[Vanilla] What I'd like to see in CIV VII

[poiuyt]

I've been at this since Civ 1. Hoping...

1. I want to be able to reply/threaten the other leaders. Do/don't do this or else..
2. I want traders that know enough not to dive in the sea when barbarians regularly patrol the seas, or run into waiting barbarians. In fact I want to tell the trader to chose land, sea, or air.
3. I want traders that speed up with tech advances instead of crawling at the same rate as in the Stone Age.
4. Balancing is out of control. Artificially imposed restrictions mar the game.
5. Remain true to history.
6. Stop picking on the human player. Don't let AI gang up.
7. Give good game. Not everyone is a masochist - entry level is good enough.
8. This game is too sensitive to initial conditions.
9. Strategic resources are too much of a control element.
10. Better, more complete documentation. So what does flanking bonus do?
11. Game rules should be organic. That includes the Byzantine complexity of some rules. Or see 10.
12. Some barbarian tribes should at some point become civilized, i.e., settle down, till the land, etc. In the mean time, they could be susceptible to religion. They could also put the builders they kidnap to work on their fields, etc.
13. Colonies established on resources were a good idea, which should be further developed.
14. When the human player turns off a victory type, don't let the AI pursue it.
15. The original idea of a game that's also a simulation of the planet is still attractive. Stay off dragons and zombies and stuff.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

1. I want to be able to reply/threaten the other leaders. Do/don't do this or else..

This. Very much this.

 

[treadwin]

I would really like to see combat revamped to be more meta, so that building an army and fighting was more strategic, using fewer counters, and focused on supply lines/army composition/military technology, along the lines of a HOI4, than lots of counters. First of all it takes a lot of micro-management to fight a war that can get really tedious, particularly against barbarian swarms, and secondly it requires an AI more complex than a chess game, making it impossible to do well. So every war is exactly the same. With the AI throwing a whole swarm of idiot troops at you, powered by cheats allowing it superiority of numbers, against your ability to play the mini-game.

As has been pointed out to me elsewhere, CIV6 isn't a wargame, so move it more towards being based on logistics, and technology, and Army composition and do away with the whole mini-checkers game that we have to play ad-infinitum, against a really dumb AI.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I would really like to see combat revamped to be more meta, so that building an army and fighting was more strategic, using fewer counters, and focused on supply lines/army composition/military technology, along the lines of a HOI4, than lots of counters. First of all it takes a lot of micro-management to fight a war that can get really tedious, particularly against barbarian swarms, and secondly it requires an AI more complex than a chess game, making it impossible to do well. So every war is exactly the same. With the AI throwing a whole swarm of idiot troops at you, powered by cheats allowing it superiority of numbers, against your ability to play the mini-game.

As has been pointed out to me elsewhere, CIV6 isn't a wargame, so move it more towards being based on logistics, and technology, and Army composition and do away with the whole mini-checkers game that we have to play ad-infinitum, against a really dumb AI.

I like the chesslike aspect of warfare; I think it's only the AI that needs to be improved.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I like the chesslike aspect of warfare; I think it's only the AI that needs to be improved.

Am I the only one who considers all those units that need to be moved one by one (if they can even move) incredibly tedious?

I have the feeling the civ community has grown too ideological with those hard coded limited units per tile restrictions. Thinking a bit more outside the box, there are smarter ways to make stacking ineffective in combat without making movement so tedious for humans and impossible to program properly for the AI.

 

[pineappledan]

It’s entirely possible to do multi-unit selection. In fact, I use a mod in civ 5 that lets you select and move several units at once. It’s especially good for naval movement.

 

[poiuyt]

I've been at this since Civ 1. Hoping...

1. I want to be able to reply/threaten the other leaders. Do/don't do this or else..
2. I want traders that know enough not to dive in the sea when barbarians regularly patrol the seas, or run into waiting barbarians. In fact I want to tell the trader to chose land, sea, or air.
3. I want traders that speed up with tech advances instead of crawling at the same rate as in the Stone Age.
4. Balancing is out of control. Artificially imposed restrictions mar the game.
5. Remain true to history.
6. Stop picking on the human player. Don't let AI gang up.
7. Give good game. Not everyone is a masochist - entry level is good enough.
8. This game is too sensitive to initial conditions.
9. Strategic resources are too much of a control element.
10. Better, more complete documentation. So what does flanking bonus do?
11. Game rules should be organic. That includes the Byzantine complexity of some rules. Or see 10.
12. Some barbarian tribes should at some point become civilized, i.e., settle down, till the land, etc. In the mean time, they could be susceptible to religion. They could also put the builders they kidnap to work on their fields, etc.
13. Colonies established on resources were a good idea, which should be further developed.
14. When the human player turns off a victory type, don't let the AI pursue it.
15. The original idea of a game that's also a simulation of the planet is still attractive. Stay off dragons and zombies and stuff.

I forgot to add 16. food may be sent to a starving city by traders -- perhaps a food caravan (with a lot of food) could be implemented or something similar. There is no reason for a city to be forced remain stagnant just to balance the game. Imbalance is what makes for action. Let the game find it's own balance.

 

[luca 83]

Great question! Instead of proposing leaders, game mechanics and ai should be improved. I think the possibility of annexing and creating states without war, greater internal politics, no leader, dynasties, presidents, kings, deaths, births, the possibility of revolutions, and internal economic, political dynamics, change of game mechanics in the various ages: war and politics are different in the 1200s and in the 1800s adding mechanics, such as inventions naturally improved to the more aware stock markets, and actions and possible market crises

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Great question! Instead of proposing leaders, game mechanics and ai should be improved. I think the possibility of annexing and creating states without war, greater internal politics, no leader, dynasties, presidents, kings, deaths, births, the possibility of revolutions, and internal economic, political dynamics, change of game mechanics in the various ages: war and politics are different in the 1200s and in the 1800s adding mechanics, such as inventions naturally improved to the more aware stock markets, and actions and possible market crises

Your enthusiasm is commendable, but most of what you have suggested is never going to happen in the Civilization series. Fine idea for another turn-based strategy game, though.

