The many problems with Modern era

[Leucarum]

If we'll see 4th age, it will be a proper continuation, on the same map and finally ending with Alpha Centauri flight like all civ games before.

I hope not. I feel like that would just be compounding all the mistakes they made thus far. A 4th age would be my "nope" moment.

 

[reddishrecue]

I doubt they would add a fourth age, it seems like it would be too much work even for the AI.

 

[Giskler]

I can't see it happening. The main reason why Civ7 ages belong to the same game is continuity of the map. Starting in a new world means it's a different game. This game could connect to Civ7 similarly to how Starships connects to Beyond Earth, but be a separate game nonetheless.

If we'll see 4th age, it will be a proper continuation, on the same map and finally ending with Alpha Centauri flight like all civ games before.

I don't see why you couldn't introduce a new map between ages. I'm sure it's technically feasible.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I doubt they would add a fourth age, it seems like it would be too much work even for the AI.

They already started working on it before release as we've seen in the leaks. Whether they'll finish or not, depends on many factors.

I don't see why you couldn't introduce a new map between ages. I'm sure it's technically feasible.

The problem is not trchnical, it doesn't make sense from gameplay point of view to bundle two completely different games into one.

 

[MagicCuboid]

Going back to the Age of Revolutions/Colonies idea... what would people think of them adding a new settlement type to support that idea?

Ideally in Exploration Age, both continents would be considered "Distant Lands" to the other one. This isn't he case as it is now, but I think Devs have hinted at fixing that and distributing treasures across both continents. [Got confused - they already patched in Homeland treasure resources]

That would then open the door to a mechanic where any settlement you create on Distant Lands is a colony, rather than a City or Town. If we want to go for simplicity's sake, maybe colonies are just towns that can't be upgraded? Otherwise it could get more complex, with different improvements/buildings associated with Colonies to try and extract treasure and/or serve military legacy goals.

In the Exploration age, that's all you get. Your colonies are explicitly to support the Homeland and you use them to win legacy paths. But then at the end of the era, a crisis happens where the Colonies rebel and you have to react in some way. The consequence is that you can either A) maintain your empire and consolidate in Modern, B) create a powerful ally to help you during Modern, or C) create a powerful enemy because you failed militarily and diplomatically.

These are kind of half-baked ideas, and of course not every Civ even wants to settle in Distant Lands. But at least it's a mechanic to create more players in Modern to shake things up?

 

[McSpank01]

Going back to the Age of Revolutions/Colonies idea... what would people think of them adding a new settlement type to support that idea?

Ideally in Exploration Age, both continents would be considered "Distant Lands" to the other one. This isn't he case as it is now, but I think Devs have hinted at fixing that and distributing treasures across both continents. [Got confused - they already patched in Homeland treasure resources]

That would then open the door to a mechanic where any settlement you create on Distant Lands is a colony, rather than a City or Town. If we want to go for simplicity's sake, maybe colonies are just towns that can't be upgraded? Otherwise it could get more complex, with different improvements/buildings associated with Colonies to try and extract treasure and/or serve military legacy goals.

In the Exploration age, that's all you get. Your colonies are explicitly to support the Homeland and you use them to win legacy paths. But then at the end of the era, a crisis happens where the Colonies rebel and you have to react in some way. The consequence is that you can either A) maintain your empire and consolidate in Modern, B) create a powerful ally to help you during Modern, or C) create a powerful enemy because you failed militarily and diplomatically.

These are kind of half-baked ideas, and of course not every Civ even wants to settle in Distant Lands. But at least it's a mechanic to create more players in Modern to shake things up?

I think it is an ok idea to be honest. It certainly feels more impactful than the current implementation. Pre-Launch I was very excited by the idea of actual colonies within the game, really feeling like you are going out and exploring new lands and setting up colonies. Right now though, it's just plonking settlers on tiny islands and forgetting about them. Hardly what was advertised.

I like that your idea actually creates a narrative between ages, and a reason why you might be playing differently in each age. I think they could lean more into that if they needed to in fact.

