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

[Josephias]

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Future era in such games tends to be boring anyway, because naturally we have no flavourful historical references for the 21st century, no civ uniques or wonders or anything, so it always ends up as this generic "blue white dentist's office skyscraper future" with no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

Civ 6 was particulary annoying on “future” because it came to early: by turn 300 you could be already in future era or confronting an enemy that was there.

So, if there is a single thing I do not want to se return from Civ6 is that one: tech/evolution pace. Civ5 had just it right were depending on the game you barely got to future tech by turn 500. (This is, you had to invest heavily in tech to end the tree whit some tens of turns left). Move it back to that way, please.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

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

Ideally, I'd like to see the number of decisions you make each turn stay roughly consistent, More practically, I'd at least like it to not increase as significantly in the later game as it does now.

This has always been a problem with Civ, but Civ 6 made it worse because instead of just needing to manage a larger number of units and cities, you also had new systems added in later eras that required your attention. I get trying to keep the late game interesting by adding new gameplay choices in later eras, but to do that without dropping off the earlier game decisions just makes the later turns even longer and more tedious, not more fun.

 

[Leucarum]

Ideally, I'd like to see the number of decisions you make each turn stay roughly consistent, More practically, I'd at least like it to not increase as significantly in the later game as it does now.

This has always been a problem with Civ, but Civ 6 made it worse because instead of just needing to manage a larger number of units and cities, you also had new systems added in later eras that required your attention. I get trying to keep the late game interesting by adding new gameplay choices in later eras, but to do that without dropping off the earlier game decisions just makes the later turns even longer and more tedious, not more fun.

That's a good summary of the problem. Given that 6 was the wide game I woildn't be surprised if 7 favours tall a little more - hopefully not enough to lock you into only that play style though!

 

[Voidwalkin]

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.

Yeah. There were other mechanics you could lean into. Quite a few. I played on marathon mostly(feels more epic) and through extremely violent pillaging I was able to get SV at approx 660BC, in vanilla. That was before the patch that made the campus so common. It'd be easier now.

I guess I don't want the game to have such a low challenge. There were so many things I feel were deliberately made so powerful that the AI wouldn't do. A casual player would stumble into them in 10hrs of gameplay and from there on out totally unbeatable even on deity. More strategic depth please.

Like chopping. If you're gonna make it so strong, make sure the AI actually does it. Or serfdom. AI never ran it and it's arguably the most powerful civic, responsible for closing the production, science and culture gap in most players runs.

 

[AriochIV]

I don't think there's any particular feature that I would rule out blind. I think that almost any feature or design decision can make sense and work well within the appropriate context, if executed properly.

 

[Acepox]

It's been said many times, but never enough, because why in the world did they go ahead with this mechanic:

NO to randomized World Congress. Top diplomats should be dictating the agenda, others voting on. Emergencies were good tho.

NO to exceedingly fast paced eras, especially the medieval era. It always felt like I could never really enjoy the medieval era. Yet in history, it was a lengthy and highly consequential period, spanning a thousand years from the fall of the Western empire to the fall of the Eastern empire. The solution is probably two-fold: more techs per era (Medieval and Renaissance, especially), and more dependencies so you can't just beeline from the classical era into the renaissance in 20 turns. No childless techs either, I should not be researching archers in the atomic era.

NO to excessive micromanagement. No builder charges, let me automate them; no to district adjacencies which force us to plan way too far ahead, I don't mind having districts but let the bonuses and unlocks be city-wide or regional (ie: a city with a dam will produce more in its industrial zone, or a harbor in one city increases gold per turn in nearby connected cities); and very importantly: let me make cities autonomous. Give them a happiness bonus and let me just dictate their overall priority, but the rest is managed by the AI. Especially important for conquered or forward-settled cities I may not particularly care about.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

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

I actually disagree with this, because I kinda did the math.

The problem isn't the bonuses, it's the scaling. The Tech doesn't scale up as high as it does in Civ 5, the cost of Late Game Civ Tech in Civ 6, say Nanotechnology, is 2,155 science, with maybe about a boost of 20% when you factor in "Too early to research it".

The same tech in Civ 5 costs 8800... do you see just by how much of a leap they took?

The reason Civ 5 paces better is because the cost of technologies is WAY.. WAY, and I mean WAY better.

No wonder you get to the Future Era in 1800s if the most expensive tech costs roughly 2k compared to Civ 5's 8k.

 

[Xandinho]

I forgot to mention in my first post, but I'd prefer not to see dual-leaders or alternative personas again. The first diminishes the identity of the leader, as we always associate the leader with just one civilization, and the latter is a waste of resources that could be invested in other things.

 

[Voidwalkin]

I don't want to see late forming nations get any unique bonuses that can't be used to really boost power in the ancient era.

USA, Brazil, Australia are all effectively handicapped, because their late UUs already have their impact diminished by the nature of the game(earlier impact, far more RoI, because of snowball). If you're giving any civ a late UU, they better have powerful stone age bonuses.

 

[Vandlys]

I forgot to mention in my first post, but I'd prefer not to see dual-leaders or alternative personas again. The first diminishes the identity of the leader, as we always associate the leader with just one civilization, and the latter is a waste of resources that could be invested in other things.

Completely agree. While reading these forums I thought why do we have nations to begin with? Why "Roosevelt" & "America"? Why not "Roosevelt's America" with completely different bonuses than for example "Washington's America"?

 

[Starina]

I really wouldn't want the game to be released unfinished. I don't want to participate in "open beta testing at my own expense". And I don't want the obvious bugs and errors to not be fixed for years, as it was in VI

 

[GeneralZift]

You guys mean to say you don't want the same leader to lead two different nations, or two versions of the same leader.

