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

[vorlon_mi]

I think this is an issue of balance rather than design.

I'm perfectly happy to have city attacks, as long as you have Walls. Just make them fairly weak attacks. The defending player does need some advantage.

The population should increase the defending strength of the city (i.e. its health), but not increase the damage of the ranged attack.

Don't give them free city attack in the late game. Have cities require a military base in the late game for stronger city attacks. Each level of city wall should match the appropriate tech level, and you shouldn't need to build them all in the late game, should just skip straight to the most recent wall type.

Civ3 added defensive buffs to the city garrison based on city population. When the last defender/garrison was dead, the next attacker would conquer the city. One could pillage the roads leading to a city, cutting it off from luxuries to reduce its happiness. Enemy troops occupying a tile meant that those resources (food, production) were denied to the city being attacked. Civ4 had an abstraction of walls/defensive strength that could be bombarded down by siege units; it healed back slowly without using a separate "repair" order.

We've got some good ideas which could come back (oops! wrong thread) if they choose to remove or nerf the city defensive strike.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Loyalty is the one thing that I don't care to return, at least the way it's implemented based primarily off of population.

 

[reddishrecue]

Civ3 added defensive buffs to the city garrison based on city population. When the last defender/garrison was dead, the next attacker would conquer the city. One could pillage the roads leading to a city, cutting it off from luxuries to reduce its happiness. Enemy troops occupying a tile meant that those resources (food, production) were denied to the city being attacked. Civ4 had an abstraction of walls/defensive strength that could be bombarded down by siege units; it healed back slowly without using a separate "repair" order.

We've got some good ideas which could come back (oops! wrong thread) if they choose to remove or nerf the city defensive strike.

I actually liked the self-repair mechanism from civ 4 without the separate repair order.

 

[fluffy465]

Loyalty is the one thing that I don't care to return, at least the way it's implemented based primarily off of population.

Oh my god so much this. One of my friends has been getting into civ because of a hand injury from more intensive games, and we had a session where he was playing singleplayer while I watched over his back and advised him on things he could be doing. In this game it looked like china was on track to win a culture victory if he didn't do anything, so after trying a bunch of things that weren't working (such as buying great works off of them), so I suggested he put together an army to take out some of china's cities. That war became so painful for him to play and for me to watch because the loyalty mechanic was taking a big dump on any city he captured. I already somewhat disliked the mechanic going into it, but him going into this without any opinions and coming out finding it completely unfun (at least in the context of intercontinental war; I want to see his opinion in more charitable scenarios) made me considerably more negative.

During this, another one of our friends joined the call who does like the mechanic. She says she's never run into any issues like what we were having, to which we both asked "literally how??" She suggested putting in a governor (we did, victor w/ garrison commander), building/repairing a monument (we tried, but it won't build because loyalty is low and 1 lpt is minuscule anyway), policies (we had every single one slotted that could possibly have an effect in this situation), culture output (dunno what this was about, nowhere does the game say this is an effect), great works (specific to eleanor when he was playing trajan, purely offensive anyways), spies (also loyalty offense against cities that would be effectively invulnerable to it), and razing (we eventually did this which solved it, but issues with razing have been discussed earlier in this thread that I generally agree with). Looking at the wiki after the fact, the only thing that seems like was possible for us to try was getting more amenities, but that couldn't possibly counteract the -15 to -25 loyalty per turn the typical city we captured had. Especially annoying because of the loop of 'take city -> lose city to loyalty -> take city back' which reduces population and generates grievances each time making it more and more untenable.

I generally think that cities that you conquer should require some kind of occupation force to hold on to, as it's both somewhat immersion breaking for it not to do so and it potentially makes conquest a much more engaging investment. However, the loyalty mechanic doesn't help with either. For one, because it so heavily weights population, that makes conquering high pop cities easier than low pop (which makes very little sense to me). For two, during the invasion described above, the free city units we had to fight easily outnumbered the chinese units by an order of magnitude, which is frankly ridiculous.