 

[UWHabs]

I think it is an ok idea to be honest. It certainly feels more impactful than the current implementation. Pre-Launch I was very excited by the idea of actual colonies within the game, really feeling like you are going out and exploring new lands and setting up colonies. Right now though, it's just plonking settlers on tiny islands and forgetting about them. Hardly what was advertised.

I like that your idea actually creates a narrative between ages, and a reason why you might be playing differently in each age. I think they could lean more into that if they needed to in fact.

I actually have gotten to kind of like those like fishing colony villages in the island chains. The only problem is that often the network connections work weird on them, and even if I turn them to a fishing village they don't connect to any of my cities.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Going back to the Age of Revolutions/Colonies idea... what would people think of them adding a new settlement type to support that idea?

Ideally in Exploration Age, both continents would be considered "Distant Lands" to the other one. This isn't he case as it is now, but I think Devs have hinted at fixing that and distributing treasures across both continents. [Got confused - they already patched in Homeland treasure resources]

That would then open the door to a mechanic where any settlement you create on Distant Lands is a colony, rather than a City or Town. If we want to go for simplicity's sake, maybe colonies are just towns that can't be upgraded? Otherwise it could get more complex, with different improvements/buildings associated with Colonies to try and extract treasure and/or serve military legacy goals.

In the Exploration age, that's all you get. Your colonies are explicitly to support the Homeland and you use them to win legacy paths. But then at the end of the era, a crisis happens where the Colonies rebel and you have to react in some way. The consequence is that you can either A) maintain your empire and consolidate in Modern, B) create a powerful ally to help you during Modern, or C) create a powerful enemy because you failed militarily and diplomatically.

These are kind of half-baked ideas, and of course not every Civ even wants to settle in Distant Lands. But at least it's a mechanic to create more players in Modern to shake things up?

Introducing a new settlement type just to provide 'colonies' is, IMHO, a bad idea.

First, because if you define a 'colony' as only being a settlement in a Distant Land, it makes the entire concept excessively Rigid - nobody can plant a colony of any kind anywhere else, even though Greeks, Phoenicians, Venetians, Genoans, Christian military orders, Austronesians, etc did just that for centuries. It also makes the entire Exploration Age a rigid 'plant colonies overseas' as it is now, which disregards numerous states and civs that did none of that IRL and proivides no alternative to the gamer stuck in he middle of a Homeland continent or in some other map-generated geographical backwater. Civ VII's loosening up of the Treasure Fleet/Resources in recent patches indicates that they recognize this as a problem, and I agree with them.

Second, because an arbitrary definition of a settlement as a colony is not necessary. Settlements can already be defined as Farming, Fishing, Mining, Trade, etc types. If a separate and distinct definition is needed for a colony, that can be added to the existing system. In fact, though, a 'colony' could simply be one of the existing types a suitable distance away from the nominal center (Capital) of your Civ with whatever 'special'; characterisics are tjought to be 'typically colonial'. For example, for those determined to recreate the entire European colonial experience in the New World, perhaps another type of settlement could be added: "Ruthlessly and genocidally exploit any natives handy."

The entire 'revolution' mechanic, which I completely agree is needed, does not have to depend on any colonies: note that three of the four most influential revolts/revolutions in European Modern and pre-modern history: the Dutch Revolt against Spain, the English Glorious Revolution against the Stuart monarchs, the American revolution and the French revolution, had little or nothing to do with any colonization at all: they were Internal and had to do with severe differences between what the government (Civ) wanted and what a large portion of their population wanted.

I would argue that a fundamental 'enabler' for much of this, and certainly for the last three 'revolutions' cited above, was the advent of Enlightenment ideology/ideas. - At least, that makes a clear and singular mechanic that can be used by the game to make Revolution nearly Inevitable.

So, shooting from the Lip, here's a possible sequence to introduce Revolution as the Starting Crisis of the Modern Age:

1. Greatly increase the Settlement cap for Exploration Age, to encourage wide-spread settlement as more of the map's land mass becomes available.

