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

[Leyrann]

I think we're ready for Civ to not be so Euro-centric. But from the trailer I don't think that's changing.

I don't know whether or not it'd be the case for you specifically, but being eurocentric by the definition of at least some people is unavoidable, simply because European countries dominated the world for 4 of the 8 in-game eras; Renaissance, Industrial, Modern and Atomic. And the Information Era is still mostly dominated by either European powers or former colonies of theirs with a strong European cultural heritage (the US, mostly).

 

[seasnake]

I don't want to see religious units engaged in lightning warfare.

Religion should be a combination of Civ IV and V, with the ability to found and customize coupled with benefits for other nations that practice it, and diplomacy implications for those who control the holy city and/or share a faith.

For example, I think trade routes with civilizations following the same faith should make your citizens happier. I think religions should have bonuses to productivity/culture/great people, unlock buildings/unique units, make war weariness harder against fellow brothers of the faith but much less against infidels, give a complete causus belli to all civs of the faith if an infidel takes a holy city, and a holy city should be un-razeable for the game. Religion should overlay who you play the game, but not be its own system of combat on a different unit movement plane.

As you progress on, you should be able to adopt religious social policies that either push you into a theocratic state (enhancing your religious benefits) or more toward freedom of religion (decreasing its effects but adding new benefits and lessening penalties). That said, there should still be diplomatic consequences to being religious or irreligious.

Finally, goodbye government cards! Swapping out governments all the time was ridiculous. Social policies that permanently impacted your play through were far more meaningful. I also don't want a culture tech tree, so this gives culture more to do. Governments should be reflected in the social policies you adopt over time and later ideologies.

 

[Roman Citizen]

Microtransactions, Always online, "games as a service" model. Just anything that everyone dislikes in AAA games now.

 

[Krajzen]

I don't know whether or not it'd be the case for you specifically, but being eurocentric by the definition of at least some people is unavoidable, simply because European countries dominated the world for 4 of the 8 in-game eras; Renaissance, Industrial, Modern and Atomic.

In case of Industrial, Modern and Atomic eras you are certainly right, though Japan has been spectacular exception. During renaissance era (I hate this naming, it really should be "early modern era", we're talking about approx 1492 - 1789) I'd argue that Europe was steadily increasing its initially small tech and economic advantages but it was not yet that much stronger than rest of the world. Only since the 18th century Europe was capable of truly curb stomping Ottomans and South Asian polities on the battlefield, up to this point there were several civilizations capable of fighting it 1:1. Also, before the industrial revolution Europe still didn't have that crushing advantage in economic terms - Pommeranz argued in his famous book that until the late 18th century the most developed areas of China were very comparable to the most developed European countries in "proto-industrial" and "proto-capitalist" terms.

However it is also worth noting that in game terms "4 out of 8 eras" (50%) means IRL 500 years of history out of 6000 (less than 10%) (200 years and 3 out of 8 eras in the alternate narrative). I have never liked how heavily Civ era system is biased towards more recent history, I would seriously argue for "early medieval" era just to prolong pre-modern history.

Finally, regardless of how powerful Europe has been in "material" terms, it doesn't mean we need to focus on its culture, aestethics and perspectives, which is another face of eurocentrism - it has always irked me how in civ5 everything about "general aestethics" was unmistakably eurocentric, and like 80% of its great cultural people have been Western. There is this very old trope that non-Western culture and beauty is "ancient" and distant, and then since the 16th century there is nothing but Western operas, paintings, violings, poets etc, because "modern" culture is westernized while everything "oriental" is also "ancient". We can't really avoid the fact that the crushing majority of great scientists and inventors of the past two or three centuries has been European, US or Japanese, but I roll my eyes when 20th century literature and art is like 95% Western, Russian or Japanese. In this regard there is no excuse to not display more modern culture and art from less powerful countries.

 

[GeneralZift]

In case of Industrial, Modern and Atomic eras you are certainly right, though Japan has been spectacular exception.

During renaissance era (I hate this naming, it really should be "early modern era", we're talking about approx 1492 - 1789) I'd argue that Europe was steadily increasing its initially small tech and economic advantages but it was not yet that much stronger than rest of the world. Only since the 18th century Europe was capable of truly curb stomping Ottomans and South Asian polities on the battlefield, up to this point there were several civilizations capable of fighting it 1:1. Also, before the industrial revolution Europe still didn't have that crushing advantage in economic terms - Pommeranz argued in his famous book that until the late 18th century the most developed areas of China were very comparable to the most developed European countries in "proto-industrial" and "proto-capitalist" terms.

