to further simulate more people working in the city.
-Somewhere around industrialization, specialist yields double. This essentially brings them in line with tile improvements, as an industrial zone specialist would be 4 hammers, which is not much worse than a plains mine is at that point in the game
-We already have increased housing (Neighbourhoods) and increased farming output (Replaceable Parts/Mechanized Agriculture). What we're really missing is a modern way to increase your amenity count. I find myself when I get to the modern era, my population explodes and I basically have to go build entertainment complexes in every city to even have a chance to keep up. And while that's not necessarily bad, it feels like there needs to be some way other than rushing to Democracy and New Deal to get amenities in modern times.

I don't know what the proper solution is to that problem, whether it's a way for luxuries to stretch to more than 4 cities in later eras, or for factories to produce new luxuries, or simply a mechanism where specialists don't use up amenities or don't use them as fast, but there definitely needs to be some way to increase your amenity count late other than mass producing arenas.

 

[AlannaT]

What we're really missing is a modern way to increase your amenity count.

I agree. I am not sure if my suggestion is any good but I thought immediately about amenity buildings in other districts that unlock at techs / civics after Industrialisation. Something like Casinos in Commercial Hubs, Cinemas in Theatre Districts, Riding Schools or something in Encampments... Those buildings don't replace the existing buildings but are additional, they grant +1 amenity and should not be too cheap and they should not have additional or regional effects. In short: luxuries and Entertainment Districts should still be the best option for amenities.

 

[shaglio]

Yep, I'd agree here. I think what needs to happen is multi-fold - more specialist spots, and more powerful specialist spots. Likely what it should be:
-Tier 1 building has 1 specialist spot. Tier 2 has 2, and Tier 3 has 3. So a city with a workshop/factory/PP can run 6 specialists in the industrial zone, to further simulate more people working in the city.
-Somewhere around industrialization, specialist yields double. This essentially brings them in line with tile improvements, as an industrial zone specialist would be 4 hammers, which is not much worse than a plains mine is at that point in the game
-We already have increased housing (Neighbourhoods) and increased farming output (Replaceable Parts/Mechanized Agriculture). What we're really missing is a modern way to increase your amenity count. I find myself when I get to the modern era, my population explodes and I basically have to go build entertainment complexes in every city to even have a chance to keep up. And while that's not necessarily bad, it feels like there needs to be some way other than rushing to Democracy and New Deal to get amenities in modern times.

I don't know what the proper solution is to that problem, whether it's a way for luxuries to stretch to more than 4 cities in later eras, or for factories to produce new luxuries, or simply a mechanism where specialists don't use up amenities or don't use them as fast, but there definitely needs to be some way to increase your amenity count late other than mass producing arenas.

I like this x 100. Increase the power of Specialists (they were all the rage in Civ 5, but in Civ 6 they're kind of meh), and have Factories and Power Plants give amenities (Factories allow mass production of the types of things that make people happy and Power Plants provide electricity to eventually power radios, televisions, computers, etc.)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yep, I'd agree here. I think what needs to happen is multi-fold - more specialist spots, and more powerful specialist spots. Likely what it should be:
-Tier 1 building has 1 specialist spot. Tier 2 has 2, and Tier 3 has 3. So a city with a workshop/factory/PP can run 6 specialists in the industrial zone, to further simulate more people working in the city.
-Somewhere around industrialization, specialist yields double. This essentially brings them in line with tile improvements, as an industrial zone specialist would be 4 hammers, which is not much worse than a plains mine is at that point in the game
-We already have increased housing (Neighbourhoods) and increased farming output (Replaceable Parts/Mechanized Agriculture). What we're really missing is a modern way to increase your amenity count. I find myself when I get to the modern era, my population explodes and I basically have to go build entertainment complexes in every city to even have a chance to keep up. And while that's not necessarily bad, it feels like there needs to be some way other than rushing to Democracy and New Deal to get amenities in modern times.

I don't know what the proper solution is to that problem, whether it's a way for luxuries to stretch to more than 4 cities in later eras, or for factories to produce new luxuries, or simply a mechanism where specialists don't use up amenities or don't use them as fast, but there definitely needs to be some way to increase your amenity count late other than mass producing arenas.

