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

[Ordnael]

New Frontier Pass

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

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"

Wars that don't last forever is the most important (to my mind) and most challenging of these. Snowballing starts when you capture one enemy city, weakening them and empowering you, making it easier to conquer all of their cities. Once you own all of another civ's cities, you're more powerful than empires which haven't conquered someone else, making it easier to conquer them.

As a pure 4x experience, snowballing is intended and preferred. I personally, though, prefer mechanics that rein in and make snowballing more difficult. Creating a time and cost to integrating captured cities, making the cost to maintain an army in the field grow greater and greater the longer they are outside of your (pre war) borders, mechanics like these that encourage aggressors to war for limited, rather than annihilation, objectives would be welcomed by me.

 

[GeneralZift]

Wars that don't last forever is the most important (to my mind) and most challenging of these. Snowballing starts when you capture one enemy city, weakening them and empowering you, making it easier to conquer all of their cities. Once you own all of another civ's cities, you're more powerful than empires which haven't conquered someone else, making it easier to conquer them.

As a pure 4x experience, snowballing is intended and preferred. I personally, though, prefer mechanics that rein in and make snowballing more difficult. Creating a time and cost to integrating captured cities, making the cost to maintain an army in the field grow greater and greater the longer they are outside of your (pre war) borders, mechanics like these that encourage aggressors to war for limited, rather than annihilation, objectives would be welcomed by me.

Well this is why you need wide limitations. You should find it much harder to govern and upgrade infrastructure for a huge empire, specifically one with conquered cities, as it is for one with less.

I don't think Civ6 had any of these restrictions realistically speaking, you could go on mindless conquering sprees with no issues

 

[SupremacyKing2]

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!

Yes, I am well aware that they are game modes that can be turned off. I am saying that civ7 better not make them a core part of the base game. civ7 should keep them as optional game modes or separate scenarios.

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.

They were optional game modes. Correct, the standard ruleset did not have them. The question was what I don't want to see in the standard ruleset of civ7: I don't want to see magic, mythology, zombies or steampunk in the standard ruleset in civ7.

 

[Acepox]

Well this is why you need wide limitations. You should find it much harder to govern and upgrade infrastructure for a huge empire, specifically one with conquered cities, as it is for one with less.

I don't think Civ6 had any of these restrictions realistically speaking, you could go on mindless conquering sprees with no issues

Agreed! That's one thing that really annoyed me about 6. Basically impossible to play tall.

One way to counteract imperialism might be to make it so the more multicultural your empire gets, the more disloyal and chaotic it gets, and pro-happiness governments like "Democracy" become untenable and you have to switch to something more autocratic. Heightened risk of rebellions, etc.

 

[reddishrecue]

Agreed! That's one thing that really annoyed me about 6. Basically impossible to play tall.

One way to counteract imperialism might be to make it so the more multicultural your empire gets, the more disloyal and chaotic it gets, and pro-happiness governments like "Democracy" become untenable and you have to switch to something more autocratic. Heightened risk of rebellions, etc.

Players would have to evolve and become better at conquering. They always usually do.

 

[GeneralZift]

Agreed! That's one thing that really annoyed me about 6. Basically impossible to play tall.

I think the problem with Civ5's counter snowball mechanics (i.e. anti wide) is that they're too cut and dry... like too harsh and powerful.

They need these penalties in the game definitely, but maybe to a lesser or more concise extent.

By the way, I have found that razing cities is almost useless in Civ6 because conquering cities has almost no downsides.

 

[Ordnael]

By the way, I have found that razing cities is almost useless in Civ6 because conquering cities has almost no downsides.

One less, crappy, city to manage!

 

[Krajzen]

I am going to regret this, but to use Hegelian notions Civ6 has often been direct antithesis to the thesis (mechanics) of Civ5 and I suspect Civ7 may be synthesis, I mean taking the middle ground/best solutions of both games.

