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

[civilizationfanatic2000]

This, and especially @Boris Gudenuf's elaborate fleshing out ,is good . . . but . . . all the other techs in the game would cluster around these at roughly the historically-appropriate time.

And then you'd essentially be back to having eras.

This:





would be cool. But. How do you manage it from the point of view of game victory? Of knowing whether your civ won the game. Does the player play one of these late-emerging civs? If so, what does the player do with the civ during the time it was not yet emergent (or even existent). If two civs merge, which one gets credit for the win if the merged civilization wins?

Cool modeling of history, but hard to manage as a game-play mechanic.

There's probably a way to make it gameable. Ish. It involves some philosophical issues that haven't been solved ever since they were made (it's reminscient of the Ship of Theseus)

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

lack of mod support. i want a fall from heaven 3 in civ 7 with extremely high quality graphics.

 

[Naktis]

I really hope they wont bring loyalty and city flipping mechanic or if they do it will be reworked and improved A LOT

 

[Gori the Grey]

There's probably a way to make it gameable. Ish. It involves some philosophical issues that haven't been solved ever since they were made (it's reminscient of the Ship of Theseus)

I'm all ears.

That you play a civ and you are competing with 7 (or other #) other civs to, across the same span of time, make it more quickly to one of 6 victory conditions is pretty deeply embedded into fundamental premises of the game.

The game is fundamentally a race, and a race presupposes one group of competitors at the starting line and that same group of competitors being judged by how they reach the finish line.

 

[Acepox]

Looking forward to Civ 7.. hopefully some major changes will be coming in the new version.

I do NOT like the 1 Unit Per Tile. Just gets so hard and annoying to move units around.. and doesn't really make sense.
I hope the art style can be a little less cartoon. I just didn't totally love the Civ 6 style (especially compared to 5 or 4). I found it hard to take the leaders seriously with their exaggerated look.
The map got hard for me to look at in 6. Hard to tell what tile had what on it, and things felt so unbalanced. (again I preferred 4 or 5 in this regard).

Thanks for listening to our feedback.

Agreed on graphics there!

I had to download several mods to make graphics bearable in Civ 6. Otherwise I often had no idea I was travelling on hills, as an example.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

I'm all ears.

That you play a civ and you are competing with 7 (or other #) other civs to, across the same span of time, make it more quickly to one of 6 victory conditions is pretty deeply embedded into fundamental premises of the game.

The game is fundamentally a race, and a race presupposes one group of competitors at the starting line and that same group of competitors being judged by how they reach the finish line.

I could cover this in another thread. That'll avoid clogging up the thread.

 

[Gori the Grey]

If you start such a thread, I would be an avid participant.

I have had my own fantasies along these lines. For example, I think it would be cool if, when the map was first generated, 24 proto-civilizations, (in the form of a city) were placed around it. (I'm using Civ V's baseline 8 civs and 16 city states as my grounds for the number; I never played much Civ VI and don't know if it uses the same values, but adjust accordingly). Anyway, of these 24 proto-civs, you will grow into a civ and so will 7 of the others. But which seven is a result of the game playing out. Each starting city has a scout, and has the capacity to build a settler, and some seven of them (plus you) will do that. Only then is the map populated with 8 civs and 16 city states (After the moment that seven civs are founded, the remaining cities become and act like city states for the rest of the game).

Of course this introduces the difficulty for the designers that any of 80 starting proto-civs would each have to be able to develop into a civ, with all of that civ's uniques. I just think it would make for a more interesting start to the game because you wouldn't right out of the bat know which of the cities you're interacting with will become civilizations and which will develop as city states.

As @pokiehl observed over in the Dudes and Dudettes thread, all of this kind of thinking is moot at this point. Any mechanics as fundamental as this or as what you are imagining would have to be built into the game by now if Civ 7 was ever going to have them. But it's still fun to think about.

 

[AriochIV]

If anything, Civ 4 is even more goofy and cartoon looking than Civ 6. So is Civ 3 really.

If you're talking about leaderheads, yes. But if you're talking about the map and units, no. I didn't have a problem with the style of the Civ 6 leaderheads (though some of the depictions were silly and ahistorical, that was separate from the actual art style), it was the simplicity and pastel coloration of the map and units that made it look like a mobile game.

I know that this was ostensibly done for clarity, and in that respect it was functional. But ideally I'd like a middle ground somewhere between aesthetic and functional. Otherwise we would all play in the "strategy view."

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I don't want to see magic, mythology, zombies, steampunk etc in the main game! I want civ7 to stay historical based.

