Things that still irk me

[Chekko]

A thing that still irks me is that Finland has not made an apparence in Civ yet. Yes I know, it's not a country with a lot of history but maybe Civ 7 will make Civs a bit more interesting and implement something similar to what Humankind did where you develop Civs over time but maybe something more themed towards the Civ you picked. So that Finland starts with an appropriate historic group and then develops into Finland and ends there. Because I think their country motto "Sisu" would be such a fun Civ bonus.

 

[Abaxial]

When your friend or ally decides to conquer a city state of which you are suzerain, and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

[Quoth the Raven]

Exactly, if it's a genuine mistake then reload from your AutoSave otherwise it's just a temptation to cheat.

You can't cheat in a single player game. Old World, an excellent historical 4x game, has an undo. It can be turned off in settings.

 

[pokiehl]

You can't cheat in a single player game. Old World, an excellent historical 4x game, has an undo. It can be turned off in settings.

I think that could be a great QOL thing for them to add. Making it toggleable like in Old World would be the key.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

You can't cheat in a single player game.

As a Game of the Month staff member I have to totally disagree with you there!!

 

[Abaxial]

One thing I hate is a message saying you have broken your promise to X about moving troops away from the border, when you don't even have any troops on the border.

 

[InsidiousMage]

One thing I hate is a message saying you have broken your promise to X about moving troops away from the border, when you don't even have any troops on the border.

Do you have any scouts near the border? Because they count if someone has asked you to move your troops.

 

[DeutschDachs]

I don't know if this fits the thread since it has never been a feature in a Civ game but I would really like a sim X amount of turns feature or sim to end of game. The late game just really drags in some culture and science games where victory is almost all but assured but you know you still have 50+ turns to slog through making decisions on so many items that hardly matter. It's not something I would use all of the time but it sure would be nice to save on time and still get my game into the Hall of Fame.

Sitting through building all of the space projects is driving me nuts when I'd rather start a new game

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Do you have any scouts near the border? Because they count if someone has asked you to move your troops.

That reminds me of another thing that irks me - scouts shouldn't be counted as combat troops. That was how it worked in Civ IV and was much better IMO, they can defend themselves but not initiate an attack.

 

[InsidiousMage]

That reminds me of another thing that irks me - scouts shouldn't be counted as combat troops.

From what I can tell, just having scouts on a civ's borders won't get them to ask you to move your troops, they only count after you've been asked, which is kind of weird.

 

[Abaxial]

Do you have any scouts near the border? Because they count if someone has asked you to move your troops.

Nope, nothing.

 

[shaglio]

I’m alright with most Great People being indestructible, but Great Generals should be able to be killed. I’m so sick and tired of the AI starting a war with me, I defeat their entire army, they refuse to make peace, and then they continue to send their GG’s into my territory ad nauseum. All I can do is ship them back to the nearest city just for them to send back in on the next turn.

 

[Vandlys]

I like the idea of traders building roads. It makes sense in the olden times, trade routes are the main reason to have routes between cities, and if there is a lot of trade the route well be better-marked and more prominent. The cowpath gets deeper the more trade there is, so to speak.

The problem is that is the only way of building roads.

Military engineers?

 

[the_sun]

The fact that you have to select "Keep city" when you conquer a capital. Because this is the only option, it should happen automatically, without a prompt.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Because this is the only option

I liked this but then had a thought - there is the potential to liberate a Civ so sometimes that's an option, but the dialogue should only pop up when there *is* a choice to be made.

 

[Jimdigriz]

I’m alright with most Great People being indestructible, but Great Generals should be able to be killed. I’m so sick and tired of the AI starting a war with me, I defeat their entire army, they refuse to make peace, and then they continue to send their GG’s into my territory ad nauseum. All I can do is ship them back to the nearest city just for them to send back in on the next turn.

I'm sick and tired of the AI having Great Generals milling about - with no actual troops around them!

 

[Abaxial]

I don't see so many wandering Great Generals, but plenty Great Writers/Artists when Russia is in the game. Great people can make excellent spotters for artillery bombarding at ranges greater than two hexes. A Great Admiral to accompany battleships is very useful.

