The Next Expansion: a Few Suggestions

Hah! Thank you. I remember it being simply ridiculous, because your workers could zip right in and clean every tile right back to pristine pre-pollution levels, including even pollution from nuclear strikes. Since in fact even the Soviet military had already discovered that nuclear radioactivity was incredibly hard to neutralize or reduce (and their strategy was to fight a nuclear war and win it, a strategy they had to abandon after the graphic lesson of Chernobyl) the unreality of it annoyed the H**l out of me.
However, in the current context, a late-game Pollution and Anti-Pollution set of mechanisms might give the gamer something else interesting to do if it were handled right. Another tool in the fight against the current Late Game Malaise that infects Civ VI...

 

Very good idea

Start Monolithic age, 400.000 BC, Ice everywhere, many, may islands, sea is scattered with islands, everywhere big landmasses, but few high enough...
Great Thaw in 12.000 BC
All costal cities gets destroyed, unless built on hills that will be then the new plains, leaving ruins and hidden techs. No land mass and your settlers get straight unto boats.
For every destroyed city you get a new settler near where it was, on water.
Immediate Settlers creation, as conscriptors, or sacrifice depending on believes.
If your capital get submerged, it gets relocated automatically if land is connected.
Ability to merge settlers in the city, or destroy units for resources as well as builders harvesting.
(Build a ship there, fill it with gold, scrap it, build a university here, etc.etc..)

Minoans, Phoenicians civs, Oceania?, were really powerful, I wrote about Age shift in another thread, where some Wonders (Colossus specifically) are key for Age shifting.
Is no secret now Gobeki tepe is 12.000 years old, History books should move on...

Age shift thread
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-fix-civ-vi-now.635162/

 

Going back to 400,000 years ago is a bit much, since it requires the game to start with an entirely different group of humans other than Homo Sapiens, which we have trouble enough modeling in a game!

On the other hand, you are exactly right in that a lot happened before the perennial Start of Game in Civ at 4000 BCE. The examples I like to cite:
45,000 BCE - Aborigines reach Australia - earliest definite evidence of seafaring ability.
34,000 BCE - spun, dyed and knotted flax fibers - earliest evidence of cloth and nets from 'manufactured' fiber
26,000 BCE - evidence of cultivation of Taro plants in the New Guinea area - earliest evidence of 'agriculture'
25, 000 - 18,000 BCE - earliest fired clay objects, starting with religious 'votive statues' and ending with pottery.
12,000 BCE - houses built on stone foundations - earliest solid evidence of permanent human settlements
12,000 BCE - earliest images of boats on petroglyphs (Caspian Seashore)
10,000 BCE - earliest solid evidence of domesticated pigs
9600 BCE - earliest stone structures (stone towers in modern Syria)
8500 BCE - DNA evidence of domesticated cattle
6000 BCE - earliest self-bows found (elm, D-section, 5 feet long, in Denmark)

All of which simply means that by the Start of Game people somewhere are already in possession of the 'game technologies' of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Archery, Pottery, (primitive) Masonry, and Boating (sails, admittedly, are so far post-4000 BCE).
You could from that make a good case for setting the start date back, but I suggest instead that there is a case for giving a Civ a chance to start with more than one Technology at 4000 BCE: perhaps based on the Start Position Terrain and Resources get a choice of starting with Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Boating (as I mentioned in my OP) or Mining (access to Stone) - perhaps 2 from that list based on starting position.

 

I would make spreadable resources civ-specific. Not predefined, but based on which 'wild' organic resource you start harvesting. If Canada starts working Bananas tiles and collects a certain amount of Banana resource then only Canada can spread Bananas and no one else can. Later in the game when Manufactured resources come on line anyone would be able to spread Bananas not just Canada. But until that point if you want Canada Bananas you have to give them crabs or what ever Canada doesn't have.

 

Good point. In fact, the 'spread' mechanism could require a specific combination of circumstances or even a Great Person, so that spreading is difficult. After all, China maintained what was effectively a Monopoly on Porcelain and Silk for several thousand years. On the other hand, with effort it should be possible to 'break' the monopoly and develop the resource in other countries, because virtually all the European states developed their own porcelain 'factories' once they figured out the technology, and silk production necessities (worms, cocoons,) was smuggled out of China to the Middle East and Byzantium.