 

[pokiehl]

If you're talking about leaderheads, yes. But if you're talking about the map and units, no. I didn't have a problem with the style of the Civ 6 leaderheads (though some of the depictions were silly and ahistorical, that was separate from the actual art style), it was the simplicity and pastel coloration of the map and units that made it look like a mobile game.

I know that this was ostensibly done for clarity, and in that respect it was functional. But ideally I'd like a middle ground somewhere between aesthetic and functional. Otherwise we would all play in the "strategy view."

Yeah leaders is primarily what I meant, and that was what the original poster I quoted called out (saying it was hard to take the leaders seriously). But I do think there is plenty of goofy cartoony-ness in all of Civ 4's graphics in general. The map is an ugly mess to me, and many of the icons look like generic clipart. In general I think people are whitewashing the reception of Civ 4 with rosetinted glasses. Its graphics were received really poorly by plenty of people in 2005. You can find a lot of threads about it on CFC! Check out this thread:

Anyone else think Civ4 graphics are kinda ugly?

It might be that the screenshots don't do it justice, but it looks very poor in my else. Both terrain and units. Hopfully, it will look better once I can see it on my own computer screen. Just wondering if anyone else thought something similar.

forums.civfanatics.com

Straight from 2005. Full of people saying the graphics are ugly, units are cartoonishly proportioned, etc. You even have posters complaining about how the gameplay seems to be too simplified, is going backwards, etc. History really repeats itself, huh?

I also don't really think anything about Civ 6 is pastel. It's quite bright overall. I never understood the "mobile game" denigration...I've never seen a mobile game look half as good as Civ 6.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I've played a few more games on Civ 6 and all the points I made at the bottom of page 1 still stand.

And I have one more point to add: REMOVE a declared friend's ability to DoW city states you've suzed. REMOVE IT ENTIRELY. Good christ, for effing why? You befriend an AI, they attack your subject and then RAZE THE CITY half the time. Good LUCK preventing that if you don't notice the tooltip or don't have the funds to levy-block. What a terrible, terrible mechanic!!

But that's it rly. Civ 6 blossomed into a really good and playable game I greatly enjoy. If Civ 7 is just Civ 6 with improvements and a different roster, I'd be very pleased.

 

[GeneralZift]

I've played a few more games on Civ 6 and all the points I made at the bottom of page 1 still stand.

Is this some kind of invitation to go back to your points and roast them? Haha

 

[AriochIV]

I will agree with this: if they have city-states in Civ7 I would hope that they are better integrated into diplomacy than in Civ6. The grievance system is a good premise, but in practice it had no teeth... it was not a significant penalty for attacking vassals and it certainly did not deter the AI from doing so. It was frustrating to be essentially powerless while your allies were attacked, as anything you did in response (denunciation or declaration of war) would harm you diplomatically, even if it was later game and you had the appropriate policies. At least in Civ5 you could send aid and units to help.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Is this some kind of invitation to go back to your points and roast them? Haha

Not really I just don't want to repeat myself. But roast them if you wish. I don't mind a healthy discussion

I will agree with this: if they have city-states in Civ7 I would hope that they are better integrated into diplomacy than in Civ6. The grievance system is a good premise, but in practice it had no teeth... it was not a significant penalty for attacking vassals and it certainly did not deter the AI from doing so. It was frustrating to be essentially powerless while your allies were attacked, as anything you did in response (denunciation or declaration of war) would harm you diplomatically, even if it was later game and you had the appropriate policies. At least in Civ5 you could send aid and units to help.

It's so weird too because Civ 5 actually allowed you to bribe the AI into signing peace with City States. It's a huge oversight, but then again it is a Civilization VI diplomacy thing.

Grievances are fine, but they should be one of many systems that influence relationships, not the only real thing. They also don't work well with loyalty pressure - you can "eliminate" any Civ by taking their largest cities and then finish them off via loyalty pressure - and with that all the grievances just outright vanish.

In my current game as Nader Shah, I eliminated Nubia that way - I took her core cities, then captured Dangeil and Qasr Ibrim (located south of Shaat) when they flipped into free cities.

Nearly denounced me other after my war. Only England agreed to a DoF => Alliance. . However, after Amanitore was eliminated, Relations immediately stabilized because I fulfilled everyone's agenda's, and there were no grievances left to bring my relations down. This is the most positive diplo situation I've had in a while, even with eliminating one of the players.

Also something I've noticed lately is how eager the AI is to trade away their great works for 20 strategic resources. Even KRISTINA (who is not in this specific game, but she was in my previous one), whose agenda is about COLLECTING AS MANY GREAT WORKS AS POSSIBLE, happily traded them to me for 20 coal and 3 gpt. AND SHE HAD DENOUNCED ME.

