The Possible Mechanics Left After Gathering Storm

[Xefjord]

This post is mostly in response to the idea that GS will cover most of the gameplay content left for Civ to add. While asking for a 3rd expansion is still mostly wishful desperation to see some of the gaps in civs that this expansion will inevitably leave out: I wanted to make a legitimate post exploring the features Gathering Storm has missed and may be a really good addition to a third expansion.

With that said the main ideas I came up while browsing the forums were:
1. Health/Diseases
2. Migrations
3. Vassalage
4. Slavery
5. Corporations
6. Colonies
7. Improvements to Religion

Just reading down that list I feel like a lot of those mechanics could feasibly be tied together in some hypothetical Expansion 3. It would give Expansion 3 a return to known history and really flesh out the effect that migrations have had on people in both sharing culture, setting up international companies, creating vassal states, spreading diseases, capturing people from far away lands, etc. All of these mechanics focus on how people have moved over time and how the world has been interconnected.

I feel like this kind of expansion would further reinforce the tone set in Gather Storm where they are trying to create a dynamic map that you interact with, by having the citizens of the map in every country also be people with their own reactions and interactions (Migrating, spreading disease, being turned into slaves, etc) I also think this would be enough content to warrant a new expansion and not feel too little, maybe not as big as GS but still sizable.

What do you all think? Do you have any other features you would like to see in Civ 6 that won't be making it to Gathering Storm? Are you hoping for a 3rd expansion after this one?

 

[UWHabs]

Part of me kind of feels like they're more or less done after this expansion. While some of the systems you list are ones that could make a return (corporations, colonies, migration, etc... all make some sense), to me, I think if they're going to do a 3rd expansion, what I would most want would be something more like civ 6: combined arms. Basically, adding all this other diplomacy, empire builder, natural environment playing is awesome, well needed, and looks like a lot of fun, if they're going to have a new pack, I honestly want it focuses more on the war engine. Bring us a new class of units, new ways to siege and starve cities, ways to integrate naval and airforce, digging trenches, etc... In a lot of ways, an expansion focused on military would round out the game very nicely.

 

[Rup]

I am uber hyped for this expansion.I know how Firaxis nail the last expansion.
But I would have been more hyped if it included the 7 features you listed with a slight change.World congress and Apostolic palace instead of corporation.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I am uber hyped for this expansion.I know how Firaxis nail the last expansion.
But I would have been more hyped if it included the 7 features you listed with a slight change.World congress and Apostolic palace instead of corporation.

The World Congress is in the upcoming expansion.
The devs mentioned in an interview that they didn’t want to introduce disease yet and decided to put it into a scenario.
That makes me think more will be on the way but not as much as this one.

I would like to see a health mechanic come back. I would also like to tie in a migration and citizenship mechanic that could tie into the loyalty system that is already in place.

 

[Rup]

The World Congress is in the upcoming expansion.
The devs mentioned in an interview that they didn’t want to introduce disease yet and decided to put it into a scenario.
That makes me think more will be on the way but not as much as this one.

I would like to see a health mechanic come back. I would also like to tie in a migration and citizenship mechanic that could tie into the loyalty system that is already in place.

I know it is included in GS.
I meant I wish for it to stay in my hypothetical ideal first expansion of CIV VI.

 

[bbbt]

I've mentioned this before, but I think they could do a lot more with trade/economics in a third expansion (or Civ 7 - as I'm thinking 3 is unlikely).

- A true 'fungible resource' market - especially with how they are now doing strategic resources. Ala something like Endless Legend where you are buying/selling excess from a common market (which determines the price).
- Basic 'crafting' - i.e. iron plus coal for steel. And for luxuries as well (both dyes and cotton make clothing sort of thing, you could also maybe be able to create more unique luxuries that are in demand (i.e. 'Venetian glass').
- Luxuries could have a 'supply/demand' mechanic (i.e. a "in-demand' luxuries creates unhappiness if it's not in an empire - and brings in more money)
- Luxuries could even need to be distributed. I.e. Patrician/Port Royale/etc. games that Gaming Mind Studios do. Maybe too much micromanagement though.
- For luxuries/resources that are banned by the world congress (or even by a particular civ), spys could create 'black markets'
- All of the above could feed into a corporation-based economic victory.

I'd also love to see a restructure of production and things like food (so it becomes 'global' to your empire instead of localized after a certain tech/era, and growth is based on other factors like economic growth/appeal). But as has been pointed out that sort of underlying restructure is probably beyond just an expansion.

 

[bbbt]

They could also do a plague mechanic and make essentially Civilization: Pandemic, where there's a new 'co-op victory' (everybody wins together!). I'm not sure exactly how that would work, but it wouldn't be out of line with the way the franchise is going frankly.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

They could also do a plague mechanic and make essentially Civilization: Pandemic, where there's a new 'co-op victory' (everybody wins together!). I'm not sure exactly how that would work, but it wouldn't be out of line with the way the franchise is going frankly.

I could see that being a possible emergency or world congress special session to work together to combat a plague epidemic. I would enjoy that.

 

[Inhalaattori]

One cool feature from CIV III is ethnicity, where if you conquer city the population still stays the original ethnicity and then starts slowly changing to your ethnicity. The speed of this change is based on many things like government, happiness/amenities etc. I really think it would work great with loyalty mechanic.

 

[WillowBrook]

Past iterations of civ have had a conscription mechanic, where you could draft a military unit at the cost of a population point. It gave unhappiness and the units had disadvantages (e.g., in III, it had two hit points while regular units had three and veteran units had four), but could save a city or create a war machine quickly.

Resources could be a bit more dynamic, too. I recall whales going obsolete in a previous iteration. The crafting idea mentioned above would help in the other direction. Perhaps of the original luxuries on a continent, one would go obsolete at some point but two could be made into additional luxury goods. Some more creative uses for bonus resources would be nice as well.