As to the original resources, there are several that were naturally very exclusive: Cotton originally really grew only in the Indus valley and southern Andes, the silk worm in southeast Asia, the 'special' Murex Dye could only be obtained in a few coastal areas in the Mediterranean - there's no reason why each game (except, I suppose, on a Duel Map) wouldn't have at least one Resource that is only in one small area of the map - rather the way many Amenity Resources seem to 'group' on the maps now, but more limited in the number of 'deposits'.

 

The original Posts were written almost 9 months ago, long before Gathering Storm speculation started, and it is interesting to look back at them. Compared to what I was proposing, of course, the designers went in very different directions:
1. Sea Trade was slightly buffed in GS, but the resources are still rigidly divided by type and purpose, and now the quantities aren't even figured the same way - although people are already starting to ask why Amenities cannot have a more variable 'quantity' to them just like Strategic resources.
2. The End Game was buffed with Climate Change, if 'buffed' is the right word, but the effects of the Industrial Revolution, computers, containerization, steam ships, railroads, etc. on trade and travel are barely hinted at. The End Game is, with the elongation of Science Victory and interminable nature of Diplomatic 'Victory', at least as boring as before.
3. Barbarians are as inconsequential and as annoying as ever: the gnats of Civ VI, when they could be sources of resources, trade, and in-game interaction.
4. The economics of the game and trade in general is still pretty lackluster. For all the new 'trading/gold' civilizations like Mali and Phoenicia, there is still no great Industrial Revolution effects nor the post-Renaissance Corporation/Non-Government structures like Banks, Commercial Corporations and International manufacturers.

Yep, we still need a 3rd Expansion - not for new Civs, although they sell the game, but to finish developing the game itself in so many areas.

 

I actually think it was III, and you would get those awful orange colored spots on top of all of your improvements/land and they used the same effect for fallout.

It was absolutely awful, but hey! Kept my workers busy! XD

I would appreciate pollution being more map-present and for them to bring back things like lakes drying up, desertification, melting of the snow tiles, etc.

Sorry I'm off topic.

 

Just a little, but my 2nd OP, on Revamping Resources, part of my argument is for resources not being static, which is part of not having the map be a static thing throughout the game. Now GS has started changing the map at the very end of the game, but I would very much like to see some of that throughout the game.
After all, river mouths and harbors have been silting up, coastlines changing, cyclic changes happening in climate/weather in local areas ('local' being up to the size of Europe!) - and, of course, resources being spread, depleted, replaced throughout the period covered by the game.

Part of 'updating' these posts since GS would be integrating the End Game terrain changing from GS into the Entire Game. Not 'Pollution' in most cases (until the Industrial Era, at least) but rivers change their courses, volcanoes blow up completely and change mountains into harbors (Thera 1500 BCE or so): Civs have had to deal with those changes, so why leave all that out of the game?

 

If I had the money I'd start an online school of modding for the sole purpose of implementing your ideas..

..and because I'd be bank rolling this puppy (and because I'm an old dinosaur with opinions on everything), I'd have a few suggestions



on fluid resources

In a thread about an earlier prehistoric era I mentioned that if a resource was used to intensely, whether it was one of the Wildlife resources or just one of the Plant resources, it could disappear for awhile (in the case of plant resources) or in the case of a Wildlife resource migrate to a different tile (random direction, terrain permitting and up to three tiles away) which would make the hunter/gatherer unit that the thread was about have to move every so often to be able to re-harvest the tile.

From the get-go the Wildlife resources should migrate occasionally until the tile is properly developed with a camp or pasture. And definitely the fishing resources! Geez, don't even get me started on that one..


on manufactured resources

Without wanting to change anything you've already mentioned (because dayum dude, you nailed it!)
what I do feel that's missing are Gunpowder, Munitions and Fuel as mid-late game added manufactured resources.

Gunpowder would be made by combining (Niter + Coal) in a Gunpowder workshop that replaces the regular workshop. It creates a number of Barrels of Gunpowder per turn, and slightly less production.

Munitions are made by combining (Gunpowder- either already made or just the raw niter and coal + Copper) in a Munitions Plant that replaces the regular factory, and creates a number of Cases of Munitions per turn, but no added production.

