Using more of the dead space in the map

megabearsfan

Prince
Joined
Jan 17, 2006
Messages
552
Location
Las Vegas, NV
I really like how much more relevant the map is in Civ VI, and how much more it defines the style of play and the final shape of a civilization in a given playthrough. However, I do think that there's still a lot of "dead space" on the map that isn't really useful for much.

The Civ games have always treated oceans less like an actual part of the map and more like just dead space between continents - a simple obstacle that must be overcome before seeing the other continent. There's never really been much (if anything) to do in the oceans except for the occasional naval engagements. Civ V Brave New World's trade routes made the oceans a bit more lively by forcing you to have to protect your cargo ships, but having to move your frigates or battleships one tile at a time to protect an ocean-going cargo ship was tedious and boring, and I rarely bothered doing it. Beyond Earth: Rising Tide took the usually bland oceans and made them into lush, lively places that you could actually explore and settle. Obviously, I don't expect Civ VI to have floating cities like in Beyond Earth, but I do wish the game would add more mechanics and options that are friendly towards coastal and island cities. I really do feel like Coastal and island cities in Civ VI are very weak, in part because water provides no production, and because having lots of water leaves little room for districts.

I've written a blog post with some ideas for improving water, mountains, and national parks:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2017/02/05/Civ-VI-wishlist-map.aspx
But I want to list out some of these ideas on the forums here too, so that players can discuss the ideas or add their own ideas.

So here's some ideas for improving water:
1.) Make coastal cities more productive. Have an early policy that grants either "+1 production in coastal cities, +1 production from harbors", and/or "+33% towards Harbor districts and buildings for that district" (Harbor equivalent of Veterancy).

2.) More water infrastructure:
a.) Boardwalk District = basically a water equivalent of an Entertainment district and Theater district. +1/2 Culture per adjacent water tile, +1/2 culture per adjacent district. Buildings could include:​
  • Wharf | Pier = +1 Production, +1 Gold. Maybe grants +1 Appeal to adjacent land tiles?
  • Marina = +1 Amenity, +1 Culture. Maybe grants +1 Appeal to adjacent land tiles?
  • Aquarium = (exclusive with the Maritime Museum) +2 Science, +1 Amenity. Amenity extends to all cities within 6 tiles.
  • Maritime Museum = (exclusive with the Aquarium) +2 Culture, +1 citizen slot, +1 Writer point, +2 Artist point. Holds shipwreck artifacts and gets theme bonuses from them.
b.) Canal District = must be adjacent to city center and to an ocean. Allows naval units to cross.​

3.) Water improvements:
a.) Fishery = A water farm. +1 food, +1 extra food when built adjacent to 2 other Fisheries.
b.) Seawall = must be built adjacent to land. Provides +1 culture on the tile and increases the appeal of adjacent land tiles. A late-game tech or civic could probably buff this improvement with tourism and/or gold
c.) Wind Farm = must be built on water. Provides production.​

4.) More resources and features in water:
  • Reef (feature) = 3 food, 1 science. Possibly counts as "rough terrain", slowing naval units and possibly providing combat penalties.
  • Shoal / Sandbar (feature) = 2 food, 1 production. Possibly counts as "rough terrain", slowing naval units and providing combat penalties.
  • Kelp (resource) = +1 culture, +1 food with fishing boat. Appears in shallow water.
  • Silica (resource) = +1 production, +1 production if mined. Appears on coastal land tiles and on shoal/sandbar water tiles.
Here's some ideas for mountains:
1.) Have buildings and wonders that can be built on mountains. Examples:
  • Observatory (building / district) = requires Astronomy technology. Can be built on a mountain adjacent to a Campus district.
    Provides +2 Science, +1 Culture to the city, and has one citizen slot.
  • Ski Resort (building / district) = requires Natural History civic. Can be built on a mountain adjacent to an Entertainment Complex.
    Provides+1 Culture, +1 Tourism, and +1 Amenity to the city. Amenity extends 6 tiles. If the mountain is also on Tundra or Snow, then it also provides +1 Appeal to adjacent land tiles.
  • Machu Picchu (wonder) = Not sure what it would do, so open to ideas...
  • Neuschwanstein (wonder) = Again, not quite sure what it would do, so open to ideas...
2.) Allow builders / military engineers to construct tunnels through mountains that make them passable. This ability could be unlocked in the Industrial era, either by Ballistics or Steam Power, or maybe by adding a new "Dynamite" tech somewhere on the path between Ballistics and Combustion, or by the Civil Engineering civic.

