I'd like to see trade handled more like Endless Space 2, but that would probably require Luxuries to work more like Strategic resources, generating stockpiles. This would logically require Luxuries to work rather differently than what they do now. (In Endless Space 2 they're used to upgrade your empire with specific effects, but I don't see that as the ideal solution for civ unless their use is broader than their ES2 use.)
This opens up another Big Bag of Suggestions. I've felt for some time that the entire Resource system in Civ needs to be thoroughly masticated.
For instance:
1. The hard division of Resources into Bonus, Strategic, and 'Luxury/Amenity' is utterly arbitrary and restrictive. As a result, right now Strategic Resources like Horses become Non-Resources in the late game, while Resources with multiple uses, like Copper, Maize, or Coal are restricted to a single use, which NEVER CHANGES throughout the game.
2. Natural Resources cannot be spread. You an only plant Rice, Wheat, or Maize where they first evolved: it is impossible to plant any of them anywhere else. WTH? ALL 'deposits' of any mineral resource all appear at the same time: "And God said, 'Let there be Aluminum, and It was so!".
3. There is almost no requirement for any type of resource to build anything except Units (Stonehenge the stone-requiring Wonder is the only exception I can think off off the top o' my head). I guess that means I can build the Temple of Artemis out of Cheese if I want, and all ships before Ironclads don't actually require any wood: Frigates, presumably, can be built out of bundled reeds or Bricks.
I would like to see a system of 'dynamic' Resources: they don't appear all at once (unless, of course, they are obvious on the map, like Ivory/Elephants) and you can Prospect for new deposits of mineral resources (Gold and Silver Rushes or Oil Wildcatters, anyone?) throughout the game, and 'plant' botanical resources in any tile that will grow them: waving fields of grain instead of the occasional 1-tile Patch. You can exhaust Resources: this should tie in with your Environmental cred - the last Elephant on the game map should mean something - and also with the need to find a replacement for a resource - through Tech or other means.
For an example of the kind of thing that is percolating through my "Ideas for the Perfect Historical 4X Game" braincells, the
Endless Legend game has no Food resources on the map: it is presumed that the worked tiles around the city are planting and harvesting whatever produces best on that tile. The only On-Map resources are Strategic that have to be stockpiled to produce better Units or weapons/armor/devices for those Units, and those change as you stumble through the Tech Bush (EL uses a different Tech advance system than Civ VI does)
So, in Historical 4X terms, if you have 'discovered' Rice, you plant it on every tile that Rice will (initially) grow on, namely marsh and floodplains (rice is an extremely Water-Intensive plant). Later, Tech (botanical science) advances will allow you to plant it elsewhere, and probably get a lot more Food yield out of each tile. Once you have started planting Rice, the resource does not appear on the map for you, but all applicable worked tiles in your Civ will have a Rice graphic, indicating where all that Food is coming from that is piling up in your Stockpiles - which initially would be By City, but after transportation improves (steamships, railroads) would be Empire-Wide.
And, of course, you should be able to Trade Rice - or Wheat, or Maize. Or Stone or Copper, because they should have uses besides an extra point or two from their tile.
And you can 'develop' new uses for Rice, or Wheat, or Maize, with technology. Distilled booze from each of them spring to mind, but Grain-supplemented feeding is also required to raise horses big enough to carry heavily-armored men, so you might be desperately trying to obtain Grain on the open market in order to mount your Knights or Cuirassiers.
Here's another thought (this one comes courtesy of the
Humankind videos showing Mammoths or Deer roaming the map): many 'resources' don't stay put. Elephants, Horses, Cattle, Fish, Whales are all to some extent Migratory. IF not confined by pens, pastures, nets, etc they will not stay in one Tile. And Elephants, just for an added 'spice' to the game, Modify the Biome as they pass through it: they kill trees by eating too much off them, turning forest into grassland, and then their dropping full of seeds 'plant' trees elsewhere, so that Elephant migration would/could be accompanied by a constant 'shift' in forest/grassland tiles.
So much more could be done with resources than the static, separate, rigid system Civ VI is stuck with now.