Fuel is refined from crude oil at a given ratio like one barrel of Oil gives two barrels of Fuel, and that ratio can be improved upon with later technological upgrades (like the way farms give more food with certain break through technologies and or civics). The Refinery doesn't replace the factory this time, it's a new district that has to be either next to an Industrial- or a Harbor District for adjacency bonuses to kick in, and also comes with it's own three tiers of buildings.

Crude Oil Storage Tanks could be added, and upgraded to Fuel Storage Tanks which covers the highway fuel costs for the city and surrounding region more efficiently.
High Octane Refinement could be another add on, making the highway maintenance the cheapest a player can achieve (outside of separate automotive developments), or a bio fuel refinement process facility that uses food instead of oil to produce Fuel
Plastics Production Facility as the last inclusion to the refinery.

Special ability (I shun to say special powers...) would be that a city can have two refineries (within regular district allowances)
Downside to this thing is that it tanks the appeal in all directions.. what was that you wrote? 'stomach churning disgust?' Sounds about right.. so having two refineries in a city means you want it to look like Pittsburgh, and don't deny it..

The way that I thought that units could utilize the Fuel and Munitions (and Gunpowder) resources would be if they only consumed Fuel resources when they were actually moving, not including when they're moving over Railroads, because those resources were already 'paid' for when they were built.

Melee units would need both Fuel and Munitions for attacking, since they occupy the tile when they defeat an enemy.
Cavalry units (helicopters and tanks) would have an extra 50% Fuel usage, but only when attacking. That goes for naval units as well, ranged or melee, them boats use a lotta fuel
Ranged units would need either Fuel to move, or Munitions to fight, but neither at the same time.
Planes require Fuel for everything, because those sucker ain't exactly known for being fuel efficient..
Spec ops units would require Fuel for paradrop incursions, and use extra munitions during attacks and while defending, because those boys just don't know the meaning of semi auto No fuel requirements when they're just huffing it through the bush though..


Railroads should be followed by Highways so that a player can get away from coal altogether if they so chose (and railroads that travel through areas where a city is producing sufficient power, should have an electric cost, not a coal cost). Highways would have a Fuel cost per turn, which would be reduced by automotive improvements developed yourself, or imported through trade with others.

Highways would eventually be replaced by Hyperloop transports, because Elon needs all the positive reinforcement that he can get. Can only be built between two cities, with further development it can be laid out in coastal waters and later upgraded to be laid out in ocean tiles. The cities pay the electrical cost to run the hyperloop line split between them.
Travel through city districts would be like through tunnels, instant teleport at a fraction of the movement costs.


For the corporations I would say that other civs (player included) can start a competitor corporation, but only after a branch office has been set up in one of your own cities.. and those copied corporations would always be a little less productive than the corporation founded by a great person.
I do think that the competitor companies ought to have names like units and rock bands.


Speaking of farms (were we?), a late game introduction could be bio-fuels which use food resources to create Fuel resources.
Speaking even more on farms, greenhouse tile improvements (upgraded from farm improvements) ought to be a thing that cities can build anywhere as long as it's flat, making tundras and deserts more useful.
Near future upgrades after greenhouses would be warehouse hydroponic systems (replaces the factory) and the vertical farming towers that science is currently looking into (can be built pretty much on any tile, on hills, flat lands, whatever..)

The largest of the naval units (the Battleships and Aircraft carriers) would also have a food cost for upkeep because those things are basically floating cities.. as well as any corps- fleet- army- or armada sized formations are all of a sudden going to require a food resource for upkeep.

That's all I can currently come up with without coffee.. thus, I'm off to get some

 

No question, in a 'dynamic map' model, which is what I want, some 'natural' resources are going to move on their own. Migration of fish, animals, sea or land resources could even be linked to a more game-long Climate Change Model, in which the Mini-Cycles of climate over the last 6000 years are included in the game, so that Tundra changes to Ice or Plains/Grasslands, Deserts expand or contract, and, of course, that would 'push' Deer, Elephants, Cattle, Horses, Sheep, etc to 'seek better pastures' unless you've already penned 'em up.

Part of this also would be to have some Extra Special Places. Like the Grand Banks shoals of fish off the New England coast, or the Humboldt Current off South America, where resources of certain types are so concentrated it becomes a Natural Wonder - to be exploited if you can get to it.