Civ5 was too biased towards tall, Civ6 was too biased towards wide, Civ7 shall try making both viable.

Civ5 had culture/gov system which offered choices and consequences but no flexibility, Civ6 had exactly opposite problems and advantages, Civ7 will try to have culture/gov combining flexibility and consequential choices.

Civ5 espionage was not very interactive but simple to use and impactful, civ6 espionage can be engaging but is micro heavy and often not worth it.

Civ5 had not very engaging city building but as a benefit it had far less problems with tedious micromanagement, Civ6 has great city mechanics buy they become boring tedium by the late game, Civ7 shall try... You get the idea.

Then we have some systems which became stale as they were almost identical in both games - warfare, religion, basic pop/yield system, I'd argue diplomacy at its core despite all shiny toys of civ6 - here we're going to see revolutions.

 

[Leucarum]

I am going to regret this, but to use Hegelian notions Civ6 has often been direct antithesis to the thesis (mechanics) of Civ5 and I suspect Civ7 may be synthesis, I mean taking the middle ground/best solutions of both games.

Civ5 was too biased towards tall, Civ6 was too biased towards wide, Civ7 shall try making both viable.

Civ5 had culture/gov system which offered choices and consequences but no flexibility, Civ6 had exactly opposite problems and advantages, Civ7 will try to have culture/gov combining flexibility and consequential choices.

Civ5 espionage was not very interactive but simple to use and impactful, civ6 espionage can be engaging but is micro heavy and often not worth it.

Civ5 had not very engaging city building but as a benefit it had far less problems with tedious micromanagement, Civ6 has great city mechanics buy they become boring tedium by the late game, Civ7 shall try... You get the idea.

Then we have some systems which became stale as they were almost identical in both games - warfare, religion, basic pop/yield system, I'd argue diplomacy at its core despite all shiny toys of civ6 - here we're going to see revolutions.

Curious how they would achieve both... Maybe some permanent choices during gameplay which let you mitigate either tall or wide penalties? Either way, one is likely to be strictly better and hence meta.

 

[Leyrann]

Agreed! That's one thing that really annoyed me about 6. Basically impossible to play tall.

Introducing downsides to conquest =/= encouraging (ahistoric) tall gameplay. Let's not confuse the two.

Providing downsides to conquest is both realistic, and necessary to make snowballing less overpowered.

But those downsides should not apply to, say, settling empty lands, like Civ 5's anti-fun mechanics (e.g. global happiness, 'four biggest cities' buffs) did.

On it's own, expanding should always beat not expanding. More resources, more space for your people to live, etc. This is just how history works. Even supposed examples of successful "tall" historical states almost always either weren't tall at all (e.g. Netherlands with a worldwide colonial empire) or were profiting of a wide ally (e.g. Korea, with that ally changing from time to time).

 

[GeneralZift]

Introducing downsides to conquest =/= encouraging (ahistoric) tall gameplay. Let's not confuse the two.

Providing downsides to conquest is both realistic, and necessary to make snowballing less overpowered.

But those downsides should not apply to, say, settling empty lands, like Civ 5's anti-fun mechanics (e.g. global happiness, 'four biggest cities' buffs) did.

On it's own, expanding should always beat not expanding. More resources, more space for your people to live, etc. This is just how history works. Even supposed examples of successful "tall" historical states almost always either weren't tall at all (e.g. Netherlands with a worldwide colonial empire) or were profiting of a wide ally (e.g. Korea, with that ally changing from time to time).

Regardless of conquest. Ignore conquest. This doesn't mean that there should be no downsides to expanding endlessly. This is both unrealistic and bad for gameplay.

It's a silly idea to say that expansion should always beat not-expansion. Explain how you would govern your empire if you built 5 new cities in a short space of time. Yes there would be revolts. This is if you're talking both Historically and Realistically.

For a gameplay perspective it's silly to suggest that players should be churning out as much settlers as possible to grab as much land as possible to be a viable contender.

