What do we want in Civ 6?

[duckstab]

Or you could just pick up a Total War game since the strategic elements of these and Civ already converge (and the trend in recent entries in both series is towards mechanical simplification, forcing strategic decisions at the expense of larger numbers of options, and reducing micromanagement), and this would just do the same to the tactical ones.

Well, I wouldn't do this for the simple reason that TW has real-time tactical combat. I don't play real-time games, period.

It's more balanced in principle than in practice (in Civ 4 it was noted that certain trait combinations are stronger than others, as well as certain traits - Spiritual civs would generally be at a disadvantage because one of their traits wasn't generally useful). But more than that it's just desperately characterless - I'd take the generally minor imbalances in Civ V over Civ IV's system, and it's not obviously more unbalanced in practice. Either way the system gets tested and extremes ironed out.

...

Surely again this results in civs becoming generic and hence less "Civilization" than "empire builder", if any civ could potentially develop the same trait.

I would rather most of the "character" came from decisions I make rather than being hardwired in to the civ I was playing. I like Civ5's social policies and approach to religion better than Civ4's, at least in principle, for this reason.

 

[thadian]

* Keep 1UpT/Hexes and improve AI tactics.
* More diplomacy options.
* Mulitcore support^^
* more resources and building improving them

Buildings that work resources. Example:

Build a mine on copper. Build a Blacksmith. The copper node has +4 Copper, and the blacksmith can change +2 Copper, Iron, or Steel into "fine weapons, high quality weapons, masterwork weapons".

When i create a unit, i "expend" my fine weapon for my warrior, giving it the promotion "Fine Weapons", and when this warrior dies, i get my "Fine Weapons" back to use again.

The term Weapons is loose and could represent guns or swords across the board, up to the players imagination.


Also, i would have Armorer who could turn +2 copper, iron, steel into "Fine Armor, High Quality Armor, Masterwork Armor".

Any unit may "Equip" One Weapon and One Armor.

And for god sake, a code to prevent the AI from gifting a unit with equipment to city states!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Buildings that work resources. Example:

Build a mine on copper. Build a Blacksmith. The copper node has +4 Copper, and the blacksmith can change +2 Copper, Iron, or Steel into "fine weapons, high quality weapons, masterwork weapons".

When i create a unit, i "expend" my fine weapon for my warrior, giving it the promotion "Fine Weapons", and when this warrior dies, i get my "Fine Weapons" back to use again.

The term Weapons is loose and could represent guns or swords across the board, up to the players imagination.


Also, i would have Armorer who could turn +2 copper, iron, steel into "Fine Armor, High Quality Armor, Masterwork Armor".

Any unit may "Equip" One Weapon and One Armor.

And for god sake, a code to prevent the AI from gifting a unit with equipment to city states!

I've said in another thread that I like the idea of a adding a value-added aspect to resources, but I think this idea is just too much micro, IMHO.

 

[thadian]

if all you had to do was make a building to convert the resource and equip were a button click that granted a promotion, where is there extra micro? maybe keeping track of your better units but that is already the case...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I guess it really isn't, but I'm also basing my comments on another thread where we went kind of in depth into value-added. I said there that the system would have to be set up so that there would have to be serious trade offs to making buildings to add value to resources. Otherwise, there would be no one using the base resources.

Add whatever system that entails to having to equip units and it starts to get hairy. Agreed though, building a building and clicking a unit to equip something isn't that micro-ish by itself. But to do so it would entail adding a whole layer of complexity to the resource system to make it balanced.

 

[PhilBowles]

Well, I wouldn't do this for the simple reason that TW has real-time tactical combat. I don't play real-time games, period.

Total War's a hybrid system that it calls "pausable real-time" (closest analogue I'm aware of might be X-COM Apocalypse, in which the original turn-based combat is replaced by a real-time system that you can pause at any time when you issue orders - although the X-COM strategic view is real-time so that's a no-no anyway...) It's not like an RTS vs the AI, where you can pause the game but can't issue orders or take any other actions while the game's paused. Though I prefer to play TW in real-time combat-wise - the AI doesn't provide much of a challenge as it is, unless you're heavily outnumbered and/or caught without the right counters, and it's practice of sorts for RTS games (which I'm lousy at partly due to slow reactions - although "real-time" in TW is much slower-paced action than in most RTSes).

I would rather most of the "character" came from decisions I make rather than being hardwired in to the civ I was playing. I like Civ5's social policies and approach to religion better than Civ4's, at least in principle, for this reason.