Lastly, I also think the game should loosen some of the restrictions for National Parks. Since national parks are typically in remote areas, it doesn't really make sense that the game forces all of a national park's tiles to be inside the same city, especially since most of a national park's bonuses are regional anyway.


What does the community think of these ideas? Anyone have other proposals for improving some of these dead space areas of the map?

 
I am impressed with your effort and persistence.

As and England player I am 100% happy with coastal cities and their buildings. Sure some variety I am open to and you have some nice ideas.

I like idea of tinnels through mountains and under short stretches of water

I liked underwayer cities, no-one else seems to... I guess they are a but unrealistic.

Sadly I like the vast empty ocean, go sailing in it and you'll see its probably the most realistic thing in the game. Maybe you could introduce tuna fishing, long lining, crab/prawn trawling and once plastics has been invented a massive lump of plastic bebris in the ocean
 
Military engineers should build canals and tunnels as well.

Better yet, increase the number of charges to four, but some actions use more charges than others. Roads would use one charge. Forts, airstrips, and missile silos would use two charges. Canals and tunnels would use four charges.

This way, military engineers would be more common.
 
Yeah, thinking back, I miss the atolls that we had in earlier versions. I'd suggest some simple changes:
-Fishing boats should be able to be build on every coastal tile, and essentially would have a similar upgrade path to farms. So all the bonuses that you have now to fishing boats should basically be added to the harbour district buildings instead (so the lighthouse would give +1 gold per fish tile after a certain tech, for example), and instead, fishing boats would give the +1 food early, then after a certain time add another +1 food per 2 adjacent fishing boats, etc... This would add an extra bonus in that if you have a "bay" area with a lot of adjacent coast, that would become a big food haven, whereas if you have a simple coastline, they don't have a lot of adjacent bonuses.
-Agreed on national parks not being limited to a single city. I'd also suggest they shouldn't be limited to just 4 tiles in a diamond shape. Maybe instead, national parks should essentially grow tile by tile, with an increasing bonus for the size of the park. So a Naturalist would have 4 charges. And then when calculating the tourism that you get from a national park, it would be a function of the total number of tiles in a park. So maybe a 2-tile park is 3X more valuable than a 1-tile park, a 3-tile park maybe 5X more valuable than a 1 tile one, a 4 tile park 8X more valuable,etc.. Maybe you could add a caveat that a mountain has to be adjacent to a non-mountain national park to be able to add it to being a park, although if you added the ski resort improvement as above, then you would at least have a competing force. And you could also let the above reefs/sandbars be able to be added to a national park as well.
-Also agreed that mountains should be more passable late game. I mean, it's not like the Rockies completely separate the west coast, but they did separate them in the old times. Although probably makes sense to make that based on a technology instead - so once you reach dynamite, for example, mountains become passable.
 
I've posted the idea of coral being a coastal terrain feature that, when worked, provides food and science (and possibly culture later with the right techs/civics), so naturally I'm all in on that suggestion. I also like the idea of an entertainment-based coastal district. As to the rest, I personally would rather see existing coastal tiles/resources boosted than improvements added since I prefer a less cluttered map, but I do like your ideas nonetheless.
 
Shipwrecks in the deep ocean could provide a science boost as well. For example, the wreck of the Titanic contained numerous species never discovered before.

Even national parks could be established around shipwrecks (if close enough to a city).
 