2. The very first Civic available in Modern Age is Enlightenment, and that triggers Unhappiness in settlements related to:
* Distance from the capital, with a bonus for being on a separate Continent/Distant Lands
* Age the settlement was founded - Exploration foundations being much more likely to Revolt
* Origin of the settlement - settlements not founded by you, as in conquered from other Civs or started as IPs: much more likely to go negative.
* development of the settlement: Cities with Quarters are less likely to grow upset than towns without any internal amenities

Nothing should be certain, but a settlement you conquered or converted from an IP in Exploration Age on the far side of the map from your Capital and in Distant Lands - you should probably plan to send a large garrison there and keep it there for the first part of the Modern Age (and a new form of Continuity should be Place Garrisons allowing you to start the Age with those in place at fhe expense of your 'field' armies)

Another overlooked mechanic already in the game that could contribute to the mix: Migrants.
Settlements in revolt (Unhappy, burning down infrastructure, flying balloons as caricatures of The King, etc) could generate Migrants who simply don't want to live under the balloon anymore, and so leave your Civ's borders. Two such Migrants (a settlement in serious Revolt) could start a new settlement outside but near your borders, which takes the form of a Hostile IP.

-And a number of in-game events should reduce population in a settlement, such as Migrants leaving or Plague/Natural Disaster deaths - and that reduction should be reflected in Tiles Not Worked for lack of workers and therefore Food, Production, Culture, et al being reduced. IF Food is reduced below the current population, a mass migration/revolt may occur and you lose control of the whole settlement - and maybe, it starts a new Civ.

This population reduction and more specific Migrant action would also serve to make the Crisis Events in each Age far more serious: if losing population also meant losing tiles effectively and losing food and other 'bonuses' for the settlement, the point would be reached in many cases where a city becomes no longer viable and a Secondary Disaster occurs: it devolves to a Town or converts to another Civ or an IP and leaves your Civ entirely, Activities like these could also act as specific triggers for Civ change instead of leaving it to a Hidden Act of diabolical Game Magic: changing Civs should be a Gamer Decision, even when the Civ is doing so badly in the Crisis period that there really isn't much in the way of a viable decision left.

A "Revolution" mechanic for Exploration/Modern Age can be added without adding any new settlement types, just revamping mechanics already in the game but not exploited for revolutionary purposes. In addition, once Revolutionary Mechanics are in place, they can also be used to make all the Crisis periods more meaningful, to the point where they provide Decision Points for the gamer to either actively choose to keep battling on with his original Civ or change to a new one as a result of the crumbling of the settlements and structures of his old Civ.

 

[ShrimpTruck]

1. You are done settling anything that matters. Antiquity Era gives you the core of your empire, but you are restrained to your home continent, and (unless you invest heavily in happiness) the relatively low settlement cap. Exploration opens up the rest of the map, and gives you much higher settlement cap. While it goes further still in Modern, I rarely feel the need to make use of it. And that's because:
a) All land types are already viable from antiquity. Any civilization can settle desert, or tundra, or jungle, and thrive. You can have your core Aksumite cities in the tundra, your Mississippians in the desert, and it won't meaningfully set you back. The only terrain type that opens up later is mountains. Everything else, you've already been working. But also...
b) All resources are freely available in all terrain types (or if they aren't, I couldn't tell you what the restrictions are) and none of them are required. There is no stalling the industrial revolution. There is no gold rush. We don't need to fight over the oil in the tundra and the desert, because we don't need the oil in the tundra and the desert. Our factories will churn all the same, even if all we feed them is oranges and flowers.

This feels like a major misstep. Exploration forces us to claim a new land by withholding some of it previously. Modern could have had the same, even if the rules were less strict. We know it can be done because Civ VI did it. Make desert, tundra and snow prohibitively bad to settle for most civilizations before modern. Replace the farms, the mines and the lumber mills with outposts that give you the urban population, and the resources, but no extra yields. Slam a massive happiness penalty for having your town center on those tile types. And then in Modern, place the coal and oil there, make the land viable, and make those resources a requirement for completing Modern Era objectives. As an added bonus, it opens up a lovely design space for future civs like Mali or Inuit, by giving them early advantage, similar to Inca and mountains.