Niter is an 'artificial' resource, since most of it has Always been manufactured: Nitraries or, in the 20th century, in Haber-Process Chemical Plants. Charcoal. likewise, has always been manufactured by burning forests, a few trees at a time. A Gunpowder Plant, then, would just need a forest tile or two within the city radius (which your 'charcoal burners' would have a High Chance of depleting into Plains if they kept at it long enough) and Nitrarie smelling up the Neighborhood. For an added bonus, a Gunpowder Plant could have a 'Nuclear Power Plant' mechanism where it might explode violently due to carelessness, possibly taking out a Building in your city.

Munitions: I do NOT want to make a game out of "Build your own Industrial Complex In Order to Have a Military". Counting the repetitions in old wallpaper would be more interesting, IMHO.
Also, 'Munitions' by sheer volume and weight, are not all equally important. Artillery ammunition has always represented by far the largest percentage of munitions, (like, in a WWII infantry division, the basic load of artillery ammunition weighed 9 times more than all the infantry, machine-gun. mortar ammunition combined). And the biggest component of artillery ammunition is not the explosive filler, it's the shell bodies and casings - made of steel. Copper is important only for certain types of ammunition, but artillery ammunition sucked up between 1/4 and 1/3 of all steel used by the belligerents in WWII (well, the major belligerents: USSR, Germany, USA, Britain). That's a Huge Industrial burden, which the game currently ignores.
However, that burden, strictly speaking, only becomes important in the Modern Era. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, the armies shot off up to 200 - 400,000 rounds of artillery in a battle. By the Balkan War of 1912, it was up to a million rounds a month. By the middle of WWI, the British army alone fired off over 3,000,000 rounds of artillery ammunition in a single two-week period. And, unlike the artillery pieces themselves, you have to keep manufacturing ammunition continuously as long as you intend to actually use those guns.

So, if we're going to model gunpowder (and 'smokeless powder' that replaced it at the end of the Industrial Era) and Ammunition/Munitions, then I suggest we keep it simple: model artillery ammunition, increasingly required by all units in the Modern Era and on, and the 'raw material' for it would be Steel and Nitrates (explosive).

The problem with a separate Refinery complex/District, is that the earliest Refining was done right at or near the Well - and still is conducted very close to it, in places like Russian Baku, USA Houston, etc. Let's not directly model the entire process, but instead allow Upgrades as a result of Technologies that add 'extra' Fuel from your Oil because of discoveries in engine manufacture, gasoline additives, etc.
High Octane Fuel I want to keep as a potential Upgrade for aircraft (Want to expand the Giant Debt Robot's technology Upgrades to ALL units in the game eventually), allowing them to get better combat factors, better range, etc.

I grew up near Pittsburgh: it was the coal-smoke belching Steel Mills that turned the city into Black Skies 'R Us in the first half of the 20th century, not Oil refining. But you're on to something: Pollution should be a game-long mechanism, ranging from burning coal to heat cities ('London Fogs' in the Industrial Era) to Oil and Steel production or simple concentrations of Factories from the Industrial Era on.

To give a few figures, since I've been delving recently into a lot of German and Soviet WWII archive documents for a book:
A Panzer Division required twice as much fuel as a motorized infantry division to move the same distance,
Aircraft engines required two-three times as much fuel as the same number or tank engines, and up to 10 times the fuel of the same number of truck/wheeled vehicle engines.
Any unit armed largely with small arms, no matter how trigger happy, will use about 1/10 as much ammunition by weight as a unit with an artillery component.

And in the scale of the game, Even if a unit is 'standing still' it's going to be running vehicles and engines.

So, Munitions would be required for anything 'Heavy': Battleships, Aircraft Carriers, Tanks, Artillery, Rocket Artillery, - they will all fire off ammunition by the 100s of tons. Infantry, Recon, 'light' ranged like machine-guns or antitank direct fire weapons - really don't require that much weight of ammunition by comparison. No matter how hard they try, they just can't use the tonnage that the 'heavy' units can - unless they melt every barrel and launch tube in the unit.

