Lord Lakely
Idea Fountain
Alright, I've made it to 3000 posts on this forum, finally. To celebrate this imaginary milestone, I've decided to finally publicize my own Civilization theorycraft, with its own ideas, designs and alterations.
When I first started this design, I was aiming to look for ways to improve Civilization 6's clunkiest and least fun mechanics. It snowballed into a series of spreadsheets full of new ideas, which I'm now hoping to share with them. I've dubbed my theorycraft 'Timeline' instead of going for something like 'Lord Lakely's Civilization 8' just to avoid confusion. This is a passion project that exists entirely as HTML space, not a fully fledged game.
Another thing I will stress is that I based my designs LARGELY on Civ6, not taking into account the drastic changes Civ7, or other Civ-likes such as Millennia or Ara: History Untold that were released AFTER I came up with my initial ideas. I started in the spring of 2018 with this. However, some ideas may look similar and I will give credit where it's due. I definitely did take inspiration from Master of Orion, SMAC, Beyond Earth, EU4, Stellaris and even non 4Xgames such as Anno and card games, so any resemblances there aren't coincidental.
I've refined MOST of the concepts already, and the ones that I haven't completed yet (Religion X__X Government X__X) well, we'll apply the age old method of Making It Up As We Go, shall we?
Civ 6 Issues that I wanted to address include (and aren't limited to):
And there's a lot more that I cannot be arsed to add right now because it's getting late and my brain doesn't work well on sleep deprivation!
The plan will be to alternate between designs for the 20 playable Civilizations, and fictionalized 'Dev Diaries' where I explain the core concepts of the game as I envision them. I reserve ALL RIGHTS to chance my mind and terminology as I see fit
Finally, to end: how about a bit of Civilization bingo? Have fun decrypting this Civ Roster as I plan to post my first Civilization design:
17 Men, 13 Women btw.
APOLOIMEN MEGA RHEXAS TI KAI ESSOMENOISI PUTHESTHAI~
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When I first started this design, I was aiming to look for ways to improve Civilization 6's clunkiest and least fun mechanics. It snowballed into a series of spreadsheets full of new ideas, which I'm now hoping to share with them. I've dubbed my theorycraft 'Timeline' instead of going for something like 'Lord Lakely's Civilization 8' just to avoid confusion. This is a passion project that exists entirely as HTML space, not a fully fledged game.
Another thing I will stress is that I based my designs LARGELY on Civ6, not taking into account the drastic changes Civ7, or other Civ-likes such as Millennia or Ara: History Untold that were released AFTER I came up with my initial ideas. I started in the spring of 2018 with this. However, some ideas may look similar and I will give credit where it's due. I definitely did take inspiration from Master of Orion, SMAC, Beyond Earth, EU4, Stellaris and even non 4Xgames such as Anno and card games, so any resemblances there aren't coincidental.
I've refined MOST of the concepts already, and the ones that I haven't completed yet (Religion X__X Government X__X) well, we'll apply the age old method of Making It Up As We Go, shall we?
Civ 6 Issues that I wanted to address include (and aren't limited to):
- DIPLOMACY AND AI PLAYER INTERACTION: This is notoriously hokey in Civilization 6 due to the emphasis on Agenda's. Opposing AIs will focus on one aspect when deciding whether they like the player or not, and sometimes will do things that utterly define logic. I build ONE boat on this pangaea map and suddenly Harald loves me because I'm the only person with a boat! The idea I had keeps Agenda's, but nuances them - they no longer influence the AI's disposition towards the player. Instead, each AI opponent rolls one out of nine predetermined personalities (Aggressive, Bold, Docile, Erratic, Honourable, Pacifistic, Philantropic, Ruthless and Xenophobic) which influence their goodwill. Every AI also rolls two from a roster of strategies (Builder, Diplomat, Ecologist, Expansionist, Guru, Patron, Scholar & Warlord) to determine what their focii are. Both personalities and strategies are semi-randomized for the AI. All players also accumulate Reputations such as 'Pacifist' or 'Backstabber' from their actions which affect how each AI personality responds to them. Agendas then come additively, developing each leader as having a specific flavour, regardless of what personality/strategy they've rolled.