However it is also worth noting that in game terms "4 out of 8 eras" means IRL "500 years out of 6000 (200 years and 3 out of 8 eras in the alternate narrative). I have never liked how heavily Civ era system is biased towards more recent history, I would seriously argue for "early medieval" era just to prolong pre-modern history.

They could just make the earlier Eras literally longer by adding more Techs or something, rather than adding whole Eras.

 

[Xandinho]

They could just make the earlier Eras literally longer by adding more Techs or something, rather than adding whole Eras.

And cut the atomic era, I never understood why break the 20th century in two (modern era and atomic era). Make the modern era about the main events of the 20th century (ideologies, first advances into space, proliferation of mass culture...) and the information era about the events from ~1990 to now (globalization, advances in the media and sustainability...). We really don't need three eras to represent a historical period of ~120 years.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

And cut the atomic era, I never understood why break the 20th century in two (modern era and atomic era). Make the modern era about the main events of the 20th century (ideologies, first advances into space, proliferation of mass culture...) and the information era about the events from ~1990 to now (globalization, advances in the media and sustainability...). We really don't need three eras to represent a historical period of ~120 years.

Based off Civ 5, I always saw Modern Era as the Era of World War 1, and Atomic Era being the World War 2 and Cold War Era. I know it's weird to have them seperate but. you could easily have Modern era to be about the World Wars and the Atomic Era to be it's aftermath, with Information Age being the introduction of Computers and Computing into mainstream.

 

[GuiSKJ]

I don't want to see nonsensical ruler personalities. Like Norway yelling at me at turn 5 that my navy is too weak. Not only it is turn 5 my dude, but why would any AI, specially a viking, desire that an opponent have a strong navy?

 

[Xur]

I don’t want builder charges - bring back workers.

Anything that adds needless micromanagement should be cut out like a cancer - most of the civ6 systems are bad.

Don’t add a system if the AI can’t use it - navy, airplanes, walls and so on. Basicly don’t release the game if the AI can’t handle these things and take over the world.

Civ6 AI so bad that I’m not touching or buying civ7 until I hear people saying that the AI is good, and that it can handle the systems.

 

[Navelgazer]

I don't want to see nonsensical ruler personalities. Like Norway yelling at me at turn 5 that my navy is too weak. Not only it is turn 5 my dude, but why would any AI, specially a viking, desire that an opponent have a strong navy?

I agree with this in the sense that yeah, it's weird that Harald likes you when your navy is as good or better than his own. But when understood in the inverse - i.e. Harald will want to go to war with you if your navy is weak enough so as not to give him any trouble for his coastal raiding - it makes total sense.

So, like, Genghis Khan's "The cavalry you field is an embarrassment, but thankfully a small one" thing is wild on its own, but makes total sense in the context of "Dude wants to go to war with someone who has a lot of mounted units he can capture." Tamar admiring wall-building? Sure, whatever. Tamar wanting to go to war with opponents with weak defenses? Yeah, that totally works.

(Not all of the agendas are this straightforward or beneficial to the AI who has them, of course, but some of them seem random or nonsensical but make a lot of sense in the context of who the AI leader would want to go to war against.)

 

[BackseatTyrant]

Please, for the love of everything that's good, I pray that Firaxis has made the wise decision to NOT utilize any AI-generated artwork whatsoever. The moment I learn this game has been tainted with that or some other techbro sludge, any discussions about mechanics and whatnot become utterly irrelevant to me.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I don't want to see nonsensical ruler personalities. Like Norway yelling at me at turn 5 that my navy is too weak. Not only it is turn 5 my dude, but why would any AI, specially a viking, desire that an opponent have a strong navy?

I disagree that this is a bad, the problem was the execution was bad.

I think it gave flavor to the personalities, but it needed to be done in a scalar way, meaning the power powerful your navy was, the more he liked you, and vice versa.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I bought 6 but only played 2 or 3 games before going back to 5. One reason was that I wanted to play a game where I already knew all of the strategies rather than had to be learning them. But the other two reasons were, first, policy cards (immersion breaking; who flips their entire culture around every X years, and then again Y years later?) and, second, the way districts gobbled up the whole map. In fact, I'd like an option in the toggles where the graphics representing cities could be shrunk to pretty much just the hex that the city is on, not even the big clunky label over it that there is in 5. So that when you zoom out the map looks like . . . a map.

 

[shaglio]

Something I hope not to return in Civ 7 is Area Effect Buildings. It's far too tedious to have to count out six tiles in every direction to see how many cities will be affected by an Entertainment district or an Oil Power Plant. Even using the lens is annoying to me. Just go back to having buildings affect their own city and make my life easier.

