[RD] What is your wishlist for Civ VII to have?

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I'll add more as I think. Mine for starters:

1) some sort of alliance multiple civs are all in at one time, such as NATO IRL. When there are world wars, all civs of one alliance fight civs of another alliance at another time, for example. You could be neutral and not join such an alliance to not get dragged into a world war. OTOH, you won't have allies if you are attacked, so there are advantages and disadvantages both ways.

2) bring back vassal states.

3) bring back map trading.

4) bring back tech trading.

5) Civs get a production bonus towards wonders they built IRL. and the ai naturally would prefer to build them.

6) the ai is more likely to befriend or declare war on other civs as they did IRL. HOWEVER. this bias can also be era-specific. England and France didn't get along for a good while, but starting in the 20th century they were allies. England and France ai would have be more inclined to go to war with each other from the medieval era to the renaissance, but starting in the industrial era they have biases to befriend each other.

7) each civ gets a bonus if they fulfill a goal related to what they accomplish (or at least tried to accomplish) IRL.

examples:
England: "sun never sets" England gets a bonus as long as they control cities a minimum of a certain number of tiles away from each other in the game, reference to it's always daytime somewhere in the British empire, the tiles the minimum distance away from each other obviously referring to timezones.
Mongolia or Germany would get the bonus if they capture a certain amount of enemy cities or capitals, perhaps.
Maybe Aztecs would get the bonus for enslaving a certain amount of enemy units after capturing them.
Rome would get it by capturing a certain amount of barbarian units.
these are some random ideas.

8) add Venice back to the game, I loved how unique they were in Civ V as the only civ that couldn't found cities.

9) be able to play as the barbarians or a civ that doesn't start out with a settler or a city but starts off fielding an army of units and has no choice but to capture cities on their own.

10) make oil a finite resource, and a civ will be in trouble if they run out of oil and are unable to switch to electric power for their army vehicles (or even civilian use). Solar power and hydrogen power would also work.

11) be able to buy military units from other powers, city states, even barbs. at least when some tech gets unlocked. The Byzantines, for example, should have unique advantage of getting a discount when buying them, as they sort of do in the civ iv mod dawn of civilization by leoreth.

12) be able to buy private mercenaries with gold straight up except not as your own military unit, as you can in the total war games. I guess they would factor in more with 11) though.

13) change the religion mechanic so it is as it was in civ IV. Capturing enemy holy cities if they have the building (whatever its called) should give you more gold per turn, depending on how many cities follow that religion. capturing the holy city should give you the benefits they chose when they selected the religion and the enchantment, etc if they did that yet. As it stands there isn't nearly as much strategic gain for capturing an enemy holy city. It would make the game more interesting this way, as it was in civ IV. This would be even better if civs are not allowed to have their holy city in their capital, thus guaranteeing they have at least two different cities that are of high strategical importance. This would make wars more interesting.

14) if founding a city on a different continent be able to have colonies as in civ IV where they do their own thing and are hands-off except they are loyal to you.
 
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A complete redesign of CIV as if Sid once again tried to explain modern civilisation's history via stats. Oh and realistic less cartoonish graphics.
 
In order; Multiple units per tile. Being able to play without steam or other data warehouse. Better AI.
 
Being able to play without steam or other data warehouse.
Well, I think I just made my last civ purchase (it happened this year). Shame...
 
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In order; Multiple units per tile. Being able to play without steam or other data warehouse. Better AI.

I'll second these, but add one more hugely important one for me: fast AI turns. 6 in particular was horribly slow.
 
I haven’t played VI so I don’t know what’s unique about it. I tried reading about the district system and I was all like “whuuuh how’z this work?” So I’d probably scrap that, or at least greatly alter it to be less time-consuming or intricate.

Reforming that system, perhaps having the ability to build improvements surrounding the city that add bonuses without needing for such specificity. An urban area could be set to generate more culture, industry, commerce, etc.

Food could be reformed into a few categories, perhaps grains, fruit, and meat. Grains from farms, meat from fisheries or ranches, and fruit from orchards (forest tiles.)