- VICTORY CONDITIONS: Civ6's Victory conditions are fairly klunky, and not that easy to accomplish unless you plan for them way in advance. The Victory Conditions in Timeline have more nuance to them:
- Diplomatic Victory is a simple election with 2/3rd majority, that can be used to end the game prematurely if the player desires.
- Domination Victory can be won by either eliminating every player or by controlling a large percentage of all land tiles on the map.
- Culture Victory has two aspects: A religious one which you can win by controlling Holy Cities and letting Pilgrims flock to your cities, and a more conventional one where you attract Tourists using a new mechanic called Cultural Heritage
- Science Victory is a questline as it normally is, that involves fully researching three branches in the technology tree, and then completing a large shared project. There are three different questlines: Space Race to Alpha Centauri, Contact the Alien Progenitors and Establish an Independent Martian Colony. Which questline you get is determined by the destination of your first rocket/probe, which you can choose. All three questlines tap into different yields, allowing everyone to potentially compete.
- ONE UNIT PER TILE/STACK OF DOOM: Both have their downsides and make the game less fun in excess. So I've devised an idea to find middle ground - Timeline doesn't use Commanders like Civ7 does, instead it uses a system of Supply (think Europa Universalis), which determines how many individual units can be stacked on a certain tile. There is no hard cap, but there are rules - all units in a stack move at the speed of the slowest unit in the stack, unless you split them up. If a stack's supply rating exceeds the supply limit of the tile (affected by its terrain), all units in the stack lose their ability to heal and suffer attrition damage per turn. This change also greatly incentivizes units to pillage as pillaging heals bypass the restrictions, and players can pillage their own tiles in advance to prevent enemies from recovering health.
- WORKER MICROMANAGEMENT: No radical ELIMINATE BUILDERS/WORKERS mentality as in Civ7. In Timeline, there is something called a BluePrint Mode (think: Anno 1800), which allows players to plan their improvements well in advance. Workers (which work as they did in Civ5), can then be automated to execute the blueprints, either by targeting the nearest blueprints, or those that have a specific yield. Repairs are also automated this way. Worker times are also much shorter in Timeline than they were in Civ5 - the timer for building an improvement is 5 turns, which can be reduced through technology. (and one Civ even gets a flat -1 bonus for free.)
- Also, chopping overflow doesn't really exist like it does in Civ6. 'Chopping' can only reduce the ETA of your City's current production target to 1 turn, meaning you always get it on the next turn. Buying is the only way to instantly get things, and bought units cannot be immediately commanded.
- One of the Civs in the game has an exception to this, as they can 'chop' vegetation to instantly finish recruitment of a naval unit in the nearest City (once per turn).
- Also, chopping overflow doesn't really exist like it does in Civ6. 'Chopping' can only reduce the ETA of your City's current production target to 1 turn, meaning you always get it on the next turn. Buying is the only way to instantly get things, and bought units cannot be immediately commanded.
- CURBING CITY SPRAWL: Timeline doesn't have specialized Districts. Instead each District is generic, but can host a larger amount of buildings. Every building is worth a certain 'tier' of space. Smaller buildings such as Residences and early game buildings (Granaries, Libraries, etc), are tier 1, while endgame buildings such as Airports are Tier 3. Wonders and the Spaceport are the only Tier 4 buildings. Each District tile can hold up to 7 tiers worth of buildings. Players manually determine where every building is placed for determining adjacency bonuses. Later in the game, Tier 1 Buildings can also be stacked on top of each other vertically, creating skycrapers. increasing the amount of buildings to 14 per tile.
- YIELDS AS CURRENCY: Every yield can now be stockpiled and used as a currency. One of the Civs in the game earns interest on their stockpiles.
- FOOD and PRODUCTION can be stockpiled in Cities to rush the recruitment of units/construction of buildings later, or can be sent to other Cities connected to the same Trade Network to boost their output.