All Modern Era and later units have vehicles - even a German infantry division in WWII, which had over 3000 horses (in 1941) also had up to 500 trucks and cars. (By comparison, a Panzer Division in 1941 had over 3000 motor vehicles). So Every Melee, Ranged, Anti-Cav, 'Cav' (tank/modern armor/helicopter) unit will require Fuel BUT tank. modern armor, helicopter units will require twice the fuel, and air units 3 times the fuel per turn to do anything. Recon units stay useful because they represent fewer men, more lightly equipped, and so compared to everybody else don't require any continuous resources of ammunition tonnage or fuel by the cubic meter..
Here's an added 'tactical' touch: if a unit expends extra fuel per turn, it can move +1 tile per turn - the good old 'day and night' pursuit or road march, which unless you are sitting on Fuel supplies stacked high and wide, you can't do very often or with too many units.

Actually, by the Atomic Era (1940s) virtually all railroads were burning Oil, not coal - they'd converted to diesel-electric locomotives. Change the graphics and add Hyper Loop later, but the Railroad can transition seamlessly to highway or 'modern' railroads and either one will require a new fuel source.
And, for certain, railroad tunnels and later communications tunnels should be buildable under Coastal Tiles in the Atomic and later Era - Chunnel is only one of several examples in the world today.

Like Rock Bands, I'd give them 'basic' game-generated names but allow free renaming by players. Any Corporation with "Acme" in the title would, of course, have a chance of any of their installations, buildings, etc. Exploding on any given turn . . .

Again, 'farm' improvements can also be moved backwards in time. Right now, the game makes virtually no use of the Irrigation Tech at all, yet the various forms of Irrigation could have a huge effect on farm production.

Early Irrigation with dams (take out that artificial Great Bath monstrosity and replace it with the Mar'ib Dam, one of the earliest Flood-abatement/irrigation structures in history!) should make it possible to 'farm' plains and desert tiles near a river or even up to a tile or two away from the river (qanat systems of ancient Indus and Afghanistan watered areas hundreds of miles from the water source). Modern mechanized irrigation pumps and sprayers allow just about any part of the desert to be farmed, and combined with Bio-engineered plants, massive increases in production from each irrigated 'tile'.

And some plants have had 'Production' bonuses attached to them for a long time: using your grain or rice to manufacture Distilled Liquor as an Amenity/Trade item ever since the Renaissance Era, for example.
Bio-Mass for Bio-Fuels can theoretically be anything, but, again, Bio-Engineered plants will probably be the best bet in the 'near Future Era'.

A Tech or Civics advance could also allow City Farming - roadside, abandoned lot, Greenhouse Rooftop and other areas converted to 'agriculture'. It would have both a Food Production (perhaps simply 'modeled' as a % Increase in Population Growth) and possible Amenity component, and even a Green Revolution/Sustainablility mechanic with it. This sort of thing is gaining quite a bit of traction in the cities here in the Pacific Northwest where I live, but it's been done in Western Europe since the mid Twentieth century in various forms.

Whew! Lot's of things to play with. Thank you very much for your Input and ideas.

 

Expanding on old_andy's post above, to model manufactured resources, I would speculate you would get buildings like Forges, Workshops, Factories and Research Labs to have sort of build queues, where you could take in resources to be manufactured into more refined products. Therefor you could make up to 3 Factories per IZ, which have reduced Production bonuses, but You would have artificial luxuries, and then manufactured components for building and maintaining a modern military. As most of the Production spent when training a unit is really about the equipment rather then the actual soldiers, you would have Production boosts if you have the components ready, and whilst substitutions could exist, penalties would be incurred. Also would have Copper and Rubber as new Strategic resources

Additionally, there would be a list of resources that only exist within one civilization, and only have 2-3 deposits across the map (e.g. Phoenician Purple Dye, Kaolin Clay, Brazilwood and Ivory, to name a few, these could only be spread at Conservation)

Artificial Luxuries

Jewellery
Made from At least 2 from Gems, Jade, Amber and Pearls
Manufactured in Workshop
Unlocked with Engineering

Perfume
Made from Incense, Citrus, Spices
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Chemistry

Cosmetics
Made from Dyes, Incense
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Chemistry

Jeans
Made from Refined Fabrics, Silk
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Synthetic Materials

Toys
Made from Plastics or Rubber, Dyes
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Plastics

Automobiles
Made from Engines, Rubber
Manufactured inFactory
Unlocked with Combustion
Produces CO2 if consumed

PCs
Made from Electronics
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Computers
Produces some CO2 is consumed


