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

[Leyrann]

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.

All leaders had it, Eleanor just had an ability that made the process quicker, and one that allowed her to exert more pressure.

• 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.

So you're proposing a different form of Judaism for every Jew alive?

 

[moondog385]

• World Congress, at least in the capacity it was in VI. Should be a late game mechanic
• Gandhi and India (though I expect both will return)
• Cleopatra
• I'll echo what @Lord Lakely said on religious combat
• Late game micromanagement? Not sure how to word that, but managing 20+ cities in the late game is extremely tedious. There needs to be some kind of delegation system introduced where you can split off parts of your empire
• No leaders changing outfits throughout eras
• Ridiculous grievances and penalties imposed on you for a war your opponent started

 

[Core Imposter]

I don't want to see 7 designed by anyone who thought 5 and 6 were better than 4.

 

[Venceslau Pietro Pietra]

• Agendas, reaaally poorly implemented, one of the worst mechanics of the game, especially the leader personal ones.
• Gandhi, for obvious reasons.
• Civ 5 styled religion, i am tired of this system and would gladily acept a new overhauled religion mechanic.
• Civ 6 world congress
• Strategic resources blocking districts

 

[Lord Lakely]

So you're proposing a different form of Judaism for every Jew alive?

Ha! Not a Jew myself, but if most of them are - as Gianmarco Soresi once beautifully put it- "sampling different kinds of stuff" then why not make that the identity of the Jewish religion in Civ? You have a communal religion that you can customize freely from a given set of tenets, at the cost of it spreading at a much slower rate. Other religions can have different traits, with Islam and Christianity being more focal on conversion, and Hinduism strengthening the pantheon tenets.

These are examples I just came up with on the fly. Point is that religion doesn't have to be samey, devoid of context and formulaic. Every world religion has its own identity, values and quirks. Use them.

and expand the list of foundable religions if needed.

 

[Leyrann]

• Late game micromanagement? Not sure how to word that, but managing 20+ cities in the late game is extremely tedious. There needs to be some kind of delegation system introduced where you can split off parts of your empire

Why are you playing a 4X game if you don't want to eXpand or eXploit?

Not a Jew myself, but if most of them are - as Gianmarco Soresi once beautifully put it- "sampling different kinds of stuff" then why not make that the identity of Judaism in Civ? You have a communal religion that you can customize from a set of tenets, at the cost of it spreading at a much slower rate. Other religions can have different traits, with Islam and Christianity being more focal on conversion, and Hinduism strengthening the pantheon tenets.

I was referring to the "two Jews, three opinions" joke.

 

[Kimiimaro]

I join the anti-Nuclear Gandhi club.

In fact, I think it would be for the better if we didn't have India as a civ. I beliveve it could well be split into two, three civs. It's such a culturally, religiously and historically diverse colossus that it would deserve a more detailed representation than the current blob. I'd like to see at least a Maurya/Mughal split. Maybe add Cholas into the mix, too.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

I don't want religious victory. I want other players to be able to want my religion spread to them.

 

[moondog385]

Why are you playing a 4X game if you don't want to eXpand or eXploit?

Ha I do want to, but spending 10 minutes a turn selecting district projects for cities that have nothing else to produce is not fun gameplay. At least let me select "produce nothing."

 

[Mekkh]

All leaders had it, Eleanor just had an ability that made the process quicker, and one that allowed her to exert more pressure.

IIRC Eleanor was the only one that made culture have an impact on loyalty pressure, which makes a big difference

 

[Nikolai II]

I don't want to see 7 designed by anyone who thought 5 and 6 were better than 4.

Seeing how much better 6 and to a degree 5 sold compared to 4, I don't think there is any chance of your wish happening. 6 sold like crazy compared to earlier games.

Speaking of, do we know who is the lead for 7?

 

[moondog385]

Seeing how much better 6 and to a degree 5 sold compared to 4, I don't think there is any chance of your wish happening. 6 sold like crazy compared to earlier games.