Every time I find myself having to think about the loyalty mechanic, it feels like the game effectively saying "no, you're not allowed to have this city you settled/captured" with very little recourse, which is just straight up not fun.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Oh my god so much this. One of my friends has been getting into civ because of a hand injury from more intensive games, and we had a session where he was playing singleplayer while I watched over his back and advised him on things he could be doing. In this game it looked like china was on track to win a culture victory if he didn't do anything, so after trying a bunch of things that weren't working (such as buying great works off of them), so I suggested he put together an army to take out some of china's cities. That war became so painful for him to play and for me to watch because the loyalty mechanic was taking a big dump on any city he captured. I already somewhat disliked the mechanic going into it, but him going into this without any opinions and coming out finding it completely unfun (at least in the context of intercontinental war; I want to see his opinion in more charitable scenarios) made me considerably more negative.

I mean even playing peacefully without going to war, it can get annoying. I remember one time I settled a city only about 6 tiles away from my capital only to find out it was losing loyalty. Later I realized the Incan capital was just over that mountain range, and never settled a second city, and had it's population to almost 20 in the Medieval Era.

culture output (dunno what this was about, nowhere does the game say this is an effect)

I had to look it up. Apparently if you are culturally dominant over another civ, your citizens exert 25% more loyalty pressure on cities of that civ.
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Loyalty_(Civ6)

 

[Naokaukodem]

The main problem I have with grievances is that they prevent honest deals with the remaining civs. Like you have been invaded aggressively, you retaliate and take some cities or a capital, and you are denounced by others for the rest of the game. It's annoying. What could I do with all that excess lux resource copies ? That brings me to make me want a bonus for having multiple copies other than industries/corporations.
As to razing cities, I like the brutality of instant razing, if razing must exist this is for this.
I would also like to be able to puppet cities Civ5 style, but I have no clue how it would work in Civ6 because everything that is built including units, districts and wonders is maybe out of AI capability/player would not do like this if controlling the city directly. The only thing I can think of a puppet city could do is projects like science funding/other already existing districts related projects, if any.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Oh my god so much this. One of my friends has been getting into civ because of a hand injury from more intensive games, and we had a session where he was playing singleplayer while I watched over his back and advised him on things he could be doing. In this game it looked like china was on track to win a culture victory if he didn't do anything, so after trying a bunch of things that weren't working (such as buying great works off of them), so I suggested he put together an army to take out some of china's cities. That war became so painful for him to play and for me to watch because the loyalty mechanic was taking a big dump on any city he captured. I already somewhat disliked the mechanic going into it, but him going into this without any opinions and coming out finding it completely unfun (at least in the context of intercontinental war; I want to see his opinion in more charitable scenarios) made me considerably more negative.

During this, another one of our friends joined the call who does like the mechanic. She says she's never run into any issues like what we were having, to which we both asked "literally how??" She suggested putting in a governor (we did, victor w/ garrison commander), building/repairing a monument (we tried, but it won't build because loyalty is low and 1 lpt is minuscule anyway), policies (we had every single one slotted that could possibly have an effect in this situation), culture output (dunno what this was about, nowhere does the game say this is an effect), great works (specific to eleanor when he was playing trajan, purely offensive anyways), spies (also loyalty offense against cities that would be effectively invulnerable to it), and razing (we eventually did this which solved it, but issues with razing have been discussed earlier in this thread that I generally agree with). Looking at the wiki after the fact, the only thing that seems like was possible for us to try was getting more amenities, but that couldn't possibly counteract the -15 to -25 loyalty per turn the typical city we captured had. Especially annoying because of the loop of 'take city -> lose city to loyalty -> take city back' which reduces population and generates grievances each time making it more and more untenable.

I generally think that cities that you conquer should require some kind of occupation force to hold on to, as it's both somewhat immersion breaking for it not to do so and it potentially makes conquest a much more engaging investment. However, the loyalty mechanic doesn't help with either. For one, because it so heavily weights population, that makes conquering high pop cities easier than low pop (which makes very little sense to me). For two, during the invasion described above, the free city units we had to fight easily outnumbered the chinese units by an order of magnitude, which is frankly ridiculous.

Every time I find myself having to think about the loyalty mechanic, it feels like the game effectively saying "no, you're not allowed to have this city you settled/captured" with very little recourse, which is just straight up not fun.

I agree; I would prefer to see loyalty NOT return to Civ7, in the form that Civ6 has it.