Granted I don't expect the AI to be tough on King difficulty, and I still enjoy the game a lot... but I mean... a bit of logical behaviour would be nice. It all boils down to Diplomacy being bad - I don't know what the design philosophy was for Civ VII, but if they started with revamping Diplomacy and Religion (and Government but that's not a huge deal for me personally), you would already set a large step in the right direction.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

20 coal

The type of strategic matters to such a ridiculous degree. Strategics go from being 10 Gold per copy to 1 Gold for 20 in the span of an era or two. The gap between the AI’s price floor and ceiling is absurd.

Should the demand for certain strategics go up over time? Sure! Coal and Oil don’t have much use for non-industrial societies. But stuff like Iron should never be worthless. Horses should take a much longer time to lose value.

Same gripes with Diplo Favor. The AI goes from not wanting it at all (even when they themselves have none of it) to paying 10 Gold per just across the course of the Classical era. I know that’s a lot of italics, but the point deserves emphasis!

The AI’s value for resources shouldn’t spike suddenly at a given point in time, at least without any way for the player to know.

Just a little Gossip message like “Hungarian scientists have begun researching possible uses for Niter,” or “Qin Shi Huang is planning some controversial votes, and wants more leverage in the World Congress.” Little notifications like that where clever players realize that a commodity is now on the market.

There’s also a fabulous opportunity for introducing more AI variety with this (something Civ VI really sucked at). Maybe some leaders are forward-thinking, realizing the potential of new sources of power and are willing to buy it ahead of the curve. Conversely, maybe some Civs are stubborn and traditionalist, with their ironclad swordsman refusing to pick up a musket.

Whatever the case, don’t have the prices scale and change as dramatically as they do now. And don’t make all AI follow the same patterns while making two leaders (Wilfrid Laurier and Kristina) follow them harder.

 

[civPeter]

If anything, Civ 4 is even more goofy and cartoon looking than Civ 6. So is Civ 3 really.

Well the art style is certainly very subjective and everybody likes their own thing.. but I have to disagree. I just went back and the leaders and map in 3 and 4 are not as exaggerated or cartoony. 3 and 4 have more realistic looks for the leaders (with limitations of graphics of the time). With 6.. I find the exaggerated proportions of the map to be hard to look at. Some of the units will just be sitting on top of the map (like a huge cannon or catapult) and don't feel a part of the world they are in. Also you have some characters in the opening video with exaggerated anime eyes (while other leaders have more realistic eyes). But that's just my option.. you are welcome to like what you like.

 

[Krajzen]

I will agree with this: if they have city-states in Civ7 I would hope that they are better integrated into diplomacy than in Civ6. The grievance system is a good premise, but in practice it had no teeth... it was not a significant penalty for attacking vassals and it certainly did not deter the AI from doing so. It was frustrating to be essentially powerless while your allies were attacked, as anything you did in response (denunciation or declaration of war) would harm you diplomatically, even if it was later game and you had the appropriate policies. At least in Civ5 you could send aid and units to help.

Diplomatic system in civ6 has like twenty overcomplicated arcade boardgame toys, but somehow it still fails to simulate the simplest and most fun diplo interactions mastered decade ago by Paradox games such as "two alliances of many factions fight and then settle things in a peace deal", "one faction vassalizes another", "I guarantee indepedence of that country and will be called in its defense", "I warn this country to not invade its neighbors", "obviously vassals automatically call their lord to war when they are invaded" or "wars between countries actually end after few years and don't last forever"

 

[pokiehl]

Well the art style is certainly very subjective and everybody likes their own thing.. but I have to disagree. I just went back and the leaders and map in 3 and 4 are not as exaggerated or cartoony. 3 and 4 have more realistic looks for the leaders (with limitations of graphics of the time). With 6.. I find the exaggerated proportions of the map to be hard to look at. Some of the units will just be sitting on top of the map (like a huge cannon or catapult) and don't feel a part of the world they are in. Also you have some characters in the opening video with exaggerated anime eyes (while other leaders have more realistic eyes). But that's just my option.. you are welcome to like what you like.

Those images aren't cartoony to you?? I guess there's no accounting for taste, but Civ 6 art to me is masterpiece level compared to what we used to have.

 

[Ordnael]

I don't want to see magic, mythology, zombies, steampunk etc in the main game! I want civ7 to stay historical based.

They are called game modes, and I love some of them. You don't need to have them active, same for the the guy that complained about barbarians and CS!

 

[Acepox]

I don't want to see magic, mythology, zombies, steampunk etc in the main game! I want civ7 to stay historical based.

Where was that in 6?

A standard ruleset game had none of that to my knowledge, except the GDR which wasn't even included in the base game, IIRC.