They didn't stand the "Test of Time". Features from previous games that won't be in Civ7

[Lord Yanaek]

So there has been a lot of discussion about the new features Civilization 7 will bring, but what about the old ones that won't be coming back? Will you miss them?
Here are a few features i remember from previous games, i'm sure there are a lot more.

• Corruption, Pollution, Health/Housing. Previous titles used to have a lot of different factors affecting your growth, both empire-wide and city-wide. They were gradually simplified and now Civ7 will have a single meter : Happiness, to limit both empire and city growth (for city it seems like it will only affect specialists, but they will be very important). I don't think i will miss those TBH, multiple factors affecting roughly the same aspects of the game in similar ways don't really bring anything interesting. Also with the way cities now develop, requiring both health and happiness buildings to keep growing would be annoying. Health might have been interesting if it was the only limit to city growth with happiness being purely empire-wide but i don't think we need both local happiness and health in the game at the same time.
• Civ4 Civics. I kind of miss the customization you had access to in Civ4 when it came to governing your empire. The Civ7 governments seem extremely lackluster to me, even Civ6 did it better with different card colors for different governments making some of them better for military games, and others for peaceful economic games. I really hope they revamp the government system in Civ7 at some point and make it more interesting. Arguably i couldn't test it yet so maybe the celebrations-only bonuses really matter but i still think Civ4 (and SMAC) had the best systems for Governments, with multiple areas you could choose from to mix-and-match bonuses and fine-tune your civilization's development.
• Religion as it's own path. Religion in Civ7 will just be a mechanical element towards some legacy paths. It won't have it's own victory. I don't think i'll miss religious victory (and the wizard battles between apostles) from Civ6 but i have a weird mixed feeling about Religion in Civ7. On one hand i like that it's now tied to Culture and Military victories (or rather legacies) as, historically, it's been a big driving factor for both culture and wars, especially during the time-frame that's Exploration in Civ7, but they have implemented it in a weird way where you only get bonuses for converting other players cities (or your cities only in the distant lands). As it stands trying to keep the core of your own empire following your religion is a waste of precious missionaries charges which is just weird
  
• National Wonders. Smaller wonders that everyone can build, but only once per empire. I liked those a lot. The Civ5 implementation was kinda flawed, it was meant to counteract the disadvantage players with fewer cities had, but in return encouraged players to stay small until a few key ones were built (National College being one of the most important) and then expand, creating a rather artificial and fixed development style every game. The Civ3 iteration, however, was fun, unlocking those "small wonders" as rewards for certain accomplishments. The downside was that those "accomplishments" were kind of forced upon you if you wanted to be as efficient as you could. Not sure there is a good way to add them back to the game, maybe as part of some civilization/leader unique ability
  
• Eurekas/Inspirations. A great idea that didn't exactly turn out as great as the developers hoped. Those were probably added to move away from the "one yield to rule them all" situation where the empire with the most science was just the best at everything. The idea that players would get discounts on techs/civics based on how they play sounded great : a military players would get discounts to military techs for using his units and thus wouldn't need as much science to stay strong on the military front, even thought he might be lagging on other aspects of the game. Unfortunately it turned out that science was still as important and those Eurekas simply dictated an optimal course of development, both in research and units/buildings production, which was mostly the same every game if you wanted to progress as efficiently as possible. I definitely won't miss them and the ages will do a better job at making science less of the dominant yield.
• Civ5 Social Policies. The social policy trees from Civ5 had a huge impact on your game. A Liberty game was very different from a Tradition game or one where you would take both, even with the same civilization on the same map! Some were mutually exclusive. I have a feeling the attribute trees will replace those to some degree but since which ones you can develop will be decided based on your leader/civilization combo, there won't be the same freedom. I'm also unsure how often the narrative events giving you points will trigger, while you simply unlocked new ones in Civ5 using culture. Overall, i think those were one of the best aspects of Civ5 but i probably won't miss those because Civ7 will have a lot of ways to customize your empire.
• Governors. They were a fun novelty in Civ6 but eventually i was just unlocking them roughly in the same order every game, and only a few were really important for me to develop (Pingala in the biggest science/culture pump, 95% of the time the capital. Reina in the money-printing city. Occasionally Moksha if i had a lot of faith and wanted to buy districts with faith) while others would just sit in the largest cities to benefit from Governement bonuses. I wouldn't mind them making a come-back in some XP but i won't miss them until they do, nor if they don't.
• Workers. (i knew i missed something, thanks Krikkit1). It was hard to imagine Civ without workers, but after seeing streams it seems so natural to play without that i forgot to even mention them . I know some players will miss them but i won't. To me, workers were one of those relics from the past that feel like they belong in a game, until they are gone and you suddenly realize how pointless they were. Moving units to improve tiles didn't bring any depth to gameplay. Removing features for instant yields or keeping them for long-term ones brought very little (the obvious answer was instant yield 99% of the time). Their only "value" was weighting the opportunity cost of producing a worker rather than a military unit or a building in your town, but adding another option to an already long enough list wasn't worth the micromanagement required to use them for me.

 

[pokiehl]

No governors ever again, please. The whole mechanic amounted to just tedious micromanagement and gamey shifting of the governors around. Social Policies were a much better iteration of this idea.

I think in Civ 7, policies and traditions obviate the need for governors.

 

[Krikkit1]

You missed some big ones

WORKERS
CITIZEN SHUFFLING

(yay for both being gone)

 

[ehecatzin]

Some of those have evolved into something adjacent, I would argue that Eurekas evolved into Civ unlocks, your civ has a lot of mountains? well, you can "eureka" the Inca. (I think the unlocks are a bit to easy right now, but I want to play with the system first.)

