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

[mitsho]

Civ6 was a real fail in this regard, in his district system was a lot of fun in the early and mid game and then turned to infinitesimally meaningless chore by the late game. In civ5 the entire building system was less engaging overall, but the way it worked also meant it was not a problem late game, you just stacked production queque in cities, automated workers and waited, instead focusing more on big strategic decisions. But like I have always said, civ5 had much better designed endgame than civ6 in every aspect.

I really damn hope devs leaerned from endgame failures of Civ6 and this time figured out how to have more engaged builder minigame which can be automated by lategame and shifts towards fewer large scale decisions.

The late game has always been a failure. One always sees that they start designing at the beginning and then run out of ideas when they have to implement air combat.

How does that happen with every game they made?

Well, the answer is easy. The early game needs to be good so to keep the players engaged for the playing session. If he or she then abandons that game, he or she should want to start a new one and there he or she experiences the early game anew. So that one must be perfect. Sigh...

So yeah, I am totally with you here.

 

[Krajzen]

The late game has always been a failure. One always sees that they start designing at the beginning and then run out of ideas when they have to implement air combat.

How does that happen with every game they made?

Civ5 endgame was significantly better in my opinion (and I didn't play Civ4 but the general opinion seems to be similar in compariison to Civ6) - which makes it perplexing that civ6 degraded in this regard. In Civ5 you have:
- Automatized building queues and workers, so no district micromanagement
- Cool and not terrible World Congress
- Culture victory less reliant on micromanaging rock bands etc active entities
- No religious victory so no religious units spam (especially as religion spread much more passively anyway)
- No on-map espionage so no spy actions spam
- Much more agressive AI diplomacy lategame, and greater AI ability to wage war and conquer land (because city defenses were much weaker, there was no military camps and less opressive movement; also AI culd genuinely use aircraft better) leading to much more interesting world
- Much shorter future era and scientific victory, so no unnecessary prolonging
- Most importantly, ideologies which generated ideological friction between AIs, changed the way some systems worked in the endgame, and occasionally led to late game AI weakening due to ideological pressure

Civ6 meanwhile moved to prolong future eras as much as possible, ruined world congress, muddled culture victory, removed ideologies, made AI too pacifist and weak in offensive and increased micro as much as possible in all aspects of the game So you genuinely have to spend countless turns managing tile after tile ad infinitum, while being safe from AI agression...

 

[moondog385]

Civ5 endgame was significantly better in my opinion (and I didn't play Civ4 but the general opinion seems to be similar in compariison to Civ6) - which makes it perplexing that civ6 degraded in this regard. In Civ5 you have:
- Automatized building queues and workers, so no district micromanagement
- Cool and not terrible World Congress
- Culture victory less reliant on micromanaging rock bands etc active entities
- No religious victory so no religious units spam (especially as religion spread much more passively anyway)
- No on-map espionage so no spy actions spam
- Much more agressive AI diplomacy lategame, and greater AI ability to wage war and conquer land (because city defenses were much weaker, there was no military camps and less opressive movement; also AI culd genuinely use aircraft better) leading to much more interesting world
- Much shorter future era and scientific victory, so no unnecessary prolonging
- Most importantly, ideologies which generated ideological friction between AIs, changed the way some systems worked in the endgame, and occasionally led to late game AI weakening due to ideological pressure

Civ6 meanwhile moved to prolong future eras as much as possible, ruined world congress, muddled culture victory, removed ideologies, made AI too pacifist and weak in offensive and increased micro as much as possible in all aspects of the game So you genuinely have to spend countless turns managing tile after tile ad infinitum, while being safe from AI agression...

I didn't play 5 (started with 6) but this is basically what I'm talking about in regards to less micromanagement in the late game. Rock bands should definitely be replaced in some capacity, I feel.

 

[Leyrann]

- Cool and not terrible World Congress

That is... very contentious.

- Much more agressive AI diplomacy lategame, and greater AI ability to wage war and conquer land (because city defenses were much weaker, there was no military camps and less opressive movement; also AI culd genuinely use aircraft better) leading to much more interesting world

Honestly, now that you mention this I think cities in Civ 6 are simply too strong. I want to see a nerf to their defensive capabilities.

 

[mitsho]

Hehe, well maybe I don't remember civ 5 that well. But yeah, you point to the real culprits. Firaxis really needs to ask themselves everytime: does this really need to be a unit on the map?

And the other thing is to automate certain decisions competently - or have standard scripts that can be copied. Districts kinda disallowed that for building orders. But we are ten years later now.

 

[orsonsaviour]

• 1up
• Allowing Units to survive defeats.
• Having to play your victory type based on civ
• Lacking UI
• Districts
• Eureka system
• Hex Grid
• Automatic roads
• Any System too complex to program AI to play fairly.
• Incongruent Mini games
• Wonders on tiles
• Cartoon Leaders
• Simplistic historical experience
• Spies

 

[Leyrann]

• Allowing Units to survive defeats.

No, please do not remove that. Losing a unit to a single dice roll that should be advantageous sucks. It completely sucks all tactics out of the game. Combat to the death is one of the most frustrating aspects of Civ 4.

• Eureka system

WTH?

• Hex Grid

WTH?????

 

[Xandinho]

Global Warming: I hate how this was implemented in Civ6. It happens too early and in a completely unbalanced way, what's more, as if it weren't enough that the AI is uncompetitive at the end of the game, it doesn't even know how to deal with it. And finally, those flood barriers are horrible on the map.