 

[TempusFugit]

You can't cheat in a single player game. Old World, an excellent historical 4x game, has an undo. It can be turned off in settings.

Of course you can cheat in a single player game, the difference between cheating in a single or a multiplayer game is that you are only hurting yourself and not any other people. And depending on personal preferences and philosophy you might not even be hurting yourself by cheating.

But the concept definitely exists.

Reloading a save game when you don’t like an outcome in a game that has been designed with this feature, is technically not cheating, but it is a quite similar concept to cheating nonetheless, since you are bypassing some or all game mechanics at your own leisure.

Computer games have a long tradition of giving players the option to choose to reload negative outcomes or not, and I think this has been a good solution since it both allows the people that want to use the save feature this way to do it, but also makes it clear for the players that they are bypassing all the intended game mechanics, so they may not necessarily be playing the game the way it was intended by the designers this way.

I strongly dislike the idea of an undo option to a strategy game. Of course it is their game and their design and not mine, but I hope that this kind of “muddying the waters” between reloading and playing the game normally, doesn’t become prolific in the genre. I think that ultimately would be bad for peoples enjoyment of these games.

On a similar tangent I dislike the addition of an “undo battle” option in the HOTA mod for Heroes of Might and Magic 3 even more, because that one will confuse new players of the game into thinking that the great designers of the original game intended that people do that, which was not the case at all. In fact I would think that a “perfectionist“ approach to getting battles exactly right would be very poisonous to the enjoyment of Heroes of Might and Magic.

A very different development, which I’m not opposed to at all, is what I’ve heard about the tactical battles in Age of Wonders 4, where you are supposed to be able to let the AI play trivial battles for you, but if you don’t like the outcome, then get one option to do it yourself. This doesn’t sound like something you could exploit much, just a great time saver in a game like that, so I’m all for that.

 

[uhu]

I strongly dislike the idea of an undo option to a strategy game.

Already the option?!! (which allows you to have it ALWAYS turned off for your games. But no, you also insist in refusing the option to all the other players altogether ...?!)

I see the problem for the Game of the Month staff members and have no solution for this special case

For me it is a great feature in learning / trying out or analyzing situations -- just take back and compare ... (or even for the developers while debugging, sic!)
As a student I played regularly in a chess club in competitive mode and it was absolutely clear, that I might not even touch any piece without consequences. Nevertheless in training we mutually often agreed just to take back dump moves in order to continue a more exciting game or take back several moves and go fully in joined analyzing mode of the position.

Why deny other players the option to use a feature they find (sometimes) useful for their games?

 

[TempusFugit]

Already the option?!! (which allows you to have it ALWAYS turned off for your games. But no, you also insist in refusing the option to all the other players altogether ...?!)

Why deny other players the option to use a feature they find (sometimes) useful for their games?

I can understand your puzzlement. And it is quite paternalistic of me, but I do believe these things matter in how much enjoyment people get out of their games. My conviction is that a “strict“ divide between saving/loading and normal game mechanics is better than a design where undoing things at any moment is as common as ordering units and building cities.

It is not a problem at all that one game is doing this, but if this became very popular and even the norm, I don’t think it would be good for the genre. But if this actually could influence other games is highly speculative.

Regarding options, in general I do think it is a good thing with many options in games and many options for how to play them. Computer games have always had more options for how to play them than console games, but for both computer games and console games there have been a sharp increase over the years in options. Both for menu options, variety within the games and in options for how you could play them that exists outside of the games. I do think this is a very good development.

But, I do not think every game ideally should have as many options as possible, or that all games should contain any kind of option. The options the designers give a player, do play a large part in how the players play a game, so if all games contained “all“ options, there would actually be less variety between individual games and the way they were played, than if some options were never included by their designers.

Also, while I think that people in general do know better what is best for them, than some random paternalist (like myself in this case). I don’t think anybody are perfectly good at knowing what’s best for them, in fact I think people are rather bad at this, because we have so much genetical “programing“ that incentives us to behave differently than what most people would think would be in their own “rational” self-interest.

How people play their games is of course extremely unimportant compared to a lot of other things, but the same principles apply there. Any individual do generally know better what is best for them than some random paternalist do, but there are also at least some paternalists who knows better what is best for that individual than that individual do, on some aspects of their life.