I'm glad many of those mechanics just, died, and if they come back they better be engaging, for example I detested the micro that came with both spamming religious unit and religious battles, as well as the governors.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

> As it stands trying to keep the core of your own empire following your religion is a waste of precious missionaries charges which is just weird

If your settlements follow your religion it means that they do not follow the religion of other players, therefore not giving your opponents lots of bonuses and not progressing the age. That would probably be motivating enough while playing against AI.

The optimal strategy, of course, is to have an ally and convert all their homeland settlements to your religion, while they convert all your homeland settlements to theirs. I would call this cheesy, if not the fact that it's an actualy interesting state of affairs from game-theoretic perspective, similar to prisonners dylema, and an incentive for cooperation between human players.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

You missed some big ones

WORKERS
CITIZEN SHUFFLING

(yay for both being gone)

I knew i missed something. I simply forgot the elephant in the room

Some of those have evolved into something adjacent, I would argue that Eurekas evolved into Civ unlocks, your civ has a lot of mountains? well, you can "eureka" the Inca. (I think the unlocks are a bit to easy right now, but I want to play with the system first.)

I never thought of Civ unlocks as an evolution from Eurekas. But now that you mention it ... i still don't see it that way . They share some mechanisms but the scope is so different it's hard to see them as related. Well, i guess they are related, like a sparrow is related to a t-rex, but even thought genetics have proven that birds are the closest modern day parents to dinosaurs, it's hard to see them as even remotely similar
But yes, there are features in Civ7 that clearly have roots in prior iteration's features. We could probably make another thread for those but the towns/cities for example i see as the evolution of the town->cities->metropolises from Civ3 combined with the Supply Crawlers from SMAC (those allowed you to move food or production from one city to another, allowing some cities to grow really large at the expanse of others, similar to towns supporting cities in Civ7)

 

[Lord Yanaek]

If your settlements follow your religion it means that they do not follow the religion of other players, therefore not giving your opponents lots of bonuses and not progressing the age. That would probably be motivating enough while playing against AI.

That's only partially true. They might not get the benefit of founder beliefs but once they did convert your cities once, they gained their relics already and you can't take that progression back, so it's a lot of efforts to take away small benefits from the AI rather than progressing your own goals

 

[Chapel]

Great people are kind of gone, or at least very different. For now, it seems like there is no world council that we know of. There isn't really a loyalty system. And nothing has been revealed about ideology so far as far as I can tell.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Great people are kind of gone, or at least very different. For now, it seems like there is no world council that we know of. There isn't really a loyalty system. And nothing has been revealed about ideology so far as far as I can tell.

Ideology was mentioned. It coexists with government in the modern age.

 

[queenpea]

Great works of writing, art, and music.

 

[Chapel]

Ideology was mentioned. It coexists with government in the modern age.

Do we know any more than the mention? I hope to see something kind of like its implementation in 5 but I doubt it will be that robust.

 

[beorn]

Yeah, governors. As it turned out, that was a loser. But I really thought they would do a ton more with differentiating civs by giving them unique governors, maybe several per civ. Instead what? A grand total of one? Not sure why.

 

[Xandinho]

Great works of writing, art, and music.

Their absence is so glaring that I believe they will be added in the future as part of a reworked modern Cultural Victory.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Great works of writing, art, and music.

Writings technically exist as codices. But they are only available in Antiquity.

 

[AriochIV]

I think for a feature like Governors to be successful, they need to be more than just another block of unlockable stats and abilities. They need to interact with game events in a way that makes them visible to the player as characters. That, I think, would be interesting, as it helps the player in the generation of the playthrough's developing narrative. Master of Orion 2 had two types of characters; planetary governors that were very similar (and similarly boring) to Civ6 governors, but it also had fleet commanders that were involved in the action. The player could remember a particular battle as the one where Cyr the Fighter Ace was the key to victory. It really added to the emerging narrative.

Civ7 has commander units that you interact with in combat and which you can develop to an even greater degree, but unfortunately they are nameless, faceless units. Imagine if they had unique names and character portraits. What a missed opportunity. I guess they didn't do that in part because of the civilization-switching mechanic and commanders persisting across Ages... but I don't think having a Scipio commander in later Ages would be any weirder than having an Augustus leader.

 

[queenpea]

Writings technically exist as codices. But they are only available in Antiquity.

Let's not retcon the great works of writing. I want novels and poetry, not scientific nonsense

Their absence is so glaring that I believe they will be added in the future as part of a reworked modern Cultural Victory.

Don't say the word "future" -- @Evie may threaten to cage you.

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

Writings technically exist as codices. But they are only available in Antiquity.

I suppose we've even got some unique Great People specific ones like previously: The Maxims of Ptahhotep, Lessons for Women, Tao Te Ching, and Hymn to Aphrodite. I suppose that'll be our list until... whenever.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I suppose we've even got some unique Great People specific ones like previously: The Maxims of Ptahhotep, Lessons for Women, Tao Te Ching, and Hymn to Aphrodite. I suppose that'll be our list until... whenever.

Weirdly those all seem cultural, yet collecting them gives you scientific legacy points.

 

[Zaarin]

Do we know any more than the mention? I hope to see something kind of like its implementation in 5 but I doubt it will be that robust.

It was one of the main focuses of the Modern Age stream.

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

Weirdly those all seem cultural, yet collecting them gives you scientific legacy points.

Well, you can also achieve the "Enlightenment" victory by building a Quarter of cultural buildings surrounded by wonders and filled with artists and get Scientific legacy points from that, so it seems that there's a bit of overlap in general.