Starbucks Coffee
Coffee, Tea and Sugar
Manufactured in Shopping Mall
Unlocked with Capitalism

Porcelain
Made from ?
Manufactured in Forge
Unlocked with Iron Working and Pottery


Manufactured Components
Steel
Made from Iron
Manufactured in Forge
Unlocked with Metal Casing
Required for Engines, Battleship, Destroyer, AT Crew, Modern AT

If a unit uses Steel instead of Iron, gain +5CS, so long as Steel used

Gunpowder
Made from Niter
Manufactured in Workshop
Unlocked with Gunpowder
Required for Musketman, Pike and Shot, Bombard, Frigate, Privateer, Field Cannon

Refined Fabric
Made from Cotton
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Industrialization
Required for Jeans

Plastics
Made from Oil
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Plastics
Required for Wiring, Infantry, Spec Ops

Petroleum
Made from Oil
Manufactured in Oil Rig
Unlocked with Combustion
Required for Automobiles, Tank, Supply Convoy, Modern Armour, Battleship, Destroyer, Submarine, Missile Cruiser, Aircraft Carrier, Bomber, Fighter, Biplane, Helicopter, Rocket Artillery

Alternative to using Petroleum is to use 1 Power from a Power Plant of origin city after Synthetic Materials unlocked

Artillery Shells
Made from Gunpowder, Steel
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Steel
Required for Artillery, AT Crew, Battleship, Destroyer, Anti-air Gun, Bomber, Jet Bomber

Only required for Bombers for Pillage/ Bombing missions

Fertilizer
Made from N/A
Manufactured in Nitrarie
Unlocked with Military Engineering

Boosts Farm food output if consumed by Farm


Electronics
Made from Aluminium, Wiring
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Computers

Required for PCs, Engines, Jet Engines


Engines
Made from Electronics
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Combustion
Required for Automobiles, Tank, Modern Armour, Helicopter, Fighter, Bomber, Biplane, Drone


Jet Engines
Made from Electronics, Aluminium, Carbon Fibre
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Combined Arms
Required for Jet Fighter, Jet Bomber

Carbon Fibre
Made from N/A
Manufactured in Research Lab
Unlocked with Composites
Required for Jet Engines, Modern Armour, Mechanized Infantry, Modern AT

Wiring
Made from Copper, Plastic
Manufactured in Factory
Unlocked with Electricity
Required for Electronics

Bonus Power from Power Plants if they consume Wiring


Artificial Dyes
Made from N/A
Manufactured in Research Lab
Unlocked with Chemistry

Produces a source of Dyes

Chemical Fertilizer
Made from N/A
Manufactured in Research Lab
Unlocked with Chemistry

Boosts Farm food output if consumed by Farm

Sorry if this is a bit much, but it proves that manufactured resources could make modern warfare much more focused on industry, like pretty much every modern conflict of the 20th Century, it was won by whoever had the biggest, bestest factories.

 

Two problems with adding an extensive list of Manufactured Resources and Buildings (and possibly new Districts) to manufacture them:
1. Civ VI already has a Production Problem, in that the Tech and Civics Trees progress faster than you can build the %$#@^ Units now. By the Atomic Era, the few times I've bothered to play that far, I am building mostly Industrial Era units andUpgrading, because it takes too Frothing long to manufacture the Atomic Era units, let alone the Information Era/End Game units. Extending the process merely drags out the last third of the game even more unless you also do a major rework of the tech progression speeds. I think that desperately needs to be done in any case, but adding another layer of 'Producing the requirements to produce the requirements' to produce the units just makes the overall problem that much worse, and the reworking that much harder.
2. Voznesenskii was in charge of production in the entire USSR in World War Two. He might be intrigued by a game of Industrial Production In Detail, but very few other people will be. I have played such a game: back in the late 1960s a group tried to produce a game of World War Two in all of its strategic, tactical, and industrial aspects. The written rules (this was long before computer games, or personal computers for that matter) ran to 200 pages for the Industrial part alone. Reading them could put you into a coma, let alone trying to play them. I don't want to go there again: life's much, much too short.

All of which is why in my initial Posts in this thread (4 and 5, specifically) I proposed a limited use of Manufactured Resources/Amenities based on Corporations and Great People. I think whatever such system is introduced, it has to be kept simple, because the entire concept is subject to Expanding until it eats up the rest of the game.