I'd been confused by the terrain type yields, and this thread finally convinced me to go check how they actually worked. My assumption was that all yield types would have the same total yield on every tile, but that plains and grasslands would be getting the most valuable kinds of yields (you can't feed a city with culture or build wonders with gold sort of situation). But I checked on the wiki (Relevant Page) and that assumption was totally wrong. Every terrain gives a significant amount of food and production, actually ensuring all terrains are pretty much equal. I was also surprised to learn that yields increase every era (I was naively assuming that I just had so many more warehouse buildings in later eras and that's what was pumping up yields).

The current system makes all terrain types very same-y. I think the most elegant way to fix this would be to make the yields match more with my earlier misconceptions. If tundra tiles really gave just culture and no food or production, or desert just gave gold (at least in the ancient era), then I think that would be really interesting. It would take far longer to develop those cities, and they would never grow or build as fast as cities in grassland or plains, but they could be total powerhouse towns in terms of gold, culture, or science, creating complex decision making for settling.

The effects of this would be much more pronounced in the early game than the late game, as eras and warehouse buildings add food and production yields that dwarf the base antiquity yields, equalizing terrain types. This would have the desired effect of making areas of the map harder to settle early on, while keeping them viable, and it would make individual settlements more unique, demanding different resources and finding food imports more or less important.

I also think that tile base yields increasing between eras could be removed. To me, it's an uninteresting kind of snowball mechanic, as the empires that benefit most from the increase are those empires that control the most tiles. For warehouse buildings, the cost for all players per yield increase is the same, but the era change increases gives a larger buff to larger empires at no additional cost. It would also make warehouse buildings more valuable and slow down the game (which I know some don't want because they want to stop playing the game ASAP).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I'd been confused by the terrain type yields, and this thread finally convinced me to go check how they actually worked. My assumption was that all yield types would have the same total yield on every tile, but that plains and grasslands would be getting the most valuable kinds of yields (you can't feed a city with culture or build wonders with gold sort of situation). But I checked on the wiki (Relevant Page) and that assumption was totally wrong. Every terrain gives a significant amount of food and production, actually ensuring all terrains are pretty much equal. I was also surprised to learn that yields increase every era (I was naively assuming that I just had so many more warehouse buildings in later eras and that's what was pumping up yields).

The current system makes all terrain types very same-y. I think the most elegant way to fix this would be to make the yields match more with my earlier misconceptions. If tundra tiles really gave just culture and no food or production, or desert just gave gold (at least in the ancient era), then I think that would be really interesting. It would take far longer to develop those cities, and they would never grow or build as fast as cities in grassland or plains, but they could be total powerhouse towns in terms of gold, culture, or science, creating complex decision making for settling.

The effects of this would be much more pronounced in the early game than the late game, as eras and warehouse buildings add food and production yields that dwarf the base antiquity yields, equalizing terrain types. This would have the desired effect of making areas of the map harder to settle early on, while keeping them viable, and it would make individual settlements more unique, demanding different resources and finding food imports more or less important.

I also think that tile base yields increasing between eras could be removed. To me, it's an uninteresting kind of snowball mechanic, as the empires that benefit most from the increase are those empires that control the most tiles. For warehouse buildings, the cost for all players per yield increase is the same, but the era change increases gives a larger buff to larger empires at no additional cost. It would also make warehouse buildings more valuable and slow down the game (which I know some don't want because they want to stop playing the game ASAP).

Great Minds. I also went to the wiki to try and find out what the tile yields were, and was also surprised at how little they resemble what I would think they should be.

The problem is, bringing them into line with anything resembling reality would make some terrain very marginal until very late in the game (there is a reason no ancient city-sites are found on the tundra or in utterly featureless desert) and so the starting terrain biases for Civs and Leaders would have to also be changed or many of them would be abruptly Unplayable.

I can see two basic ways of doing that.

1. Along with a terrain bias for a marginal type of terrain, provide a starting Tech to better exploit that terrain. My favorite example is pre-Columbian North America, where the natives had some very different techniques for managing and exploiting the forests for both hunting and agriculture which baffled the Europeans when they first encountered them, because they largely didn't even recognize that the northeastern forests in America were not 'wild', but very carefully managed by the inhabitants. Something like that, providing more Food or Production at least, would still be within the bounds of the Possible.