Some tying together of trade routes and resource trades would also be nice. Perhaps one party has to have a trading post in a city of the other party to trade resources (you could still do open borders and other diplomatic deals without the trading post connection).

I like the idea of including ethnicity, although it would need to be implemented in a way so as not to perpetuate stereotypes that minorities are inherently less loyal than the dominant population. Maybe more of a national affinity than ethnicity or nationality, at least if it's tied to loyalty.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'd like to see Corporations. It was not very well implemented in Civ 4, but Ed Beach does a good job fleshing out mechanics. And it would probably lock into the new strategic resource system and global climate change system pretty well. Beyond that, it seemed like Dennis Shirk hinted that Health/disease will be coming back in some form in the future.

 

[Absolution]

Revolutions are left.
Revolutions in the means of RevDCM mod for Civ4. Not the poor loyalty system for cities, but actual rebellions based on "disagreement" of the public with the government's methods.
Of course it is based much on ethnic demography, religion, and distance, but it has to come together with a realistic government system. Not the game-ly tool of bonuses and options of Civ5 and Civ6.
A real government type, with several categories, representing real regimes and with effects on the people and on the abilities of the state, not just bonuses.
Then, your people will call up the Great Revolutionary Vladimir Lennin in a request for a Socialist Government. You'll have to change your government in order to pleas the protesters.
If you refuse, it might worsen into an armed rebel, and you'll have to defeat the armies of Rebel Leader Ché. Or will they go even further to capture your capital and become the dominant state?
Requests will defer between cities, obviously.
And oh yes, your large block of cities down south, which had fallen to Hindu in the great conversions by the nasty English, now demands that you change your state religion to theirs.
Or, if you can't, will they rise up and fight your pious Islamic government? Guess it's time for a two state solution.... Grant those few cities their independance to prevent any more mess.
Now religious conversions are an issue as well... It has more effects than just winning a religious victory.

And obviously, a real diplomacy system is missing. Not just weird hints from the leaders, or childish gestures. Real political requests and deals, more "mature" and realistic content.
(Like in Civ4....)

 

[AntoineS]

Navigable rivers for trade and invasions . Civ 6 makes the map the star of the show, this would be a great way of doing it as far as mechanics are concerned (beyond the content itself)

I hope Civ 6 gets 1 and I wish for 2 more expansions at least before Civ 7. The development cycle for every game has been too short, too comercial, and every time a game starts to feel just about right in terms of potential and content, a new vanilla version, that misses a lot of features, mechanics and development, comes out and it´s the same cycle all over again. It´s frustrating and quite frankly kills the potential of every iteration of civ.

It seems to me that Civ 6 has even more potential in terms of game mechanics, immersion, and to go back to what Civ really stands for (what will your civilization stand for? Just one more turn...) than any previous version, while opening up a new era for the franchise. With 2 more years of hard work, and done properly, it could become a great game that would be thought of as a mainstay of the series... hopefully

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Ultimately my 3rd ep would consist of Colonization (and express for colonizing new continents, without worrying that oh hey, there's already a well developed nation there), Trade Networks (so you can trade off your excess and encouraged to do it, particularly with the bounties of bonus resources), Health and Plagues (because why the heck not), Vassalage (because sometimes you gotta do the whole dom/sub thing) and bring back all the remaining fan fave civs if they are not in this ep.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

One cool feature from CIV III is ethnicity, where if you conquer city the population still stays the original ethnicity and then starts slowly changing to your ethnicity. The speed of this change is based on many things like government, happiness/amenities etc. I really think it would work great with loyalty mechanic.

I like the idea of including ethnicity, although it would need to be implemented in a way so as not to perpetuate stereotypes that minorities are inherently less loyal than the dominant population. Maybe more of a national affinity than ethnicity or nationality, at least if it's tied to loyalty.

Ethnicity could be handled in a manner similar to the faith of the citizens of each city. Combining it with the loyalty system and the policy card system could open up lots of very interesting empire management dynamics.

It could also enhance an immigration system. I'd say immigration-emigration, but we know the current dev team doesn't like player negatives, so I'm going to assume any prospective immigration system would have to involve population gains without a corresponding population loss.

Revolutions are left.

Policy cards which become underpowered over time (because better cards become available) or include negatives that only appear as you advance into future era, would open up a system where your flexibility to change policy cards is limited. Revolutions then become a potential way to change a bunch of policy cards at once, at the cost of some temporary disruption.

Lots of interesting potential here, I think. Losing a war, for example, could allow for some "free" policy changes. Some Great People could implement free changes. A World Congress could add negatives to some policies, pushing civs who are running that policy to consider whether it's still worth running.

 

[thecrazyscot]

My biggest wish is the ability to set the end era of the game.

 

[warpyg]

I'd like to see Corporations. It was not very well implemented in Civ 4, but Ed Beach does a good job fleshing out mechanics. And it would probably lock into the new strategic resource system and global climate change system pretty well. Beyond that, it seemed like Dennis Shirk hinted that Health/disease will be coming back in some form in the future.

I bet is the The Black Death scenario coming with GS

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I bet is the The Black Death scenario coming with GS

He said " we don't have that in the main game yet, then he referred to the scenario. It makes it seem like the scenario is just a taste of that feature with more to come.

 

[thecrazyscot]

He said " we don't have that in the main game yet, then he referred to the scenario. It makes it seem like the scenario is just a taste of that feature with more to come.

Particularly since they also talked about the developers viewing scenarios as a testbed for additional features.

 

[warpyg]

He said " we don't have that in the main game yet, then he referred to the scenario. It makes it seem like the scenario is just a taste of that feature with more to come.

Cool! Fingers crossed for more content beyond GS!