Just for an example: Steel. A basic 'manufactured Resource' required for virtually everything built between the end of the Industrial Era and the Atomic Era. Manufacturing it requires not just Iron (ore), but also Coal or Charcoal and Power (water in the early Industrial Era, coal plants or hydroelectric later). The classic Blast Furnaces produced not only Steel, but also massive amounts of air and ground pollution - slag heaps and dark skies (see any photograph of Pittsburgh between 1920 and 1960).

But we're not done yet. Armor Plate is not steel, it is any one of several types of Steel Alloy. So to build your Battleships and Tanks, you also need the alloy metals Nickel, Chromium, Manganese, or Molybnium. And some very specialized Furnaces, Presses, and other Heavy Equipment to produce rolled, cast, welded or compound armor plate - especially for Battleships, where the armor reached 300 - 500 mm thick and each plate could weigh 100s of tons.

In other words, unless you consciously 'rein in' yourself, it all gets ridiculously complicated very, very fast.

Enough generalized Cautions: some specific comments to your post:

 

Gold needs to be added as a resource--if not in this putative third expansion, then in a patch. Mali without gold (as a specific resource) is like Montezuma without feathers in his headdress. Or the Inca without a mountain bias.

The best way to combat late-game malaise is to add new challenges. Civil disobedience, news and PR issues, hidden conspiracies, financial meltdowns, and the discovery of new islands/continents/resources. Think archaeologists who have to search for vectors that lead to a final destination that uncovers something less expected than a dinosaur artifact and instead some new quest that could lead to a new bonus that pursuing would cause a potential diplomatic incident over--whether it's the discovery of oil on an island between two nations, or some other thing. Contemporary life has plenty of drama to choose from, and driving Civ into more story-based strategic possibilities would make things more interesting.

The early game story-based strategic possibilities are obvious--where will I settle? How should I direct my scouts to explore? Should I wage war early?

With late-game, when cities are all essentially fully developed (or bonuses would deliver diminished returns), dramatic bonuses need to be put into play--and I'm not talking pluses and minuses on green corn icons or purple music notes. I'm talking major possibilities for war, or alliances, or discoveries. Things that shake the map up and give it a new exploratory lens. Civ IV kind of had this in their random events, and some new devastating spy missions and UN resolutions, but it could be driven further.

 

Sukritact's Resources Mod includes Gold, and (so far) works with GS and the Patch: I haven't started a game without it in months.

Couldn't agree more. The game needs some serious Strategic Decision Making Requirements in the last half.
Some Suggestions:

Religion.
This needs to be revised extensively. Religion wasn't something you started, it's something that happened to you and the civ and the government had to React to it. Sometimes the reaction was as simple as embracing it and making it 'official', but it usually came with major social, political, and even military problems connected with the process. This set of problems would start in the Classical and Medieval Era, but, as Current RL shows, Never Goes Away completely.

Public Opinion/Media
Starting at least by the Industrial Era (and a case could be made for the late Renaissance) mass media appeared in the form of weekly, then daily newspapers, broadsides, mass entertainment (theatre, lecture and music halls), and the feelings and opinions of the Mass of the people suddenly became very important in political decisions, because it became explicitly noticeable, and magnified by the media that made it obvious to anyone paying attention. This in turn immediately spawned Propaganda and other Government manipulation of The Opinion, and, in the Modern Era, manipulation of the public for commercial reasons: advertising. Finally (so far!) we have the manipulation of The Public by Social Media, which magnifies government, private, NGO, and just whimsical manipulation all in one medium.
None of this was ever really controllable, so it becomes another source of Problems for your Civ to react to.

Non-Government Organizations
Civ VI has dipped its collective toe into this with the World Congress, but it starts much, much earlier: international banking families, business organizations, religious organizations with economic and military effects, international scientific and industrial organizations. The interactions of all of these with Civs and their governments is a rich source for 'game conflict' in the political, social, cultural, religious, and diplomatic arenas.

