Things you *don't* want to see in Civ7 and its expansions

[Krajzen]

Because we can't be too optimistic! Those things can be anything - civilizations and leaders that you dislike, mechanics, design problems, proposed innovations that you think are terrible etc.

 

[pokiehl]

- I hope to see fewer abilities that are overly long and focused too much on terrain-specific yields. They get old and make you feel compelled to reroll constantly

- I’d really like to see Gandhi not return

- No “early game nomadic phase.” Doesn’t make any sense at all for Civ. In Humankind it kind of works because it’s tied into the race to pick the first culture. In Civ it’d just be tedious. It’d also totally kill the fun tension of “do I settle now or risk looking for a better spot?”

 

[kotpeter]

- No micromanagement of culture policies

- No changing cultures across eras

- No religious victory (or at least rework it from Civ 6 into smth better)

- No dumb AI at highest difficulties

 

[GIO888]

I'd like not to have to watch city-state units meander aimlessly late game.

And no stacks of doom!

 

[PetrusvonDoom]

Gandhi again. And he loves nuclear weapons, again.

Boring late game.

Rise and Fall mechanics. I like the concepts, but I find it so boring.

Diplomacy along the lines of previous games. I've never felt that diplomacy is an important aspect in the franchise, even in Civ VI there's always a leader who complains that "I talk so little".

World Congress. It's annoying not being able to propose a vote and always having to vote between random options.

The AI does not use the game's mechanics well, especially the mechanics of expansions and DLCs.

No support for mods and map editor on consoles.

Military Victory only requires the capitals of other players. It could be like Civ IV, it was more fun.

 

[Krajzen]

- I hope to see fewer abilities that are overly long and focused too much on terrain-specific yields. They get old and make you feel compelled to reroll constantly

- I’d really like to see Gandhi not return

- No “early game nomadic phase.” Doesn’t make any sense at all for Civ. In Humankind it kind of works because it’s tied into the race to pick the first culture. In Civ it’d just be tedious. It’d also totally kill the fun tension of “do I settle now or risk looking for a better spot?”

The first one has annoyed me as well - it's cool how distinctive civs got, and it's better than civ5 with its extremely situational (often utterly negligible) unique bonuses, but it would be great if devs figured out how to make civs distinctive without giving each civ like 15 separate effects total which need four paragraphs to explain. Interestingly enough, I recall devs themselves disliking how long and messy those bonuses became, so we are very likely going to face some change in this regard.

I'd love for Gandhi to not return, India seriously deserves its history explored beyond the shallowest of memes and orientalisms, not being reduced to a reddit joke leader, obligatory elephant, doormat diplomatic behavior, and obligatory bonus to oriental spirituality and overpopulation.

I also don't get the popularity of prehistoric phases, it is just beyond the scope and scale of such games. Even in Humankind it's just like ten turns of an obligatory filler because well, what can you do with a civ scaled map in terms of tiny nomadic tribal society? By definition you can't exploit or transform the map tiles in any way, or have cities, science, government, organised religion, anything really.

 

[AntSou]

I don't want complex leader abilities that the AI can't handle.

 

[Krajzen]

I don't want complex leader abilities that the AI can't handle.

I would enhance that into the major design approach "please don't design this game around fundamental mechanics AI can't handle", for it feels horrible to play against completely mentally handicapped opponent. The prime example of this design flaw was of course 1UPT military system (especially city sieges, aircraft and naval invasions), but you could say the same about several other fancier DLC additions.

 

[Mekkh]

I'd also add that I don't want interesting gameplay mechanics locked behind one leader: the cuture flipping by Eleanor was cool in 6, but it felt more like an interesting and integrated part of gameplay when everyone had that ability in 4.

Other than that, I do not want "religious combat". It feels very gamey and could really take you out of the immersion in V.

 

[AntSou]

@Krajzen yep, what you said.

There was nothing more disappointing and immersion breaking than seeing the AI no participate with the game features provided the player.

My last two years of Civ VI were almost exclusively played in Hotseat mode, alone, like that weirdo in the Cast Away movie talking to a volleyball.

 

[Gedemon]

cramped maps + 1UPT.

It's one or the other, not both.

 

[FishFishFish]

I hate rock bands.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Just from the top of my head