But multiple leaders for the same nation (eg. Elizabeth and Victoria for England with two separate "England"s) stays?

If so, I agree.

 

[LastSword]

Barbarians and City-States.

 

[Krajzen]

NO to exceedingly fast paced eras, especially the medieval era. It always felt like I could never really enjoy the medieval era. Yet in history, it was a lengthy and highly consequential period, spanning a thousand years from the fall of the Western empire to the fall of the Eastern empire. The solution is probably two-fold: more techs per era (Medieval and Renaissance, especially), and more dependencies so you can't just beeline from the classical era into the renaissance in 20 turns. No childless techs either, I should not be researching archers in the atomic era.

Finally I have found someone who dislikes how compressed medieval era is in civ games. I think it deserves being either twice as long or split into two eras, early and high/late medieval. It would also balance out the wider problem of too many "modern" eras in comparision to "premodern". The only other preindustrial era which we could split off are either 1500 - 1650 AD being separate from 1650 - 1800 AD (so we have one era for 150 years and another for 1000 years, great...) or some pre 500 BC splits (idk I have mixed feelings)

 

[Leyrann]

Finally I have found someone who dislikes how compressed medieval era is in civ games. I think it deserves being either twice as long or split into two eras, early and high/late medieval. It would also balance out the wider problem of too many "modern" eras in comparision to "premodern". The only other preindustrial era which we could split off are either 1500 - 1650 AD being separate from 1650 - 1800 AD (so we have one era for 150 years and another for 1000 years, great...) or some pre 500 BC splits (idk I have mixed feelings)

So split Medieval into Early Medieval and High Medieval, and merge Modern, Atomic and Information into just Modern (or Atomic) and Information?

I'd be okay with that.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

So split Medieval into Early Medieval and High Medieval, and merge Modern, Atomic and Information into just Modern (or Atomic) and Information?

I'd be okay with that.

In all honesty I would not be opposed to splitting up the classical era either into two smaller eras. But that might be getting to the point where we’re getting too granular

 

[Krajzen]

Yeah

Ancient, Classical, Early Medieval (500-1000), High Medieval (1000-1500), Early Modern, Industrial, Modern (1914 - 1950/60s), Information era, idk some 21st century era if you fancy, I could live without it

Earlier eras are more flavourful and filled with cultural uniques and you play them everytime, very modern eras are by their nature less flavourful and too many of them worsen the endgame problem (people often don't pley them anyway if you already dominate the world earlier)

You can also cover the entire 1914-1950/60s period with the same basic unit templates such as "tank", "infantry with machine guns and/or rifles", "artillery", "battleship", "planes" etc

Then around 1960s we have a new era in civ terms because:
- Warfare fundamentally changes (helicopters, modern assault rifles, modern tanks, rocket artillery, jet planes)
- Decolonization, cultural revolution, space, modern media, computers, globalization, consumerism, ecology etc
- Third industrial revolution begins in the 70s

We don't need atomic/information split imo because warfare hasn't changed that much since 60s (weapons from that era are still mass used today), neither did most of ours basic problems and themes, and we always struggle to fill those super late eras with flavour, units, leaders, civ uniques and wonders anyway, not to mention the endgame problem, so why prolong that? For 21st century era with some boring generic sci fi with no cultural differences? Just make it long and end with social media penalty, AI, drones, mission to Mars and solving climate change.

 

[GeneralZift]

I enjoy the medieval era as much as anyone, it's my favourite, but I would be disappointed if they truncated the modern eras instead of improving them.

I'm sure there's a way for the modern climate go produce really interesting results, where it's heavily about diplomacy and espionage, large scale global wars, than regional wars.

I'm hopeful that the Civ team are aware of the endgame drag, and will work towards it for Civ7.
About the Medieval era. I don't think the split is a good idea, it's not very "neat", the best way for them to do what you're suggesting is to get the Science scaling right and make the pre-Renaissance eras feel "Slow" and then appropriately speeding up with the Enlightenment

(Although I'm sure that's quite easy to say but hard to do)

 

[Leyrann]

You can also cover the entire 1914-1950/60s period with the same basic unit templates such as "tank", "infantry with machine guns and/or rifles", "artillery", "battleship", "planes" etc

I fully agree with most of your post, but not this bit. Warfare evolved a ton during the World Wars. At the start of World War I, planes were made of materials like cotton and wood, generals didn't know yet that "charge at the enemy" had ceased being a successful tactic due to the invention of machine guns, cavalry was still prevalent, et cetera. By the end of World War II, jet planes ruled the skies, paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines, early missiles had been developed, and most importantly, the atomic bomb was introduced.

I'd say this time period saw at least as much of an evolution in warfare as the period 1789-1914.

We don't need atomic/information split imo because warfare hasn't changed that much since 60s (weapons from that era are still mass used today)

It's looking like drones are taking over in a major way though. But that's probably too recent of a development to really implement into a game - maybe by the time Civ 8 or Civ 9 comes around, it's different.

 

[AffineConstant]

In all honesty I would not be opposed to splitting up the classical era either into two smaller eras. But that might be getting to the point where we’re getting too granular

I'd argue splitting up "classical" into "bronze age, and then classical" makes far more sense. Far from granular the amount of changes from the bronze age to classical were absolutely immense, the idea of a "state" didn't even particularly exist during the bronze age. There were tributary villages that were shaken down by one warlord or another, but nation states as an identity people cared about weren't even around until the classical age.

Combined with a lot of technological changes, alongside cultural ones and etc. I'd say going "Tribal, bronze age, classical" makes perfect sense.