 

[luca 83]

Your enthusiasm is commendable, but most of what you have suggested is never going to happen in the Civilization series. Fine idea for another turn-based strategy game, though.

Why? I remind you that the game dynamics are from 1991 never changed for more than 30 years the change in game dynamics would be necessary the technology has changed and also the ai. Your conservarorism is not good for development. We need new ideas!

 

[Marla_Singer]

Your enthusiasm is commendable, but most of what you have suggested is never going to happen in the Civilization series. Fine idea for another turn-based strategy game, though.

Outside the changing leader idea (implemented in Old World but with the game scope only limited to 2 centuries), all other ideas mentioned by @luca 83 have been implemented in a way or another in some of the 6 iterations of the game. The question is not there, it's rather how could they make the gaming experience more interesting. And that really depends on how they are implemented.

Many of Luca's ideas seems to be about making the game less linear. If properly implemented, they could be solutions to prevent the late game boredom which is regularly mentioned as preventing to stay hooked untill the space race. The thing is that 4X games relies into 2 core principles:

• The game fun relies on "interesting decisions" and projection in the future generating the "one more turn" motivation.
• The player always wants to go up, never go down. Empire-building is about expanding, so there's a strong resistance to downturns.

The problem is that they are inherently contradictory, as always going up leads to a strong inertia, generating linearity and predictability. Therefore the more you grow, the more the final outcome is known, the less your decisions are impactful and as such interesting. That was all known and already identified by Sid Meier at the time he developped Civ1. That is a problem the 4X genre has been struggling with for decades, yet I don't believe it is completely unsolvable as other games (even past Civ iterations) better managed that aspect than Civ 6. So clearly we can hope Firaxis will explore that question.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Too tired to elaborate properly, but previous commenters' ideas seem more suitable for another game. Designing a game that spans 4000-6000 years of human history works best with simple and flexible mechanics; if mechanics too complex or specific the immersion breaks apart. Also the increased complexity would put off the great number of casual players who make up a significant part of the playerbase.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Too tired to elaborate properly, but previous commenters' ideas seem more suitable for another game. Designing a game that spans 4000-6000 years of human history works best with simple and flexible mechanics; if mechanics too complex or specific the immersion breaks apart. Also the increased complexity would put off the great number of casual players who make up a significant part of the playerbase.

Changing gaming mechanics doesn't necessarily mean bringing more complexity, it simply means that things work differently (hopefully for the better). Bringing Civ 6 with better graphics and some new civilizations would only be a remake, not a new game.

Firaxis never did it that way anyway.

 

[luca 83]

Outside the changing leader idea (implemented in Old World but with the game scope only limited to 2 centuries), all other ideas mentioned by @luca 83 have been implemented in a way or another in some of the 6 iterations of the game. The question is not there, it's rather how could they make the gaming experience more interesting. And that really depends on how they are implemented.

Many of Luca's ideas seems to be about making the game less linear. If properly implemented, they could be solutions to prevent the late game boredom which is regularly mentioned as preventing to stay hooked untill the space race. The thing is that 4X games relies into 2 core principles:

• The game fun relies on "interesting decisions" and projection in the future generating the "one more turn" motivation.
• The player always wants to go up, never go down. Empire-building is about expanding, so there's a strong resistance to downturns.

The problem is that they are inherently contradictory, as always going up leads to a strong inertia, generating linearity and predictability. Therefore the more you grow, the more the final outcome is known, the less your decisions are impactful and as such interesting. That was all known and already identified by Sid Meier at the time he developped Civ1. That is a problem the 4X genre has been struggling with for decades, yet I don't believe it is completely unsolvable as other games (even past Civ iterations) better managed that aspect than Civ 6. So clearly we can hope Firaxis will explore that question.

I don't think the developers did a good job : starting from v and 6 for example troop elimination. Piling up and the troops left without shelter outside the city . As far as the likelihood is concerned , I repeat war Epeace and war are not the same thing in the 10th century and in the 21st century : the tax system would need to be changed going forward , slavery , then the industrial revolution create new scenarios : colonialism, class struggle, revolution. You argue that certain dynamics have been introduced in the expansions, I think they have not even been introduced: internal politics is non-existent, the idea of revolution independent of the will of the player where is it? . The only attempt made for an internal policy was made in call to Power but it was too early graphically

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Changing gaming mechanics doesn't necessarily mean bringing more complexity, it simply means that things work differently (hopefully for the better). Bringing Civ 6 with better graphics and some new civilizations would only be a remake, not a new game.

Firaxis never did it that way anyway.

Not saying changing mechanics will necessarily make game more complex, nor saying new mechanics should not be introduced. Will elaborate later when less tired

 

[luca 83]

Not saying changing mechanics will necessarily make game more complex, nor saying new mechanics should not be introduced. Will elaborate later when less tired

The game mechanics should evolve as the technology has already explained the war And the diplomacy of the Middle Ages is not that of the Cold War the game does not simulate for example the competition of the USA and the Russians and their eventual collapse. in the annexation of Poland in 1700 the fall of the Roman Empire or the division from Byzantium. Naturally they are not historical simulations but mechanics that must be introduced to make the game more immersive and more realistic