In particular, the loyalty pressure model in Civ6 is counterintuitive to the mechanics I'm accustomed to from previous games. In Civ3 and Civ4, the smaller border city -- usually the first to be captured -- are the *easiest* to pacify and hold onto. Your occupying troops matter. In Civ6, it's reversed and the small cities are the *hardest* to pacify, as they are most vulnerable to negative loyalty from neighboring cities.

My tactics involve one of two alternatives, if the first target for my invasion is a size 2 or 3 border city:
- Raze it, and replace it with one of my own settlers after the fighting has moved on
- Plant a governor and wait until I conquer the next city, larger, a bit deeper in the empire I'm invading. If I can take the next city in 4 turns or fewer, the loyalty pressure on the first city will be lessened. If I can take a third city, I may have positive loyalty in the first city. In short, bring a big army and be aggressive.

 

[Nikolai II]

Yeah, loyalty was my least favorite civ6 feature too.

 

[kaspergm]

While not my least favorite feature, and perhaps even one I'd weigh slightly in the overall positive, I agree that loyalty was one of many items on the list of poorly implemented features in Civ6. I do want loyalty to return at some point, but it needs to be handled differently than it was in Civ6.

 

[AffineConstant]

While not my least favorite feature, and perhaps even one I'd weigh slightly in the overall positive, I agree that loyalty was one of many items on the list of poorly implemented features in Civ6. I do want loyalty to return at some point, but it needs to be handled differently than it was in Civ6.

I'd love to see a full on kind of cultural influence war. After all that's what the entire Cold War was about right, rise up to fight against your oppressors and embrace class warfare (please don't ask what we're doing over here though).

Loyalty makes a kind of sense, even if it's not "officially" part of a countries territory there would still be a significant cultural influence of that civ to areas nearby. European Imperialists didn't just waltz into Africa and declare "this is ours now" with no troubles. But it really needs to be an entire game system that's balanced and one you can understand easily and interact with in a variety of ways, in Civ VI it was just a blunt instrument that's really hard to see.

 

[GeneralZift]

I do not want to see AI playing like some kind of moral saints.
Something that got me most of all in Civ6 and a little bit in Civ5 but not nearly as much.

I hate this idea that countries all over the world hate you for taking a capital in the Medieval era or something.

Bring back dirtbag AIs. Scumbag traitors and teamers. That was the most enjoyable part of any game. Stop sugarcoating the experience

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

During this, another one of our friends joined the call who does like the mechanic. She says she's never run into any issues like what we were having, to which we both asked "literally how??" She suggested putting in a governor (we did, victor w/ garrison commander), building/repairing a monument (we tried, but it won't build because loyalty is low and 1 lpt is minuscule anyway), policies (we had every single one slotted that could possibly have an effect in this situation), culture output (dunno what this was about, nowhere does the game say this is an effect), great works (specific to eleanor when he was playing trajan, purely offensive anyways), spies (also loyalty offense against cities that would be effectively invulnerable to it), and razing (we eventually did this which solved it, but issues with razing have been discussed earlier in this thread that I generally agree with). Looking at the wiki after the fact, the only thing that seems like was possible for us to try was getting more amenities, but that couldn't possibly counteract the -15 to -25 loyalty per turn the typical city we captured had. Especially annoying because of the loop of 'take city -> lose city to loyalty -> take city back' which reduces population and generates grievances each time making it more and more untenable.

Did China happen to be in a Golden Age?

The Age system has a HUGE (arguably overbearing) effect on Loyalty.



As for the topic as a whole, I think Loyalty ends up being a fairly elegant solution to the problem of forward settling, BUT it needs to be changed for VII, hopefully tooled into a cultural pressure system.

And while I've had my fun playing the Loyalty minigame in my Domination runs, but it does tend to be rather feast or famine. Also, the idea that a city you just devastated of half its population, broke down the defenses of, and cleared of troops, can suddenly rebel all on its own is... of debatable realism. Though, depending on the game speed, a city rebelling 5-10 turns after being captured can actually happen after a pretty reasonable number of years.

There should definitely be unrest in a newly conquered city, but I think outright rebellions should probably take longer to occur.