Yeah, thinking back, I miss the atolls that we had in earlier versions. I'd suggest some simple changes:

-Agreed on national parks not being limited to a single city. I'd also suggest they shouldn't be limited to just 4 tiles in a diamond shape. Maybe instead, national parks should essentially grow tile by tile, with an increasing bonus for the size of the park. So a Naturalist would have 4 charges. And then when calculating the tourism that you get from a national park, it would be a function of the total number of tiles in a park. So maybe a 2-tile park is 3X more valuable than a 1-tile park, a 3-tile park maybe 5X more valuable than a 1 tile one, a 4 tile park 8X more valuable,etc.. Maybe you could add a caveat that a mountain has to be adjacent to a non-mountain national park to be able to add it to being a park, although if you added the ski resort improvement as above, then you would at least have a competing force. And you could also let the above reefs/sandbars be able to be added to a national park as well.

In the linked blog post, I had suggested that Naturalists could have charges just like builders and military engineers, and that national parks could be constructed 1 tile at a time. Maybe part of Roosevelt's ability could be that Naturalists get 1 extra charge? One issue with that is that Naturalists would probably also have to be able to traverse impassible terrain (such as mountains) in order to build a national park on such a tile. I personally don't have a problem with that though.

Shipwrecks in the deep ocean could provide a science boost as well. For example, the wreck of the Titanic contained numerous species never discovered before.

Even national parks could be established around shipwrecks (if close enough to a city).

I've tinkered with ideas about having more to do in the deep ocean as well. I've proposed that once you research Sonar (or otherwise unlock submarines), you could have the ability to map the ocean floor. So you'd send ships out to map parts of the ocean floor, which would grant lump sums of science, possible artifacts, and maybe even reveal underwater wonders like Mariana Trench. The idea isn't very well fleshed-out though.
 
Last edited:
I absolutely love the idea of creating national parks tile by tile... I mean, how many natural parks are in a diamond formation? Not to mention how many are next to one city and far away from every other one?

Also, we should be able to give our national parks names.

EDIT: Thinking about national parks... If I'm not mistaken, the oldest national park in the world is Yellowstone. Why is Yellowstone not a natural wonder? I mean, the place is absolutely a-ma-zing.
 
I absolutely love the idea of creating national parks tile by tile... I mean, how many natural parks are in a diamond formation? Not to mention how many are next to one city and far away from every other one?

Also, we should be able to give our national parks names.

EDIT: Thinking about national parks... If I'm not mistaken, the oldest national park in the world is Yellowstone. Why is Yellowstone not a natural wonder? I mean, the place is absolutely a-ma-zing.

Old Faithful was a natural wonder in civ 5. I'm guessing they just wanted to change things up. There's a ton of amazing places in the world that could be natural wonders.
 
Something I was disappointed in was that the oceans tended to be completely empty. If they aren't full of islands ready to colonize, then there's little point of exploring. Maybe it was the map type, but I would like something more interesting to do on the oceans.
 
Old Faithful was a natural wonder in civ 5. I'm guessing they just wanted to change things up. There's a ton of amazing places in the world that could be natural wonders.

Yellowstone though... That place is without doubt #1 on my bucket list. Did you know what more than half of ALL the natural geysers in the world is located in that park?

Also, they could make an achievement "Create a national park of Yellowstone, which is also the first national park of the game" to refer to it being the first national park ever.
 
I am 100% with the OP. I would absolutely love to see water and mountain features and improvements like he listed. I wonder how many of these could be accomplished via a mod?
 
I am 100% with the OP. I would absolutely love to see water and mountain features and improvements like he listed. I wonder how many of these could be accomplished via a mod?

I believe workable mountains already exists as a mod, not sure if features on water are a thing yet, but to be fair I doubt that's impossible even without any modding tools.
 
I really like the idea of reefs and shoals adding terrain features to water tiles. It'd be a nice way to add some variety and maybe specialize the ships more. I actually like most of the ideas in the op and I usually am a little conservative when it comes to big game changes. Adding a lot of water improvements could spur people to building more naval defense.
 
Top Bottom