2. Right now, all trade is in Resources, so that getting food, production, culture, science or anything else from trade depends entirely on what resources the other end of the trade route can provide. Furthermore, the only internal trade within your Civ is also in resources - being able to 'slot' whatever appropriate resource you have from any connected settlement in your Civ. Where modified terrain is deficient, then, remodel the resources available in that terrain to compensate: whatever currency a terrain is deficient in (food, production, cutliure, etc) have the resources in that terrain compensate.

You would still have to pretty carefully site your settlements and manage your resources to make some start biases work, but at least you wouldn't be totally doomed to trail the AI Civs by a bad starting position, and by a starting bias that assured you would get a bad start 9 out of 10 times (go on, ask me how many times I got a tundra start while trying to play Greece or Rome - and I simply hate the tundra terrain in Civ VII, because it has the most ridiculous yields and is the most graphically inaccurate)

 

[bengalryan9]

1. Along with a terrain bias for a marginal type of terrain, provide a starting Tech to better exploit that terrain. My favorite example is pre-Columbian North America, where the natives had some very different techniques for managing and exploiting the forests for both hunting and agriculture which baffled the Europeans when they first encountered them, because they largely didn't even recognize that the northeastern forests in America were not 'wild', but very carefully managed by the inhabitants. Something like that, providing more Food or Production at least, would still be within the bounds of the Possible.

The thing to remember here is that whatever bonus a civ gets for a type of terrain needs to be something that is passed on to whatever future civs I choose during age transitions. If I pick Egypt, and that gives me an increased ability to settle in desert which I take advantage of by settling 8 desert cities, but then I take someone that *doesn't* have a desert bonus in the exploration age (either by choice or maybe due to the fact that my unlocks were limited), will that work? Right now the game doesn't really have a system like that in place to pass bonuses like this along outside of tradition cards, and I don't know if having it tied to a tradition is really the best way to handle it.

If these were part of a civ's unique ability and those unique abilities passed on from age to age (which probably should've always been the case anyways IMO), then I think something like this could work.

 

[Leucarum]

The terrains do differ in terms of which resources appear though... That's the closest to a differentiation at present.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The thing to remember here is that whatever bonus a civ gets for a type of terrain needs to be something that is passed on to whatever future civs I choose during age transitions. If I pick Egypt, and that gives me an increased ability to settle in desert which I take advantage of by settling 8 desert cities, but then I take someone that *doesn't* have a desert bonus in the exploration age (either by choice or maybe due to the fact that my unlocks were limited), will that work? Right now the game doesn't really have a system like that in place to pass bonuses like this along outside of tradition cards, and I don't know if having it tied to a tradition is really the best way to handle it.

If these were part of a civ's unique ability and those unique abilities passed on from age to age (which probably should've always been the case anyways IMO), then I think something like this could work.

The terrain bonus, since it is terrain that you will have been sitting on for an enire ge before swapping Civs, will pass to the new Civ - an 'automatic Legacy' based on the terrain your digital population has been exploiting for 1000 years or more.

The existing attributes of the Civs will have to be reviewed, of course, to make sure none of them already have a terrain bonus or anything that is terrain-specific and therefore potentially not compatible wth their actual in-game terrain they start on.

The terrains do differ in terms of which resources appear though... That's the closest to a differentiation at present.

Exactly, and so if the terrain yields are modified to more closely represent their actual effects, the bonuses/yields from the associated Resources need to compensate, at least early in the game.

They already have variable resources and yields by Age, so I suggest that compensating bonuses for terrain would largely be confined to Antiquity/Start of Game. Technology should sytep in in the later Sges to create whatever yields you need from the tiles.

This has got to be part of a package that includes terrain yields revamp, compensating resource bonuses, and more developments for modifying the terrain in the game to exploit the map. People have been doing this since they started building cities: irrigating marginal land to produce crops, chopping down forests to produce farmland, burning grasslands or forest to produce farmland or pasturage.