1UPT: the logistics for moving units around the map are horrible and discourage any player from starting military campaigns, in addition to being an indirect nerf for warmongering civilizations.

Rock bands with a lot of micromanagement: having to move them around the map is unbearable, plus having to spend faith to buy them doesn't make much sense realistically speaking. It's not something I'm particularly eager to see back, but if they're going to bring them in, let them roam around the map automatically.

Agendas: this makes leaders crazy and obsessed with something.

Governors with a lot of micromanagement: nothing against the governors themselves, but having to move them around the cities is annoying. Just make their bonuses general and not local.

Districts that don't look visually harmonious in a city: districts are great additions in Civ6, but they feel like loose, disjointed pieces with no harmonies, which makes them not visually look like a unique city. I hope they improve this in Civ7.

Canals: let's be honest, this has no any practical importance.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Oh I can add another which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned (unless I've read over it).

Leader Personas

We really do not need TWO variations of the SAME leader, especially if that leader has the exact same lines under both guises.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Canals: let's be honest, this has no any practical importance.

With the way they were executed in Civ VI (a game where navies rarely matter and trade on land is just as good as that on sea), they weren't good. I don't know if they need to return, but personally I'd be sad to see them go.

One of the niche things about Civ VI I really loved was stringing together bodies of water with canals, as well as working out good dam and aqueduct placements. I would love if more terraforming options were present, like building hills (for ancient forts even) or leveling hills into flatland.

Ideally, canals shouldn't be unimportant. In the real world they aren't. Canals should stay, so long as the game rewards them to the point where they have a reason to be included.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

especially if that leader has the exact same lines under both guises.

YES. The horribly lazy and inconsistent way they did this (some like Saladin retain the same spoken lines with different subtitles??? that would not be okay with any leader speaking a modern-day form of a language) soured my perception of the entire persona system (it also brings out the worst of the Agenda system).

It's an insult to the leaders with great animations and voiceover work that show the best of Civ VI's leader system. You have these labor-intensive living breathing characters next to Catherine over here with her recycled animations and generic text.

If the persona system must return (which I feel like it doesn't need to), please, please God, don't bring it with the Agenda system. And if we truly do live in the worst timeline where both do, just make personas reuse their original agendas. Doing anything else- as VI proved- feels forced and lacking.

 

[The_J]

I remember the GDR being extremely controversial when it was introduced, but now nobody is naming it .

 

[Krajzen]

I would kinda say the fall of the Iron Curtain was a cultural flip, just off the top of my head. But of course, when I think of culture, I also think of national identity as part of that.

The fall of the Iron Curtain was not a "cultural flip" in Civ6 Eleanor terms of Eastern European people suddenly deciding they wanna be literally part of the US and Western European countries, leaving their homelands independence to bow to the foreign flag. It was what civ5 depicted as "revolution", with sufficient ideological pressure from ideology A (say Freedom) causing civilizations ruled by ideology B (Order) to flip to ideology A. People's Republic of Poland (communist) became (liberal) Republic of Poland, not part of USA

 

[JR Magallanes]

1. I dont want to see rockbands again but maybe the same effect of "great musicians" and "great artists" culture flipping cities would be a great mechanic for all civs.
2. Maps That make you on a disadvantage at the start
3. Diplomatic Victories
4. Bare ocean tiles. Could have more nuanced for exploration
5. Barely usable naval units
6. Roads being built by builders one tile at a time
7. stacks of doom

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

I remember the GDR being extremely controversial when it was introduced, but now nobody is naming it .

The GDR would fall under the umbrella of Future Era of which a couple of people have shown some disdain for. I'm personally conflicted about this.
My reasoning AGAINST having the future era is that the future hasn't happened yet and it's difficult to predict and therefore unrealistic.
My reason FOR having a future era is that no civilization in the real world has technically reached a victory condition whatever that may be. So it's safe to assume that would happen in the future.

 

[canadamufc]

I remember the GDR being extremely controversial when it was introduced, but now nobody is naming it .

Someone mentioned sci-fi earlier in fairness. I agree with that sentiment that all the fantasy nonsense should have to go, the GDR is the most I'm willing to say "I guess it can work..." Most other things though, that's why we have mods.

It sort of pained me in a way that at the end of Civ VI's NFP the devs were spending time on Zombies rather than actual historical game mechanics that needed improvement.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

Leader Trading from Civ 6. Keep peace negotiations that's fine, otherwise I have no interest in the mini game of getting the most of out the AI with leader trading.
Settling on a luxury. Just my personal pet peeve but it just seems like cheating.
Being able to put coast cities under siege with land units.

 

[criZp]

I'd go further and say: the less "future era" in civ games the better, and Civ6 invested too much in this regard. Or at least don't invest in future era before making sure endgame leading to it is interesting in itself - in the previous game it was just prolonging the agony

I got further yet and say civ should end in the age of discovery, since civ games always stop being fun the moment the whole map is uncovered and mostly settled

 

[criZp]

I would kinda say the fall of the Iron Curtain was a cultural flip, just off the top of my head. But of course, when I think of culture, I also think of national identity as part of that.

More like a quality of life flip

 

[criZp]

Hehe, well maybe I don't remember civ 5 that well. But yeah, you point to the real culprits. Firaxis really needs to ask themselves everytime: does this really need to be a unit on the map?

And the other thing is to automate certain decisions competently - or have standard scripts that can be copied. Districts kinda disallowed that for building orders. But we are ten years later now.

Worker/builder for example has no need to be units.