The Industrialization/Industrial Revolution involved not only Factories, which as a concept dates back to the 18th century, but also the specific Technological advance of Steam Power applied to mass transit, railroads, and water (river AND sea) transport, and specific Financial Advance of Joint Stock Companies and Mass Stock Exchanges, which allowed the accumulation of massive amounts of capital to fund all the new technologies and changes.
The transportation changes changed not only intercity and inter-country/continental transportation and trade, but also intra-city transportation: even early 'commuter' steam railroads allowed cities to expand dramatically in size: central Boston between 1850 and 1887 extended from about a 1.5 mile radius to over 4 miles: that means the area covered almost tripled, and that kind of area increase was mild compared to Paris, London, or New York in the same period. That, in turn, reinforced the combination of More Jobs (Factories), More Food (railroad/steam ship transport), More Health (Sewers, Public Health facilities) to blast Urban populations through the roof in the late 19th century (late Industrial Era). No Single Change would have done it: you need all of them.

The game could simply apply changes by Rule: build a Factory, get X increase in Production, Population, Amenity, England automatically gets a Boost with Industrialization, etc. This is absolutely WRONG. If as Norway I have access to Coal and Gold and Education and already have international Trade Routes, why can't I get the Initial Industrialization/Factory Boost? IF I build factories but fail to build railroads and have little international Trade and investment, am I going to get a major Boost from Industrialization, or am I going to end up looking like Imperial Russia in 1914, lagging way behind western Europe in Gold, Production, and, especially, Amenities - leading to Revolution in 1905 (failed) and 1917 (succeeded, so in Game Terms I suppose Russia Lost...)

Instead, we need to give the changes, boosts and bonuses to the combinations: Steam Power with Factories lead to Railroads or Railroad Districts, which boost population growth in the city, which requires investment in new Amenity-creating in the cities (it is no accident that Central Park opened to the public in 1858, an Obvious Amenity-Producer tied to the urbanization/concentration of Population).

Which brings us to the Late Game Amenity Problem. Simply Stated, Civ Games STILL equate Happiness/Amenity with Natural Luxury Goods: Wine, Furs, Ivory, Cocoa, Spices. Note that of that list, two (furs, ivory) are Illegal or disparaged in many parts of the world today, while Cocoa, Wine and Spices are all dwarfed in significance by the manufactured products based on them: brandies and liqueurs, chocolate candies and drinks, Packaged Foods. The 'High Value' Amenities in the Modern Era and later are all Manufactured Goods, ranging from personal automobiles to personal electrical and electronic devices (starting with the personal telephone and record player and radio right up to the personal computer and cell/smart phone). Value-Added since the beginning of the 19th century has almost always meant Added By Manufacturing.

We could have Factories in General produce Amenities, or allow Specific Factories, like the Shipyards now, which are essentially ship-building Factories, and we wouldn't even need that much 'specialization':

Automobile Factory - available at Tech: Replaceable Parts, can be either built in an Industrial District or Upgraded from a regular Factory. Produces 1 Amenity in every city linked to the Factory by Railroad, rising to 2 Amenities at the start of the Modern Era - or whatever trigger at that time we want to use to show the advent of the Interstate/Autobahn roads that allow mass individual travel almost any distance within any country.
Electronics Factory (Japan will have to get a new UB!) - available at Tech: Plastics, similar Build Conditions as the Automobile Factory except that the Personal Electronics Amenity Good produces 2 Amenities per city linked by Railroad, Aerodrome or Harbor to the Factory, increasing to 3 Amenities at Tech: Telecommunications.

Automobile Factories also get a 50% Boost when building Tanks or Modern Armor (because about 75% of all the tanks built in WWII were built in converted car or truck plants like Detroit Arsenal in the USA or Kharkov Tractor Works in the USSR)
If it turns out to be necessary, a similar Boost could apply to an Electronics Factory building Mobile SAM, Rocket Artillery, or Missile Cruiser units, all of which are heavily dependent on electronic components.

 

[Cagarustus]

I think such an industrial revolution should be obtained through a series of eurekas and inspirations. For eg, having 3 coal mines, a surplus of food and population etc. This would make it more dynamic by forcing the player to seek out ways to industrialise rather than just ‘click and research’. It would also make the game more immersive since the real industrial revolution came about because certain civilizations met certain conditions (guns, germs and steel).

One you industrialise you would have a significant advantage over your foes. You should be able to annihilate pre industrial units; science is higher etc.

The disadvantage is that some civs will not meet these conditions and lag behind. In such case, you can become a colony of an industrialised civ and industrialise yourself - kind of like industrial pressure.

 

[acluewithout]

@Boris Gudenuf There is so much right with your post. Particularly your points about finance and capital structures. Not just joint stock companies but also the increasing use of Legal Charges (Fixed and Floating), one of the great English commercial innovations.

One thought I'd had was in addition to the IR triggering growth, it should also change how luxes work. You shouldn't still be able to passify your cities with some gypsum and tea...

