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

[mrwho]

Don't spend developer time on a super detailed combat system. I've seen lots of suggestions from people about having a separate battle screen where you co-ordinate your armies in a more deliberate way. That's not what Civ is about to me. Civ is not a combat game at its core. It is an empire building game with combat as a means to an end.

 

[Josephias]

I think it'd be a solid improvement on the existing loyalty system if Free Cities only joined other civs under extreme circumstances (and there was at least a temporary reprieve on loyalty pressure after re-conquering them). That way when a Free City pops up, you get this race for all the nearby civs to conquer it, instead of what happens now of just waiting for it to join your civ for free 10 turns later. Meaningful diplomacy with the free cities would be even better, but I acknowledge that it would be quite a bit more work than this change.

Even if full-fledged diplomacy with free cities might be not an option, there could be some ways to influence culturally (or bribe) and win over for your civ a free city. You could spend, in example, city state envoys to gain influence with the city government, push tourism or other cultural influence to make them more alike you, or fund factions pro-joining your empire.

It can not be exactly copied as it is based in different concepts, but I have to say I enjoyed Humankind (expansion) approach to deald with "independent" peoples in which you increase influence in the city state, both in absolute value and in % over other civs, gaining access to different tiers of agreements and, in the end, reaching the point where you can assimilate them. Something inspired in that might work for free cities. In any case, I'm positive it will work better and more fun than just 10 turns of loyalty pressure.

 

[Morningcalm]

I don't want to see the endless chain of notifications on the right hand side of the screen like in Civ V and Civ VI. That stuff was annoying, like getting 40 notifications on your phone and not having an easy "Clear All" button.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

I don't want to see the endless chain of notifications on the right hand side of the screen like in Civ V and Civ VI. That stuff was annoying, like getting 40 notifications on your phone and not having an easy "Clear All" button.

The Notification Clear Mod adds exactly this and it has probably saved me entire minutes in just a single game.

The redundant notifications are the worst, like getting a Great Scientist to reveal Oil and then reaching Refining to naturally reveal Oil will give you notifications for both.

 

[Morningcalm]

The Notification Clear Mod adds exactly this and it has probably saved me entire minutes in just a single game.

The redundant notifications are the worst, like getting a Great Scientist to reveal Oil and then reaching Refining to naturally reveal Oil will give you notifications for both.

Didn't realize there was a mod to clear them. If I ever return to Civ VI I'll consider getting that mod installed. There's a lot of time wasted ingame dealing with the ceaseless notifications and busywork instead of the meat of the gameplay. It's one of the reasons I've become curious about potentially acquiring Civ Rev and just playing that instead.

 

[Leyrann]

I don't want to see the endless chain of notifications on the right hand side of the screen like in Civ V and Civ VI. That stuff was annoying, like getting 40 notifications on your phone and not having an easy "Clear All" button.

They should probably take a look through them to separate out useless notifications, but in general I find it a very helpful tool to make sure I don't forget anything important.

Or, I guess, a settings screen where you can enable or disable notifications for all kinds of stuff. So that everyone can get what they want.

 

[Morningcalm]

They should probably take a look through them to separate out useless notifications, but in general I find it a very helpful tool to make sure I don't forget anything important.

Or, I guess, a settings screen where you can enable or disable notifications for all kinds of stuff. So that everyone can get what they want.

I found them annoying, like mosquitos, or like cellphone pings, because they are tough to dismiss and a lot of them relate to busywork. I would want an option to disable them for sure. Obviously, I would want that information conveyed in some way, but I think there are better ways to do it than having 25 different noises and animations on the right hand side irritating me as I focus on other things.

 

[Blue whale]

Canada belgium and other countries that don’t have a unique culture or ethnicity

 

[Blue whale]

Unit stacking

People blaming the combat being bad on 1UPT haven't played a lot of strategy or tactics games I feel. Chess is 1 unit per tile, is chess "bad" now? Just make the combat good.

World Congress

Because saying it multiple times isn't enough, what a horribly random mechanic

Chess and civ are not comparable, in chess you have limited pieces with nothing blocking them from moving to a legal tile
But in civ you can produce an unlimited amount of units with mountains and water features blocking land units
Not to mention other differences

 

[Leyrann]

Canada belgium and other countries that don’t have a unique culture or ethnicity

As someone from the Netherlands who has been to Belgium a number of times, take it from me that there are certainly people who, by their very appearance (ethnicity), are recognizable as Belgian with 100% confidence.

I'd also be hesitant to say that Flemish culture is indistinguishable from Dutch culture, although of course Belgium weirdly has two more or less equal populations, Flemish and Walloons. But, you could also argue that creates a unique culture all by itself.