There's a difference between game character and roleplaying character. Many people here are complaining that Civ V lacks roleplaying immersion (often coupled with criticism of the 'board game' aspect, although I find the assumption that board games are non-immersive baffling to say the least); conversely I find it much more immersive in its actual gameplay than other recent entries in the series. Civilization is not by its nature a blank slate to be developed as the generic empire builder of your choice - for me, as I've said, that entirely misses the point of playing Civilization rather than any of its numerous copycats. This sums up the point of Civ to me:

http://www.playthepast.org/?p=593

Add whatever system that entails to having to equip units and it starts to get hairy. Agreed though, building a building and clicking a unit to equip something isn't that micro-ish by itself. But to do so it would entail adding a whole layer of complexity to the resource system to make it balanced.

Wouldn't it be altogether simpler just to have buildings that unlock certain units (as is the case in, e.g., Total War - the recent games in which they've also introduced strategic resources, so that higher-level units can only be produced with the appropriate resource or from a building which requires that resource to build)? So, you'd have the same iron requirement for swordsmen etc. that you have now, but with the additional restriction that a city can only produce Swordsmen or Longswordsmen if it has a Forge (which would also work the way it does now - i.e. you need a city with workable iron to build a forge, but it doesn't use any itself).

So the only change to the existing mechanics would be that a Forge is necessary to build Swordsmen.

 

[rezaf]

I really wonder why you guys are playing (or want to play) Civ in the first place.

The fine weapons and fine armor ideas are implemented just like that in Warlock (the recent MoM light which looks like a Civ5 mod at first glance). But that's a totally different type of game.
All the Civ5 changes in this area, 1UPT, the hexes, the resulting importance of individual units' placing, this all doesn't quite match up with the idea that a single army occupies an area the size of a smaller real-world country. The entire babysitting your archer or spearman or catapult and giving him a little bonus skill to attack certain targets or defend in a certain type of terrain, this is all ... odd, in the context of the game.

I understand the fascination with and I am also fond with those mechanics, I just don't think they're such a good fit for the Civ series.

I really feel Firaxis should try to make another leap forward and try to address some things that weren't realized so well in either game of the series yet.

Allow the game to simulate countries like Portugal or the Netherlands, miniature one city "minor" powers suddenly founding global empires.
Talking of empires, there were/are gargantuan "empires", like Rome, the Soviet Union, China, India - so allow them in the game. Find a way to prevent them from automatically becoming the best "players", never slipping from that position.
Allow them to be ultra-powerful ... for a time. Find a way to simulate the downfall of empires/nations. Without frustrating the player controlling them too much.
Possibly abstract-away manually founding cities - possibly abstract-away cities working tiles completely.
The list goes on and on, there's SO much in store for a game in which you control civilizations!
_____
rezaf

 

[lollibast]

I really wonder why you guys are playing (or want to play) Civ in the first place.

The fine weapons and fine armor ideas are implemented just like that in Warlock (the recent MoM light which looks like a Civ5 mod at first glance). But that's a totally different type of game.
All the Civ5 changes in this area, 1UPT, the hexes, the resulting importance of individual units' placing, this all doesn't quite match up with the idea that a single army occupies an area the size of a smaller real-world country. The entire babysitting your archer or spearman or catapult and giving him a little bonus skill to attack certain targets or defend in a certain type of terrain, this is all ... odd, in the context of the game.

I understand the fascination with and I am also fond with those mechanics, I just don't think they're such a good fit for the Civ series.

I really feel Firaxis should try to make another leap forward and try to address some things that weren't realized so well in either game of the series well.

Allow the game to simulate countries like Portugal or the Netherlands, miniature one city "minor" powers suddenly founding global empires.
Talking of empires, there were/are gargantuan "empires", like Rome, the Soviet Union, China, India - so allow them in the game. Find a way to prevent them from automatically becoming the best "players", never slipping from that position.
Allow them to be ultra-powerful ... for a time. Find a way to simulate the downfall of empires/nations. Without frustrating the player controlling them too much.
Possibly abstract-away manually founding cities - possibly abstract-away cities working tiles completely.
The list goes on and on, there's SO much in store for a game in which you control civilizations!
_____
rezaf

that

I think Civ should focus a lot more on the civilization aspect. First question should be, "what is a civilization" what are the steps from a 1000 headcount tribe in 4000BC to a modern 1,200,000,000 individuals China. Civ games so far always depicted a civ as a single body, growing, assimilating and thus wiping out other Civs. I think unification, nationalism and separatism are not covered well enough.

Imho civ5 took a step in the wrong direction. If you want Total War go play it, make Civ6 "Total War Civ" and lose the fanbase completely.

 

[duckstab]

that

I think Civ should focus a lot more on the civilization aspect. First question should be, "what is a civilization" what are the steps from a 1000 headcount tribe in 4000BC to a modern 1,200,000,000 individuals China. Civ games so far always depicted a civ as a single body, growing, assimilating and thus wiping out other Civs. I think unification, nationalism and separatism are not covered well enough.