It should be 50/50. Why is this contentious?

 

[Voidwalkin]

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.

They look less friendly. Compare civ4 Alexander to civ 6 Alexander.

Look at Bismarck. Stuffy looking. But he looks serious.

All the civ 6 leaders look goofy. Philip is the best example of this, but there are others. Australia has it too. They took every leader and slobbered some goof on it. Cartoony is really just shorthand for goofy.

 

[Krajzen]

On it's own, expanding should always beat not expanding. More resources, more space for your people to live, etc. This is just how history works. Even supposed examples of successful "tall" historical states almost always either weren't tall at all (e.g. Netherlands with a worldwide colonial empire) or were profiting of a wide ally (e.g. Korea, with that ally changing from time to time).

Very questionable.
Rome and Chinese empires clearly reached borders from which they didn't expand much for centuries, because the cost was higher than the possible gains. In case of Rome it was powerful Persia and super poor non-Celtic (La Tene) lands left to conquer which were much much poorer than Celtic and Balkans lands they conquered. Even Britain was already negative financial drain for the Empire, and it was much more advanced that the forest lands of non-Celtic Germania, or Berber Morocco etc where the costs to subjugate them simply didn't justify gains.

When you look at the history of empires you don't really see them expanding ad infinitum. China never bothered to conquer rich Korea, Thailand or Japan. Indian empires never went outside the subcontinent - hell, almost all of them didn't even display will to conquer the entirety of India. Poland-Lithuania wilfully chose not to get engaged in HRE politics and not to annex Prussia. African states were fine governing the same area for centuries. If your thesis had been correct, then the political history of the world would look like a total chaos, with every player trying to attack some other players all the time, stopping only to regroup and wait for other players' moment of weakness, which is simply not what we see - we see areas of political chaos, but also areas of roughly the same borders remaining in place for hundreds of years.

I think part of the problem is looking at historical states from the perspective of modern player, who governs the entirety of the state and plays to "win". But in real life people may simply not desire war. Elites may simply not want to risk it, common folk tend to be enjoy peace, there may be no cultural desire to expand, conquest may be not economically viable, or politically desirable. The priority for real life agents is to maintain their current status, with loss aversion and risk aversion, and very often the agents care more about maintaining power within the institution rather than working for the abstract "good of the whole". Historical states are not "rational agents" or hive minds playing a game of maximizing power, they consist of people who may or may not see the value in expansion of the state in which they live.

When I am popular ruler of a kingdom which is at peace, and I don't have very ambitious personality, then why should I risk everything by expanding? I'm just happy I can govern my swarms of unruly vassals for five minutes with minimum drama. Conquest could even empower them and disturb equilibrium. On the other hand, vassals may also oppose expansion, becoming nervous of monarch's power rising too much. Burghers don't want war, they want the stability of trade. Peasants usually don't want war either. The notion of nation doesn't exist and there is no game to win and I prefer to live happily and safely.

The nature of 4X games is, they are well games where you are not afraid of anything except final victory or defeat, so expansion there becomes the matter of pure calculation. But I think decently realistic 4X game should simulate some costs and challenges of expansion simular to the real ones (overextension, instability, too high costs too few gains, foreign oppositiion).

 

[pokiehl]

They look less friendly. Compare civ4 Alexander to civ 6 Alexander.

Look at Bismarck. Stuffy looking. But he looks serious.

All the civ 6 leaders look goofy.

I truly cannot fathom preferring the nightmare fuel of Civ 4 and 3 leader models to those of Civ 6.

Leader models in Civ 4 don’t even look like they belong in the same game. Compare Hatshepsut and Gandhi above. It’s like they were made by two different companies.

Plenty of Civ 6 leaders look stately and serious: Hojo Tokimune, Ba Trieu, Basil, Nader Shah, Cyrus…

And plenty of Civ 3 and 4 leaders look like goofy cartoon creations.