Having said that, Belgium has never actually been in the game.

 

[Blue whale]

As someone from the Netherlands who has been to Belgium a number of times, take it from me that there are certainly people who, by their very appearance (ethnicity), are recognizable as Belgian with 100% confidence.

I'd also be hesitant to say that Flemish culture is indistinguishable from Dutch culture, although of course Belgium weirdly has two more or less equal populations, Flemish and Walloons. But, you could also argue that creates a unique culture all by itself.

Having said that, Belgium has never actually been in the game.

But many people recommend it to be added sadly

 

[Krajzen]

Belgium simply has been an important country, however strange and "artificial" it is, with a dramatic and heroic story of ww1 (and ww2), a great role in European affairs, rich cultural heritage, and a lot of very important people coming from it. One can easily argue that Flanders could become "part of Netherlands" or Wallpnia "part of France" in alternate history, but they didn't and they got their own unique identities as a result, binded together by the strange entity they share, which has survived almost 200 years.

Alternately you can of course add separate "Walonia" or "Flanders" civs (medieval based or whatever), but they aren't modern Belgium which is an entity transcending them and being important for the past two centuries of history.

I think that's simply interesting country and worthy of inclusion as much as colonial multicultural entities which we already got (hell Gran Colombia survived barely like a decade), or artificial multi-language multi-cultural assemblages such as "Maya", "Gauls", "Scythians", "Arabia" etc. Belgium has been a united political entity and identity more than some of those, especially "Scythians".

I also don't like the idea of outsiders telling Belgians "we don't want you in game because your country is fake according to our abstract criteria". It's them to enter this conversation and say whether they want Flanders/Wallonia or Belgium, and I have seen Belgians advocating for Belgium before, and you can't beat identity with "logical" criteria.

 

[Kjimmet]

Belgium simply has been an important country, however strange and "artificial" it is, with a dramatic and heroic story of ww1 (and ww2), a great role in European affairs, rich cultural heritage, and a lot of very important people coming from it. One can easily argue that Flanders could become "part of Netherlands" or Wallpnia "part of France" in alternate history, but they didn't and they got their own unique identities as a result, binded together by the strange entity they share, which has survived almost 200 years.

Alternately you can of course add separate "Walonia" or "Flanders" civs (medieval based or whatever), but they aren't modern Belgium which is an entity transcending them and being important for the past two centuries of history.

I think that's simply interesting country and worthy of inclusion as much as colonial multicultural entities which we already got (hell Gran Colombia survived barely like a decade), or artificial multi-language multi-cultural assemblages such as "Maya", "Gauls", "Scythians", "Arabia" etc. Belgium has been a united political entity and identity more than some of those, especially "Scythians".

I also don't like the idea of outsiders telling Belgians "we don't want you in game because your country is fake according to our abstract criteria". It's them to enter this conversation and say whether they want Flanders/Wallonia or Belgium, and I have seen Belgians advocating for Belgium before, and you can't beat identity with "logical" criteria.

And if Belgium does find its way to civ, they could be represented easily with Walonian leader AND a separate Flanders leader.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Belgium simply has been an important country, however strange and "artificial" it is, with a dramatic and heroic story of ww1 (and ww2), a great role in European affairs, rich cultural heritage, and a lot of very important people coming from it. One can easily argue that Flanders could become "part of Netherlands" or Wallpnia "part of France" in alternate history, but they didn't and they got their own unique identities as a result, binded together by the strange entity they share, which has survived almost 200 years.

Alternately you can of course add separate "Walonia" or "Flanders" civs (medieval based or whatever), but they aren't modern Belgium which is an entity transcending them and being important for the past two centuries of history.

I think that's simply interesting country and worthy of inclusion as much as colonial multicultural entities which we already got (hell Gran Colombia survived barely like a decade), or artificial multi-language multi-cultural assemblages such as "Maya", "Gauls", "Scythians", "Arabia" etc. Belgium has been a united political entity and identity more than some of those, especially "Scythians".

I also don't like the idea of outsiders telling Belgians "we don't want you in game because your country is fake according to our abstract criteria". It's them to enter this conversation and say whether they want Flanders/Wallonia or Belgium, and I have seen Belgians advocating for Belgium before, and you can't beat identity with "logical" criteria.