Now that is a game I would play, if implemented well. Maybe you start in a world that's already crowded with tribes, and you have to assimilate the nearby ones either peacefully or forcibly to grow your civilization. At least some of those tribes might be doing the same, so you'll always have to deal with nearby rivals.

Civil wars could be an interesting mechanic but it'd have to be done in a way that didn't = ragequit.

Imho civ5 took a step in the wrong direction. If you want Total War go play it, make Civ6 "Total War Civ" and lose the fanbase completely.

Yes, and while I've allowed myself to indulge in some speculation over what Civ6 could be as a tactical game, I really think that overall direction needs to be revisited. Civ5 is kind of an uneasy compromise, being neither a challenging military simulation nor an empire builder on the level of Civ4. Not the best of both worlds by a long shot.

 

[Svip]

So basically, you guys want a game with the same scope as Civilization, but the same level of detail as Europa Universalis: Rome, Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 3, Victoria 2 and Hearts of Iron 3? That's fine, but we are already working on that idea, and it's not easy.

 

[lollibast]

So basically, you guys want a game with the same scope as Civilization, but the same level of detail as Europa Universalis: Rome, Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 3, Victoria 2 and Hearts of Iron 3? That's fine, but we are already working on that idea, and it's not easy.

nope, those are all neither tbs nor 4X games

 

[Svip]

nope, those are all neither tbs nor 4X games

They may not be turn based (or whatever 'tbs' means), but I don't believe they fall under the 4X categories. Especially in the 'expand' and 'exploit' departments.

But neither does it matter, because if you want something turned based that does things with the same level of detail (if not more), then try Pride of Nations.

 

[lollibast]

They may not be turn based (or whatever 'tbs' means), but I don't believe they fall under the 4X categories. Especially in the 'expand' and 'exploit' departments.

But neither does it matter, because if you want something turned based that does things with the same level of detail (if not more), then try Pride of Nations.

no explore in those games, and I'm not talking about level of detail. just a different approach, back to the roots and some evolution.
those other games are similar, as are all strategy games and I like most of them (except Pity of Nations), but still distincly different.
and being from paradox interactice they are very detailed and remarkably accurate regarding history, but then, you can make a game as detailed as you wish but I don't think that suits Civ (at least 2K/Firaxis).

you got the tbs right though

 

[Svip]

no explore in those games, and I'm not talking about level of detail. just a different approach, back to the roots and some evolution.
those other games are similar, as are all strategy games and I like most of them (except Pity of Nations), but still distincly different.
and being from paradox interactice they are very detailed and remarkably accurate regarding history, but then, you can make a game as detailed as you wish but I don't think that suits Civ (at least 2K/Firaxis).

you got the tbs right though

True, only Europa Universalis 3 contain exploring. The others don't because either their maps are limited to a region everyone involved knew at the time or because they are so modern, we can expect every country to have the world maps finished.

But my argument was obviously a place to look for inspiration. I am not talking about replacing the tile-based structure of the Civilization games with a province-drawn system instead. But perhaps it may be something to look into when you talk about the difference between strategy and tactics.

 

[rezaf]

The notion that more level of detail is wanted is your mistake. That's not the point - quite the contrary.

You're supposed to lead your civilization through the millennia, not upgrade a single Horseman unit to a Knight or solve the logistical problems when ordering your army to attack someone.
The SoD, for all it's worth, at least abstracted all those things away. It didn't do the best job one could imagine, mind you, but it resulted in having an army that moved as one entity, that part was desireable. Directing each individual unit to attack manually (in whichever order) was NOT desireable.
In Civ5 I (and the AI) have to tell each individual unit where to move, which flank to cover, when to fall back, which other unit to support ... that's all nice and sweet, but it does not belong into this kind of game.

Similar changes could benefit other parts of the game - telling your scientists to get to work on the Wheel was nice for the 1993 game, but there ought to be a better way to simulate scientific progress.

Telling a settler you built to settle a city right there alongside the river was an acceptable abstraction for 1993, but can't we find a better way to depict this today?

The list goes on and on.

You should be in the lead and making meaningful decisions directing your civilization as a whole, as opposed to mostly your armies or - even worse - individual units.

So it's not about more details presented to the player, it's about finding new ways to handle with stuff that was abstracted very rudimentary in all Civ games so far, because Civ1 had to run on pretty lousy computers and all subsequent games shunned away from straying too far off the beaten path.

Civ5 made more ambitious changes, but steered the series exactly in the opposite direction it should go (at least in my opinion).
_____
rezaf

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Now that is a game I would play, if implemented well. Maybe you start in a world that's already crowded with tribes, and you have to assimilate the nearby ones either peacefully or forcibly to grow your civilization. At least some of those tribes might be doing the same, so you'll always have to deal with nearby rivals.