Also, on the note of conquering cities, I think there should be this sort of dichotomy:

• Pillage and plunder the city, reducing its population and sending it into unrest, but gaining lucrative short-term yields and appeasing your armies (alleviating maintenance costs, or saving failing morale). This would reduce the existing cultural pressure (because there are simply less people), making it easier to assimilate into your own culture.
• Absorb it into your empire, with less/no unrest or population penalties, but with a certain level of autonomy that has to be broken down over time (maybe you can't choose what tiles are worked, or what's being produced there). The existing culture will be fully intact, too.

I think this system would be 1) fun (who doesn't like this sort of complex decision-making?) and 2) open up the perfect opportunity for leaders to not hate any conqueror just because, which is Civ VI's current approach. They could hate the brutal pillagers, sure, but the noble(er, relatively) conquerors could be praised or at least respected, except by those they conquered, of course. Even then, fighting a war in a less brutal way will result in much easier post-war relations.

And if this feels too much like superimposing modern ethics onto ancient times, make pillage-and-plunder the only option until a certain civic is unlocked ("Ethical Warfare" or something like that, reflecting the creation of the Geneva Conventions). That way you at least have the fun decision to make as Chancellor Genghis but aren't sugarcoating the conquests in your prime.

I just feel like there should be a split between violent assimilation and gradual annexation. Wars can and have been fought without a drop of blood being spilled. As it stands, you're a brutal Civ conqueror whether you like it or not.

 

[reddishrecue]

I mean even playing peacefully without going to war, it can get annoying.

It was... Also, that city loss whenever you hit a dark age was annoying as well. I know the mods took care of it but I wouldn't want to see something like that in the main stand-alone game again.

 

[Arcaian]

It was... Also, that city loss whenever you hit a dark age was annoying as well. I know the mods took care of it but I wouldn't want to see something like that in the main stand-alone game again.

Was that ever in the main stand-alone game? I thought that was only with the optional Dramatic Ages game mode enabled.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Was that ever in the main stand-alone game? I thought that was only with the optional Dramatic Ages game mode enabled.

I have to consider most never played Dramatic Ages, such as me, or rarely ever play it if they complain about loyalty in the main stand-alone game.
Yes, you can easily lose cities if you aren't careful in a normal age too. Probably a golden age too if Eleanor is your neighbor.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I don't like mechanics :
- Are dealt with with a specific list of actions (like Loyalty).
- You can not see the effects from the map.
- Require mostly memorization / lawyering (like leader trading) rather the analyzing of the situation

I do think Loyalty in civ 6 made domination more difficult which seemed like the goal of the mechanic. Designing a game where domination is not always then best option in a worthy goal.

 

[reddishrecue]

Was that ever in the main stand-alone game? I thought that was only with the optional Dramatic Ages game mode enabled.

It was in the dramatic ages yes but there were mods that changed city revolt if dark age to no city revolt if dark age.

 

[GeneralZift]

What doubly made no sense is this. We had a terrible age, and we revolt. Okay. But why does this mean the city joins the neighbours almost definitely?

Sounds like a silly concept to me. I would imagine cities would only willingly join neighbours if they are already culturally aligned (perhaps they are of the same identity, eg. Originally born French for example)

I kind of find hard to imagine that they wouldn't just form their own state. Revolts and free cities are cool but Civ6 Loyalty is more like a City theft system

 

[reddishrecue]

What doubly made no sense is this. We had a terrible age, and we revolt. Okay. But why does this mean the city joins the neighbours almost definitely?

City revolts aren't always for other civilizations, they become free first and then they become part of other civilizations.

 

[Arcaian]

What doubly made no sense is this. We had a terrible age, and we revolt. Okay. But why does this mean the city joins the neighbours almost definitely?

Sounds like a silly concept to me. I would imagine cities would only willingly join neighbours if they are already culturally aligned (perhaps they are of the same identity, eg. Originally born French for example)

I kind of find hard to imagine that they wouldn't just form their own state. Revolts and free cities are cool but Civ6 Loyalty is more like a City theft system

I think it'd be a solid improvement on the existing loyalty system if Free Cities only joined other civs under extreme circumstances (and there was at least a temporary reprieve on loyalty pressure after re-conquering them). That way when a Free City pops up, you get this race for all the nearby civs to conquer it, instead of what happens now of just waiting for it to join your civ for free 10 turns later. Meaningful diplomacy with the free cities would be even better, but I acknowledge that it would be quite a bit more work than this change.