 

[GeneralZift]

Something I hope not to return in Civ 7 is Area Effect Buildings. It's far too tedious to have to count out six tiles in every direction to see how many cities will be affected by an Entertainment district or an Oil Power plant. Even using the lens is annoying to me. Just go back to having buildings affect their own city and make my life easier.

Soooooo true

For me I would add unique great persons. I don't like earning a great person only to end up with a useless one, and the next great scientist happens to win you the game instantly (PS. There's no way for you to know)

I think all these adjacency bonuses and such made such a huge balance problem for Civ6 that previous games didn't have because they were so heavily limited. Eg. You can't magically get +6 science in Civ5 just because you spawned near 5 mountains or something.
Which is why people ended up in Future Era in 1800s

 

[Leucarum]

I'd like to see a reduction in some of the more tedious micromanagement elements.

In 6, Religious gameplay is the biggest offender I can think of. That is just micromanagement layered on top of micromanagement. But arranging great works, rock bands, and general late game city management are all examples of things I'd like firaxis to avoid duplicating from 6.

I guess it's likely the exact roster of tedious micromanagement tasks will be different in 7, but hopefully it's lessened overall

 

[Leyrann]

Which is why people ended up in Future Era in 1800s

Nah, you could remove all science adjacency tiles in the game in the worldbuilder and I could still get to the Future Era in the 1800s. Technology costs just didn't scale sufficiently.

If you're actually challenging me (rather than me just playing the game like normal), I might be able to shave a few more centuries off.

 

[pokiehl]

I'd like to see a reduction in some of the more tedious micromanagement elements.

In 6, Religious gameplay is the biggest offender I can think of. That is just micromanagement layered on top of micromanagement. But arranging great works, rock bands, and general late game city management are all examples of things I'd like firaxis to avoid duplicating from 6.

I guess it's likely the exact roster of tedious micromanagement tasks will be different in 7, but hopefully it's lessened overall

And the big problem is none of this stuff is actually engaging or immersive. Micromanagement can be OK if it feels like something I’d reasonably do to run my empire…working on changing decrees or figuring out taxation or something.

But slotting policy cards around, shuffling great works between different slots, sending waves of rock bands or missionaries out, shifting governors from city to city to maximize bonuses…none of that makes me feel like I’m running an empire. It’s just busywork and feels distinctly like a game.

I hope they come up with more naturally immersive and engaging ways to manage with your empire.

 

[Leucarum]

And the big problem is none of this stuff is actually engaging or immersive. Micromanagement can be OK if it feels like something I’d reasonably do to run my empire…working on changing decrees or figuring out taxation or something.

But slotting policy cards around, shuffling great works between different slots, sending waves of rock bands or missionaries out, shifting governors from city to city to maximize bonuses…none of that makes me feel like I’m running an empire. It’s just busywork and feels distinctly like a game.

I hope they come up with are more naturally immersive and engaging ways to engage with your empire.

Well put. Whike undoubtedly as much micromanagement, things like millitary maneuvering really don't feel as big a drag.

Espionage is another system I'd add to the list thinking about it...

 

[Takfloyd]

I think most people here know where Civ VI failed, we can only hope the devs also do. For me, the most important things to get rid of are

Unmovable Districts - Districts are good as a concept, but having to spend 10 minutes planning out the entire rest of the game every time you found a city just sucks, especially in multiplayer. I say keep the districts, but allow them to be swapped around, perhaps each time you build a new one. Not anytime, that would only lead to annoying micromanagement.

Policy cards - These are just absolutely terrible design. Each time you research a civic tech, which is every few turns, you have to wade through this giant heap of wordy cards to pick the ones that are best for the next few turns. This is the kind of thing where whoever designed it probably doesn't play to win and doesn't care about optimization. For such a player, they probably don't see the issue because they just leave the policies alone until they feel like changing them. But games need to be designed for people who play optimally, and so that doing so isn't horribly tedious.

Religious combat - I'm pretty sure no one thought this was any fun. Just tedious busywork. Nothing wrong with religious units, but make them work like in Civ IV where they didn't take up much of your time

World Congress - Well no, don't get rid of it, but the slot machine implementation of it needs to die in a fire. Make it reliable, realistic and impactful, like in earlier games.

Terrible AI - We all know this one, and it needs to be fixed at any and all cost. Even if it means going back to doom stacks. It's not just the combat AI though, it's the diplomacy as well. They already nailed all of this in Civ IV, so just go back and take notes.