 

[Leucarum]

I truly cannot fathom preferring the nightmare fuel of Civ 4 and 3 leader models to those of Civ 6.

Leader models in Civ 4 don’t even look like they belong in the same game. Compare Hatshepsut and Gandhi above. It’s like they were made by two different companies.

Plenty of Civ 6 leaders look stately and serious: Hojo Tokimune, Ba Trieu, Basil, Nader Shah, Cyrus…

And plenty of Civ 3 and 4 leaders look like goofy cartoon creations.

I'm certain it's nostalgia but I like the civ3 portraits. I think a part of me knows I'm a bad person because of it... But the heart wants what it wants.

 

[fluffy465]

One thing that was changed in 6 that still bothers me is the "pay the full cost of moving" mechanic. I remember hearing one of the devs talking about how when he made that change everyone in the office hated it for like a week, but after that everyone was happy with it. I hoped I would be the same but several years later any time I play 5 again it's like units can actually have movement points again. The reasoning I heard is that it's supposed to make you be more cognisant of flat vs. rough terrain, but in my experience it has the opposite effect. In 5 if there was a flat tile on it's own, crossing it would be fast because you could move into rough terrain right after, but in 6 it might as well be rough because you're still just moving at 1 tile per turn through it. It's additionally annoying because 6's map generation loves to generate that type of terrain unless the map is extremely huge.

Something I wouldn't mind seeing get removed or significantly changed (although I wouldn't be too unhappy if it stayed) is the eureka/inspiration system. It's supposed to make you prioritize researching techs related to what you're already doing, but it tends to just send you on arbitrary quests because you'll have to research them anyways. Instead of building a slinger because I need the military which makes me research better military tech, I build a slinger because I'm gonna have to pick up that military tech anyways, so might as well shave 3 or 4 turns off my progression. I could see it being a really cool system if the tech tree worked like it did in endless legend, where you have to research 6/12 techs to get to era 2, 12/24 techs to get to era 3, etc. Another nitpick about the system I have is that since most things that in previous games would be a free tech are free boosts in 6, and random ones at that. That ends up making a bunch of requirements for eurekas/inspirations null, which kinda undermines the point of the system.

 

[Voidwalkin]

I truly cannot fathom preferring the nightmare fuel of Civ 4 and 3 leader models to those of Civ 6.

Leader models in Civ 4 don’t even look like they belong in the same game. Compare Hatshepsut and Gandhi above. It’s like they were made by two different companies.

Plenty of Civ 6 leaders look stately and serious: Hojo Tokimune, Ba Trieu, Basil, Nader Shah, Cyrus…

And plenty of Civ 3 and 4 leaders look like goofy cartoon creations.

Personally I can't even look at Philip without my immersion being broken. I don't feel like I'm playing a serious game after I see it.

The AI helplessness greatly exacerbates this feeling. Stuffy civ4 Bismarck can wreck you. Philip can swing his sword as much as he likes, as he marches a gaggle of warriors against my crossbow men.

It's the combo. You have the goofy visuals, combined with the goofy, blundering AI. It feels like kids game made for mobile.

 

[moondog385]

Personally I can't even look at Philip without my immersion being broken. I don't feel like I'm playing a serious game after I see it.

The AI helplessness greatly exacerbates this feeling. Stuffy civ4 Bismarck can wreck you. Philip can swing his sword as much as he likes, as he marches a gaggle of warriors against my crossbow men.

It's the combo. You have the goofy visuals, combined with the goofy, blundering AI. It feels like kids game made for mobile.

Philip is one of the worst looking leaders in 6, but he's from the base game. As the game's life cycle went on, I think most would agree with me that they refined the art style drastically. Take Ludwig, Kupe, Lady Six Sky, Menelik, Pachacuti, Dido, Mansa Musa, Tokugawa. I don't consider these leaders "goofy." There were a few iffy ones here and there but that happens in all of the games.

 

[Krajzen]