I believe such a mechanic would only apply to a very small part of the early game and would stop being useful/realistic/fun after the bronze age, IMO.

Civil wars could be an interesting mechanic but it'd have to be done in a way that didn't = ragequit.

Agreed. Have you ever played call to power? There was a nicely implemmented civil war mechanic and even a mechanic for slave rebellions. It could be arbitrary, but that's par for the course with any video game. It was also fun

 

[civvver]

Fixes needed, in order of most important to least imo-

1. Fix the tech tree. There is so much dependence in Civ5, and the eras really prevent you from going down an entirely different branch. Unlike Civ4 where you could say beeline biology but let your military techs like steel and rifles suffer, this is nearly impossible to do in Civ5. I feel like I make zero tech choices when playing because all paths lead to the same place.

2. Bring back tech trades. I like research agreements and they should be kept as well, but part of the reason research feels so generic every game is also because you can't hoard a tech, and you can't leverage a tech into more techs.

3. Bring back sliders and commerce and trade. It seems asinine to me that research is based solely on the amount of citizens you have. It's not realistic at all. Research is a result of financial investment, everything should be commerce and redirected into research of wealth production.

4. Change global happiness. I like global happiness to an extent but it needs to be a blend of localized and global. Like if one city goes over 5 angry faces then neighboring cities get an angry face as well, and if three cities go over 5 angry then your whole empire gets an angry face or something like that. Unhappiness should have global effects and stall things, but not to the same extreme extent in Civ5. Also bring back entertainer specialists from Civ2.

5. Change 1UPT to something less restrictive. Encourage us to build big empires and armies, not limit us to a small strike force since a large one won't fit on the game board. I think I would add a stat to units called logistical requirements and only allow up to a certain amount per tile to sort of simulate organizing an army. Say you allow up to a 10 logistical score per tile. A bunch of spears require very little coordination/don't take up a lot of space so their score could be 2 and you could have 5 of them on a tile. A knight takes up a little more space so they get a 3. A tank needs a lot of mechanics to maintain it, store ammo, etc, so it gets a 4. Thus you can stack larger amounts of weaker units or not as many of more powerful units. Generals could also increase the limits of a tile and there could be a promotion line to decrease a units score or increase the limits of a tile.

6. Bring back civics. Actually policies are fine but they need to be living and breathing, able to switch them out because a nation's policies change over time. It's not supposed to be just another tech tree to fill out.


I know none of these are new features, but really I feel Civ5 needs fixes, not new features. And a larger tech tree, more units, etc. Those can be the new features for me! One new feature I would like to see is immigration/emigration. Tie it to happiness and wealth somehow so if your citizens are really mad your growth slows and your neighbor's grows. Or if you're extremely overpopulated and polluted your citizens start to leave and immigrate to other empires. So you could grow and empire by being very wealthy and attracting citizens, not just by having tons of food. Allow the purchase of food, sort of like how you can become friendly with maritime city states, but allow direct purchase of food per turn or allow you to set up trade routes of food between cities like in Civ2. In real life small farming towns provide all the food for busy metropolises and a lot of food is exported/imported globally. It would be nice to have something to simulate this. So you could build a small, very specialized empire and attract citizens and buy your food, like being Switzerland with high GDP per capita and quality of life but a realitively small country.

 

[W|M]

About #5, that should also be heavily linked to terrain - For example, deserts should give very small supply limits for everyone, but forests give very good supply limits for mêlée, archery, etc. units.

 

[bc1]

Perhaps the game could bring a little more focus on culture and citizen aspirations. After all, one of the major difficulties of running large civilizations are cultural assimilation (where religion has played a dominant role) and ever rising citizen aspirations (the bread & games syndrome).
Both could be used to counter runaway expansion and infinite city sprawl. Unhappy and/or improperly assimilated citizens could form break away rivals. Sprawling empires should be more vulnerable to this, but the mechanisms must be very easy to understand (both for the AI & player).
Also, I mean "culture" in the broadest sense: for example, warring civs develop a warlike culture (Mongols), more prone to tyrany and tribal feuding. Scientific civs develop at the expense of their defense skills (geeks). Commercial civs are vulnerable to greed/corruption and mercenary revolts (Carthage). Etc...
A good source of inspiration could also be Europa Universalis, which has neat concepts such as manpower pools and (IMHO) a nice diplomatic setup and AI.

 

[W|M]

A good source of inspiration could also be Europa Universalis, which has neat concepts such as manpower pools and (IMHO) a nice diplomatic setup and AI.

Civilization is not a Paradox game, and it should not be treated as such.