• Bad Diplomacy - The diplomacy screen in Civ 6 was fiddlesome, the AI weighed deals weirdly, had no real personality (edit: in terms of gameplay. The AI definitely had personality in terms of interactivity.) You were strangely limited in how well you could befriend an AI or not - more often than not it was pure luck. On that note;
• Leader Agendas - they don't function well because they influence relationships. Agenda's should ONLY influence a leader's behaviour in terms of what they will prioritize. Having it affect whether they like you or not on top of that doesn't work, because human relationships aren't based on a sliding scale but on many different factors
• The World Congress - Civ 6's WC deserves to share its initials with a common word for lavatory - it was trash. The WC was a complete nuissance, you couldn't really influence the AI to change their vote, and in fact because the AI uses an algorithm to decide their votes, you could very easily predict how it would go. It was a poorly designed, lousily implemented system that provided no additional obstacles to overcome, nor additional satisfaction. Diplomatic Victory needs to be overhauled, drastically.
• Nuclear Gandhi - NO ONE CARES!!! Like, seriously. It was not even a thing IN THE FIRST CIV GAME, THIS HAS BEEN DEBUNKED BY SID HIMSELF!!! Let it rest, and pick a better leader for India.
• 1UPT - I think it's time for Civilization to move on to limited stack sizes. Not quite a stack of doom but stack of up to 3 units (at the start of the game) could work, and would improve the immersion (gives a sense of scaling, which in turn is an emulation of progress)
• Balanced Religion - It's weird how some tenets are game-breakingly strong, while others are just... bordering on useless unless the situation is JUST right for them. The mechanics are badly balanced largely because they're shallowly implemented, and each religion has to be 100% unique. That doesn't quite work since many religions in the real world share (or at least observe similar) tenets and values.
• Religious Combat - We've had our fun with casting Call Lightning with our Tempest Clerics. Now it's time to rotate it out. Religious Victory should be merged with Culture victory.
• Policy Cards - I don't mind them, but I think there are better ways to emulate Goverment and Law. I actually think the Card system suits Religion more? You swap out tenets for your religion, which is how we got the divides between Protestantism and Catholicism, between Shia Islam and Sunni Islam and between however many fragmentary flavours Hinduism and Judaism have.
• Espionage - Like Diplomacy, it feels like a meaningless mechanic most of the time. Like you steal or sabotage but there's no real consequence (no, "I'll promise not to spy on you" for some Dip mana and grievances isn't really a consequence in a game where the AI is notoriously meek)
• Convoluted winning conditions - Science victory and Religious Victory are each a massive hassle in Civ 6, Culture victory almost feels impossible most of the time unless you get VERY lucky early on and get a bajillion of wonders. Both of these victories should be improved - Science Victory into having fewer steps, Culture victory into having more agency in the late game (Yeah I know ROCK BANDS are supposed to counter that but who likes those, honestly?), Religious Victory into being merged with Culture victory. Additionally, Domination victory should be based on the percentage of the map that you control, not a game of "be sure you're the last person to own your original capital, while owning everyone else's). Split Domination into a percentile win or an "own all capitals" win if you must. Conversely, Diplomatic Victory is laughably easy to a point you'd almost never want to conscieously try another way of winning Civ6. (again: Fix Diplomacy and the World Congress, and you Fix DipVic)

Religion and Dip are my biggest gripes. Map Generation is another for me actually, but I don't have anything that the devs should avoid, just a few things i'd like them to add. (although a reroll button should be mandatory AND available at any point in the game, not just turn one.)

Ideally you'll want a game that combines Civ 6's early game with Civ 5's endgame.

 

[ldvhl]

I barely touched VI but most of what I saw I would like to not come back.

Also I would appreciate Firaxis toning down the Euro-centrism. I realize the core market is colonial powers and their successor states but having 12 European civs and maybe a couple indigenous civs is overplayed at this point.

EDIT: Also would really like to not see any blob civs (i.e., IV's "Native Americans")

 

[pokiehl]

cramped maps + 1UPT.

It's one or the other, not both.

Yes, but 1UPT is so cumbersome I don’t think that bigger map sizes can really solve the issue (at least, not without introducing other issues).

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Policy Cards - I don't mind them, but I think there are better ways to emulate Goverment and Law. I actually think the Card system suits Religion more? You swap out tenets for your religion, which is how we got the divides between Protestantism and Catholicism, between Shia Islam and Sunni Islam and between however many fragmentary flavours Hinduism and Judaism have.

This is such a wonderful suggestion!

It also easily makes room for schisms where two players share a religion and one tries to change one of the Tenet cards.

 

[Futumch]

Take World Congress out behind the shed and put it down.

Or an opt-out policy card / mechanic. Whatever granular system they have in place for government policies. Isolationism.

 

[Futumch]

Oh, and unrelated to World Congress:

The map generator for Civ 6 isn't very good, so I would hate to see that make a comeback.

Not that I don't want random maps, I just want a new improved map generation tool.

 

[pokiehl]

Oh, and unrelated to World Congress:

The map generator for Civ 6 isn't very good, so I would hate to see that make a comeback.

Not that I don't want random maps, I just want a new improved map generation tool.

I could not agree more with this. The Civ 6 map generator scripts are overall so disappointing. We didn't really get a good map script until Gathering Storm, and even then I think what we have pales in comparison to Civ 5 and Civ 4 scripts.

Getting the map generator right is extremely important. I hope they've given this special attention for Civ 7.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I also don't get the popularity of prehistoric phases, it is just beyond the scope and scale of such games. Even in Humankind it's just like ten turns of an obligatory filler because well, what can you do with a civ scaled map in terms of tiny nomadic tribal society? By definition you can't exploit or transform the map tiles in any way, or have cities, science, government, organised religion, anything really.

In the regard of a nomadic gameplay a la Humankind you have a point, but a Prehistoric Era is not by default that. Neither must lack the elements you pointed.
* Prehistory is not just Paleolithic or Mesolithic nomadic bands of people.
* Many of CIV's technologies and civics present as ancient are prehistoric.
* For CIV's gameplay model the relevant base is the sedentary aspect that allow us to pull back to Neolithic-Chalcolithic agrarian, pastorial and fishing based permanent settlements. Even the earliest cities (or proto-cities) of these period were already in thousands of inhabitans.
* CIV also have civs like Shoshone and Maori that mostly would fit into a level equivalent to Neolithic-Chalcolithic societies.
* Chiefdom and Tribal Federations are forms of goverment, again CIV already have tribal leaders.
* Half of CIV's eras "Science" would not be Science in its formal definition.
* There are civs in game that never developed "organized religion" but at the same time we have the pantheons and there is not reason to deprive them from beliefs, cults and shriners, even the earliest form of temples/monuments are thousand of years older than any "formal religion".

So, probably Humankind should have named their prologue era "Paleolithic-Mesolithic" and/or CIV should stop making us research techs/civs and infrastructure that predated historical urban societies. Still Neolithic-Chalcolithic societies have settlements, production infrastructure, trade, beliefs, technology advances, social organization and warfare everything CIV's gameplay model needs to work.