Speaking of, do we know who is the lead for 7?

Ed Beach is returning, I believe.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

IIRC Eleanor was the only one that made culture have an impact on loyalty pressure, which makes a big difference

This is true, she made enemies disloyal through her Great Works- for all other Civs, while Culture still dictates the rate at which you earn tiles, it strangely has no effect on nearby Civs

 

[Krajzen]

This is true, she made enemies disloyal through her Great Works- for all other Civs, while Culture still dictates the rate at which you earn tiles, it strangely has no effect on nearby Civs

And I'm glad it doesn't, because I have always really disliked the idea of culture being some physical gravity - like force which somehow tore out lands of one empire and put them into the other, with all that not being part of diplomacy, politics or warfare in anyway. Like show me historical example of something like that, where part of a nation B decides to spontaneously join completely alien nation A because it's "culturally attractive" and government of nation B shrugging at it "oh well, it sometimes happens, gotta let them go". States have always been defined by their ability to control land and people by force and not letting it go easily.

It's even dumber because it's also not connected to any notion of ethnicity, happiness, political regime or anything, no, we just have happy Germans in powerful Germany who one day decide to join Spain which is poorer, unhappier and speaks different language but it just has more famous painters. Just pure nonsense.

I really hope culture remains the force of border expansion and government institutions, not some ahistorical magic replacing the role of proper diplomatic systems with options of vassalage, annexation, union etc.

 

[mitsho]

Less focus on the perfect environment before the game. I chose the Dutch, so I quit if I don't have enough swamp. I chose the Vikings, but then start at an inland lake = frustrating. I don't want to play a game where my goal is just to execute the perfect game plan for my civ and the closer to optimal gameplay I get the better. It also is kinda boring if Vietnam always has to be a jungle civ, and what if I want to play England not as a seafaring civ, but an industrial powerhouse?

So: less decisions before the game, more inside it! Even up to chosing the civ after starting the game like humankind did. But it's not important how they do it.

Also: no decision creep per turn that makes the late game just endless clickfest. I want to do around ten decisions per turn, and they should be meaningful. Which means taking choiches away from the player in the atomic era he or she had in the ancient era!

Also: a diplomatic screen where I don't have to click endlessly through all the leaders...

 

[Pistol90]

Anything close to fantasy or sci-fi .. keep game in its borders when it comes what Civ is (exp. no vampires, wizards, crazy sci-fi weapons etc).

 

[Krajzen]

Also: no decision creep per turn that makes the late game just endless clickfest. I want to do around ten decisions per turn, and they should be meaningful. Which means taking choiches away from the player in the atomic era he or she had in the ancient era!

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.

 

[Krajzen]

Anything close to fantasy or sci-fi .. keep game in its borders when it comes what Civ is (exp. no vampires, wizards, crazy sci-fi weapons etc).

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

Future era in such games tends to be boring anyway, because naturally we have no flavourful historical references for the 21st century, no civ uniques or wonders or anything, so it always ends up as this generic "blue white dentist's office skyscraper future" with no differentiation between civs.

 

[tedhebert]

Deckbuilding and cards !

 

[Mekkh]

And I'm glad it doesn't, because I have always really disliked the idea of culture being some physical gravity - like force which somehow tore out lands of one empire and put them into the other, with all that not being part of diplomacy, politics or warfare in anyway. Like show me historical example of something like that, where part of a nation B decides to spontaneously join completely alien nation A because it's "culturally attractive" and government of nation B shrugging at it "oh well, it sometimes happens, gotta let them go". States have always been defined by their ability to control land and people by force and not letting it go easily.

It's even dumber because it's also not connected to any notion of ethnicity, happiness, political regime or anything, no, we just have happy Germans in powerful Germany who one day decide to join Spain which is poorer and unhappier but it just has more famous painters. Just pure nonsense.

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.