- COIN functions exactly as it does in Civilization, the go-to currency. It's called Coin here to avoid confusion with the Gold resource. Coin can be used to unlock anything but usually at a much higher price than the other yields.
- KNOWLEDGE (which is what Science is called) can be used to train Specialists, improving their effect. Technologies are also unlocked by spending a burst of Knowledge now (see TECHNOLOGY below)
- CULTURE is used to promote Cultural Heritage, increasing the Tourism output of Culture generating improvements, buildings and World Wonders. It can also be used to reform the Government.
- FAITH as before is used to reform the Religion, but can also be used in the endgame to reinforce the strength of the political ideology.
- PRESTIGE is a new resource, similar to Civ7's Influence, which can be used to enforce unfavourable diplomatic agreements and also functions as the primary currency to buy tiles with.
- TECHNOLOGY - Timeline uses the Master of Orion 2 system of eight different branches you can research: Biology, Doctrine, Engineering, Information, Philosophy, Sociology, Science and Statecraft. Cities do not get Techs by default. Every Technology is passively discovered in one of your cities according to your Knowledge/Turn output, and can then be Integrated across all Cities by spending a burst of Knowledge. Techs also offer a set number of unlocks, some of which are mutually exclusive with each other. Knowledge Overflow from Discoveries is set aside, accumulating points towards a EUREKA!, an event that instantly discovers the currently researched tech with all Rewards! One of the Civs in the game gets a bonus towards earning Eureka's by generating Knowledge via Trade, which is set aside by default.
- CULTURAL INFLUENCE, RELIGIOUS PRESSURE & CORE TILES: Cities exert Cultural and Religious pressure like they did in Civ4. Influence can extend well beyond the tiles a city can work, and plays into Timeline's Tourism mechanics. Passive religious pressure functions similarly. Cities have a specific Cultural Influence radius, and they passively influence all tiles within this radius based on the city's Culture output. The City's Prestige output meanwhile will passively Core the tiles within a city's Sphere of influence, locking them to that City (though you can manually transfer them between Cities for the cost of more Prestige). Civs can have cores on each other lands - however, the first Civ to core the tile will be the one to own it, irrespective of Cultural Pressure.
- FACTIONS: There are no unclipped leaders, and everyone plays the same Civilization through. However, Civilizations can now appear as 'Factions', which are Timeline's answer to the Leader Persona's in Civ6 and Civ7, except they apply to Civs, not leaders. Every 'Civilization' represents the general core values of a certain culture, which 'Factions' represent that Civilization at a certain point in History. 'England' and 'Great Britain' would both be considered Factions of the same British Civilization. Factions of the same Civ share some characteristics due to their shared origins, but are designed to play differently from one another. 'Factions' can be as specific as dynasties or movements, and as broad as the name of a country without further context. Leaders are tied to their Faction. However, Factions may have more than one possible leader. (one of the basegame Factions does). Timeline's roster contains 20 Civilizations total, with 29 Factions and 30 playable leaders at the start. Civilization packs are supposed to pad out the roster before the first gameplay Expansion, but that's FAR into the future.
- PLANNED MECHANICS: Mechanics I have skipped for the moment and plan to add in a gameplay Expansion: (1) Goverment, which would see players put together a cabinet of their own with Great People as their advisors and governors, rather than the passive modifier it currently has and (2) Economic Victory/Production Chains, an expansion of Civ6's Economic Victory (though not as complex as Ara). A third expansion pack would further elaborate and refine already existing mechanics such as Citizen Needs and Tourism.
And there's a lot more that I cannot be arsed to add right now because it's getting late and my brain doesn't work well on sleep deprivation!
The plan will be to alternate between designs for the 20 playable Civilizations, and fictionalized 'Dev Diaries' where I explain the core concepts of the game as I envision them. I reserve ALL RIGHTS to chance my mind and terminology as I see fit

Finally, to end: how about a bit of Civilization bingo? Have fun decrypting this Civ Roster as I plan to post my first Civilization design:
17 Men, 13 Women btw.
APOLOIMEN MEGA RHEXAS TI KAI ESSOMENOISI PUTHESTHAI~
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