From Antiquity there should be some, later many more, options for 'converting' the tiles into something more useful to the Civ that is placed on them. - Along with some very specific terrain-related capabilities for Civs on 'special' terrain, like Tundra, Tropical or Desert. Anybody can grow crops on temperate grasslands: it takes some special techniques to turn a mountain into cropland or make a forest support farms - but the Inca and the Haudenosenee, respectively, managed it with what, in game, should probably be Civ-specific Uniques.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The current system makes all terrain types very same-y.

Developers addressed this before the release - they said difference in terrain affected start too much in previous civ games, making it a problem in MP. Also, I think resources and things like rivers provide very significant part of the location differentiation.

In a perfect world starting locations need to be more or less equally viable, but require adjusting your strategy depending on them. It's interesting that the difference in terrain doesn't play a significant role in strategic choice in Civ6 - you either start good or bad. In terms of location, Civ6 is more affected with potential adjacencies. Civ7 is the same and maybe even better.

Actually the strategic element which relied on terrain the most was pantheon choice in Civ5. But other than this and some terrain-specific wonders, we never got deeper in this direction.

In short, I don't think the direct diversity in terrain yields is actually needed. It's better if terrain affects strategy indirectly - through things like wonders, pantheons and adjacencies.

 

[UWHabs]

Developers addressed this before the release - they said difference in terrain affected start too much in previous civ games, making it a problem in MP. Also, I think resources and things like rivers provide very significant part of the location differentiation.

In a perfect world starting locations need to be more or less equally viable, but require adjusting your strategy depending on them. It's interesting that the difference in terrain doesn't play a significant role in strategic choice in Civ6 - you either start good or bad. In terms of location, Civ6 is more affected with potential adjacencies. Civ7 is the same and maybe even better.

Actually the strategic element which relied on terrain the most was pantheon choice in Civ5. But other than this and some terrain-specific wonders, we never got deeper in this direction.

In short, I don't think the direct diversity in terrain yields is actually needed. It's better if terrain affects strategy indirectly - through things like wonders, pantheons and adjacencies.

It's nice to make sure that basically every start is "viable", for some definition of viable. But I think that's another piece where in their quest to make sure that MP is more balanced, they sacrificed something that made maps interesting.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It's nice to make sure that basically every start is "viable", for some definition of viable. But I think that's another piece where in their quest to make sure that MP is more balanced, they sacrificed something that made maps interesting.

I don't feel terrain yields affecting my strategic choices in Civ6 at all, they are just either "good" or "bad". Other things make them interesting.

 

[Krikkit1]

My thought is to make those terrains a little more like the Exploration age Ocean

So for each of the Desert/Tundra/Tropics there is an "extreme" form that causes you to take damage if you stop on them AND means you either can't improve it or only improve it with an Expedition Base*
*a resource will always be non Extreme

Extreme Desert... any Desert tile without Fresh water
Extreme Tropics...any Tropics tile that is Vegetated or Wet and adjacent to 3 or more Vegetated or Wet tiles
Extreme Tundra...any Tundra tile adjacent to 3 or more Tundra tiles OR with Snow
(Each would give its own amount of Damage that could be rather severe ?20-30 for Tundra ?30-40 for Tropics/Desert, reduced to 10-20 if it has a Building or Improvement... so you will survive in Friendly territory because of the healing... but not in enemy territory)

In Antiquity, you couldn't put Buildings or most improvements on them, only Expedition Bases ?and Wonders?
In Exploration, you could put Buildings and most Improvements and Wonders, but no Farms (Expedition Bases on spots that would have a Farm)
In Modern you would no longer take damage on them in Rural or Urban tiles, and you could have regular improvements on them.

Then they need to essentially give all civs without a bias of Desert/Tundra/Tropics a default bias to Plains/Grassland*
Civs with a bias of Desert/Tundra/Tropics either need special abilities or a strong River bias

*Meaning Plains/Grassland will be crowded early on... which is probably good

 

[Nic@Melbourne]

Remove attribute trees. Modern Civs will feel more impactful