Ideology
This is sometimes used as a 'catch-all' for all sorts of things, but here I refer to the Trans-National social/political/economic movements starting in the late Renaissance with Humanism and Enlightenment social thinking, and moving on in the Industrial Era to Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and 'Capitalism' (in quotes because it morphs from a pure economic system into a political/economic/social system embracing everything from rampant individualism to slavery-equivalent exploitation of the population in the pursuit of Wealth). The results of Civs wrestling with these 'ideas' were a series of revolutions violent and 'legal', abrupt changes in diplomatic and political orientation, and among the most vicious and destructive wars in history. A mere government-type or Policy Card or Civic doesn't begin to represent any of this.

 

I particularly like the idea of making trade and resources more in-depth as well as adding an Economic victory. I would however, love to see diplomacy fleshed out much more. As it stands now, it is either too clouded (ie. Asking for promises requires the AI to make unseen moves that trigger this option for availability) or too over simplified (ie No backstabbing when necessary/ no denouncing friends when they do something wrong/ must wait out the turns of friendship until you are no longer friends). I feel these issues have left diplomacy bereft of its depth and bite. Further, the World Congress system of voting on resolutions should be overhauled again. The random "proposals" should still be from an era specific list; yet one you could possibly advance forward with Diplomatic Favor. As I see it, the voting on proposals should be sent back to Yea or Nea again, since now you could inadvertently vote for something you did not want. Possibly re-incorporate the Diplomat unit from Civ 5. As for promises, I think the Diplomatic Favor requirement should be removed and instead grievances used if the request is brushed off or denied. Possibly grant Diplomatic Favor if they acquiesce to your request and vice versa. You could even re-introduce bribing nations to go to war and instead insert some Diplomatic Favor to sweeten the deal. Just some thoughts...

 

The original intent of the Posts, which were written long before the first GS hints appeared, was to throw out ideas for an Economic Focus for the next expansion. Obviously, had little effect.

IF I were to spend an equal amount of time on Diplomacy, I would start with the following:
1. Start with Regional Conferences instead of a World Congress. That is, an agreement among, say, all the Civs on a single continent, or a single area of a Pangaea continent, with Resolutions geared to events within that narrower area, like enlarging/restricting Trade among them, threatening Sanctions against a War Monger, declaring a Joint War, etc. This could start as early as the Classical Era, and later be enlarged into the World Conference - after everybody has found everybody.
2. I would more closely link Grievances and Diplomatic Favor to specific Leader Agendas. And allow you to change a Leader Agenda in the game, perhaps even from the start. You want to play Gandhi as a rabid warmonger, you can start with a Warmongering Agenda - and maybe in the Industrial Era change it to a Freedom (as in, liberate all captured cities) Agenda. These two things together would make Diplomacy much more dynamic: link the Change of Agendas to some specific in-game action or activity, like losing a war or an Emergency (which would, theoretically, cause the 'actual' Leader of the civ in question to change, thus, presumably, also changing his/her Agenda) and you would actually have some warning of when you have to start all over again diplomatically with some neighbor.
3. I would link Diplomacy and Trade more closely. Trade makes friends, while Trade with enemies is more problematic, and might even be prohibited entirely for Strategic or Diplomatic purposes. Asking someone not to trade or to trade something strategically useful with a third party should be a diplomatic option, for instance. - And 'bribing' a powerful or influential Civ to intercede for you with a third party should be an Option diplomatically. Favor and Grievance from Trade can be linked to specific types of Trade: trading a Strategic Resource that allows someone to build a new unit (like, 20 Iron at a batch) should give you some Favor with that Civ, or at the least, reduce Grievances with them. Trading a Luxury when they are short of Amenities should also have increased effect.
4. Introduce more Diplomatic 'Dirty Tricks', Why send a spy to 'take out' a Governor when you can send gold to bribe him? Or a 'foreign minister' to get a favorable deal with another Civ? Famously, the Greeks said that Darius' most dangerous weapon was the Persian archer - the one that appeared on the Persian gold coin that was used to bribe Greek politicians!
5. Increase Options. For instance, right now you allow Open Borders or Closed: nothing in between. Why not Open Sea Tiles, but otherwise Closed? How about Closed to Missionaries but otherwise Open? Or Closed to military units, but open to Scouts or Civilian units. Or, at the extreme: Closed to Everybody including Traders, Missionaries, Diplomats, Envoys. Which won't win any friends, but might also stop all 'Gossip' from your Civ - the In-Game "Iron Curtain".

Just some off-the-cuff ideas, but I hope you see where I'm headed: always in favor of more options, more dynamic game.