But these are both huge topics, and I don't think I have many more words left for Civ...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

@Boris Gudenuf One thought I'd had was in addition to the IR triggering growth, it should also change how luxes work. You shouldn't still be able to passify your cities with some gypsum and tea...

But these are both huge topics, and I don't think I have many more words left for Civ...

In fact, you could make a good point for most of the Amenity Resources going Obsolete at the beginning of or during the Industrial and Modern Eras, and being replaced by virtually unlimited quantities of Manufactured Goods from your factories ranging from Cheap Cloth/Clothing, the initial 'driver' of industrialization, through the 'original' consumer goods which include mass-market books (high-speed powered printing presses, another product of application of steam power, made both the daily newspaper and the mass-market book possible, and that in turn made the fortunes of people like Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Victor Hugo, et al) home appliances (mass market stoves, ice boxes, sewing machines) right down to the Information Era personal electronics.

However, I can imagine the howls from gamers who have to completely Revamp their Amenity Structure in addition to building the Factories necessary for the revamping, all in the same Era!
- And it's really a topic for a Resources Revision Thread covering a lot more of What's Wrong with Resources...

 

[acluewithout]

Agreed. There should be some change to how resources work late game, both luxury and strategic. It would be tricky to do though without totally borking the game, which would be no fun.

I don’t really know how luxes and amenities could be tweaked. But accelerating growth would be a soft way to at least require more amenities. There could be a boost to city growth just from researching certain industrial techs, and then factories and powerplants could also add more growth and housing perhaps regionally. (Growth would also boost specialists, because you’d be more likely to have spare citizens). Neighbourhoods would probably need to be reworked a little then.

I think Strategic Resources are easier. Just make having two coal or two oil more important: perhaps factories give more production when you have two, or growth is boosted (again). Or it gives you more trade routes.

Stepping back a bit. FXS will release another expansion and it will certainly be focused on the late game. I’m hopeful that, in addition to a World Congress, FXS might do a little more around the Industrial Revolution and other “late game” ideas. I’m not all that particular about what they do really - there are lots of mechanics in the game which they could expand to address these ideas, or ideas from previous games, or just flat out new ideas.

What i really hope is that the next expansion, unlike R&F, is more focused on expanding and deepening existing mechanics, rather than introducing too many new shiny things.

But the most difficult problem to tackle. Sure, there’s not enough to do in the late game, but just creating more stuff do isn’t an answer. There has to be an actual reason to do things in the late game. As the game currently plays, if you’re playing efficiently you just don’t get to the modern era - the game is over by then.

 

[historix69]

If you have factories with 3 specialist slots and the factories give amenities, a requirement should be that all specialist slots must be worked for the factory to work. At the moment I rarely place specialists in factories ...

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

In fact, you could make a good point for most of the Amenity Resources going Obsolete at the beginning of or during the Industrial and Modern Eras

I recall some hints towards this during the pre-launch of Civ 6. I think this may even have been part of what the development team hoped to implement, perhaps by changing over time the number of cities benefitting from the luxury. Mercury as a Luxury is an indication that this may have been intended, i.e. the idea that some things that are luxuries originally stop serving that purpose eventually.

If so, then it's likely that playtesting suggested the system was too complicated to be practical. Also I'm not sure how good the AI would be at looking ahead and planning for the concept that luxuries it has now will become obsolete X turns in the future.

 

[UWHabs]

I recall some hints towards this during the pre-launch of Civ 6. I think this may even have been part of what the development team hoped to implement, perhaps by changing over time the number of cities benefitting from the luxury. Mercury as a Luxury is an indication that this may have been intended, i.e. the idea that some things that are luxuries originally stop serving that purpose eventually.

If so, then it's likely that playtesting suggested the system was too complicated to be practical. Also I'm not sure how good the AI would be at looking ahead and planning for the concept that luxuries it has now will become obsolete X turns in the future.

Yeah, it definitely gets complicated. You can't have them all go obsolete at the same time or else everything would descend to Anarchy. And if you have a phase out, then you're going to get people gaming the system by trading their luxury that is about to go obsolete for a big flat fee (like trading to someone before DOWing them).

But I don't think you need them to go obsolete. I find especially as my cities grow and I conquer more, the amount that each luxury gives is pretty small. Especially if they make other changes so that cities grow faster, if my cities grow from size 10 to size 20 in the industrial era, then that's an awful lot of amenities that are needed anyways, so getting +4 from some mercury I found in 3000BC doesn't make a huge difference. So I would just worry about ways to add new amenities to the pool, either through new manufactured goods (ie. a clothing factory which takes in Dyes+Cotton and produces Jeans, for example), or some other system to give me enough amenities for my cities to grow.