I will say that modern Belgium's list of leaders is relatively small. I doubt anyone will want to go for Leopold II due to his overseas affairs, and all the ones after him are from the 20th century, so I'm sure that's taken into consideration.
I wouldn't say that I would hate if Belgium got in, but when we look at the list of potential civilizations, Belgium is relatively down the list on my priorities compared to the many other European nations that we would get. That being said, a Belgian city is a perfect example to become a city-state, as it has the past two iterations.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

I don't want cartoony graphics and wonders taking an entire hex, because they simply take too much space later on.

I'm open for any other thing.

 

[fluffy465]

I don't think I'd personally have much issue with wonders taking a hex if it weren't for the fact that most of them have absurd placement requirements. The wonder section of the build screen usually ends up consisting of:

• ~5-20 wonders that you can't build because of some wacky requirement like "must be built adjacent to cattle and a commercial hub with a market"
• ~1-2 wonders that could be good but can only be placed on some valuable tile
• ~1-2 wonders that aren't good but can actually be built somewhere you'd want to

(the wonders that don't fit into the above have been built or are being built, of course)

So many wonders just go unclaimed by the end of the game because it seems like every one of them is stuck with some requirement like this. "Is sacrificing this tile for this buff worth it?" could potentially be an interesting decision, but I'm not making that decision when it's so restrictive that I can't even build it (or the answer is obviously no). And while I could look upon the virgin lands on turn 12 and decide a place that would be good for broadway, I don't want to learn the encyclopedic knowledge required or to use time searching to remember that it requires a flat tile. Some requirements make full sense to me (petra requiring desert for example, believe this was in 5 too), some I personally find annoying but I acknowledge is personal preference (adjacent to [district] usually), but some I just ask why? Why does Országház require a river, but not a city center like the Forbidden City? Why does the Statue of Zeus require flat land? Why do the Colosseum and Broadway require flat land too? etc. It feels like their goal wasn't for the requirement to make building it more engaging, but rather for it to more closely match it's placement in real life.

 

[canadamufc]

The only reason we got Australia and Canada was because it tapped into markets and Firaxis knew they could make money off it. I can't lie, seeing Canada in Civ VI did motivate me to buy the game and move on from Civ V.

A lot of the reasons civs are put into the game are for commercial reasons, it's the same reason we got 5 leaders of China. They want to milk their potential markets.

 

[kaspergm]

I don't think I'd personally have much issue with wonders taking a hex if it weren't for the fact that most of them have absurd placement requirements. The wonder section of the build screen usually ends up consisting of:

• ~5-20 wonders that you can't build because of some wacky requirement like "must be built adjacent to cattle and a commercial hub with a market"
• ~1-2 wonders that could be good but can only be placed on some valuable tile
• ~1-2 wonders that aren't good but can actually be built somewhere you'd want to

(the wonders that don't fit into the above have been built or are being built, of course)

So many wonders just go unclaimed by the end of the game because it seems like every one of them is stuck with some requirement like this. "Is sacrificing this tile for this buff worth it?" could potentially be an interesting decision, but I'm not making that decision when it's so restrictive that I can't even build it (or the answer is obviously no). And while I could look upon the virgin lands on turn 12 and decide a place that would be good for broadway, I don't want to learn the encyclopedic knowledge required or to use time searching to remember that it requires a flat tile. Some requirements make full sense to me (petra requiring desert for example, believe this was in 5 too), some I personally find annoying but I acknowledge is personal preference (adjacent to [district] usually), but some I just ask why? Why does Országház require a river, but not a city center like the Forbidden City? Why does the Statue of Zeus require flat land? Why do the Colosseum and Broadway require flat land too? etc. It feels like their goal wasn't for the requirement to make building it more engaging, but rather for it to more closely match it's placement in real life.

Very much support for this from me. And to add one of my HUGE gripes with Civ6 wonder system: Wonders need an obsolete-for-production date, my suggestion would be two eras after they become available. The number of times I’ve build wonders like Colloseum or Great Lighthouse in the Industrial era is just silly, and getting full effect from them at that point is even worse.

One of my major hopes for Civ7 is that the area size of a city is reworked so that a city has influence over a much larger area that in Civ6, so that there will be room for an urban area clustered AROUND the city centre, with districts and neighbourhoods, and a rural area in the perimeters with farms and mines providing resources for the city. This would also make wonder placement less of a nightmare.

 

[Prester John 2]

The problem of civ games for VI was that you basically built all the useful wonders in your highest production city which is both historically silly and boring. I like that they come with preconditions. I support their becoming obsolete after two eras.

 

[Naokaukodem]

The problem of civ games for VI was that you basically built all the useful wonders in your highest production city which is both historically silly and boring.

What about being able to merge production from different regions to build wonders anywhere they can be built ?