Depending on how culture is represented in the game, including religion, a level of affinity/hostility towards other Civs “built-in” to the AI and population. An Orthodox Russia wouldn’t want to fight Greece as much as say, a Buddhist China.

Specific war goals: say you could have a “Manifest Destiny” (or Lebensraum, but I think the devs want to steer clear of any Nazi-associated things) option that allows a Civ to claim x amount of territory for itself, and depending on other Civs attitudes towards the aggressor and the scale of demands, adjusts its relations. If America wants to take vast swaths of Aztec lands and the English and Dutch hate the Aztecs, for example, then relations between US/GB/NL wouldn’t be negatively affected. On the other hand, if the English want to take over France... while historically accurate, may generate the ire of other foreign powers.

Limited co-belligerency: maybe I’ll support the Romans going to war against Ethiopia, but I don’t want to fight directly. So some kind of aid package, or however that would work. I haven’t fully fleshed that idea out.
 
0) MAKE IT SO I CAN SORT BY VARIOUS TABS WHEN I LOOK AT MY CITIES. I want to be able to sort by production, $$, and culture levels SHEESH

1) Difficulty of computer opponents that isn't just handicaps. Stop being lazy and give us truly interesting difficulty levels.

2) Computer opponents who are better than infants at planning a military invasion or the defense of one

3) Computer opponents who are able to plan and execute a naval based invasion

4) More varied map types and options. Mods help with this, but I am tired of looking for an interesting map type to play on. Write better (and more varied!) map generation algorithms. Random should really mean random. Right now there is no way to get a truly random map type. Generated maps always follow some sort of preexisting mold.

5) Make the barbarians more interesting. I am playing with a mod right now that does this, it adds a lot to the game. Make them even more interesting than that.

6) Computer opponents again. They suck at diplomacy. They get upset when I crap in the woods, just because they don't crap in the woods. These dynamics suck. Replace them with something better.

7) Completely eliminate the stupid world congress nonsense. I wouldn't hate it if it didn't pop up at all the damn time and distract me from the game.

8) There should be a way to prevent a computer opponent from contacting you. Every game I have to press ESC on every single trade offer I get - and they come every single turn. GODDAMIT stop it with this insanity

9) I play without city states. They get in the way. Make that an option that retains game balance. Right now the green cards are useless to me until the middle ages. The early ones are all for city states - which don't exist in my games.

10) There isn't enough fun stuff that happens when you win a game, IMO. The "watch the map" ending was one of my fav parts of early civ games. But now that doesn't seem nearly as fun. I don't even remember why, because the map is back.. (right?)

11) IMO losing cities due to culture effects from another island or continent are not realistic. Get rid of it or limit the effect of culture over water.

12) The whole game seems to be designed to force you to play a specific way if you want to win a specific way (at higher difficulties). This is stupid. This game should feel more like a sandbox, not as a psychological experiment in which the user is trying to fall in line with a specific set of expectations created by design choices that funnel players into these decisions. I fell in love with Civ1 because it didn't expect you to play any one specific way - just gave you options to do what you want, and victory conditions to try to match them up to.

13) We need a way to disable the opening movie, when you launch the game. Yes, I know this is Civ, I have been playing it for a long time now. I do not need to be reminded of what I am playing with a loud BLAM right at the beginning that makes me deaf for 15 minutes half the time I launch the game, because I forget it's coming and I'm wearing headphones. Give power users a way to bypass all the opening junk, especially the BLAM and the movie. The opening crawl movies are awesome, but I have seen the opening like 50,000 times now. I hate it now, thanks to you

14) Eliminate the "Interesting Civilizations on 17 separate DLCs" model with extreme vengeance. I don't mind buying a DLC if it's going to be the ONLY DLC with new Civs. Like an expansion pack with a whole bunch of civs? SIGN ME UP. But a civ or two per DLC? Please take that idea and stick it far up your bodily openings of my choice.

15) I liked being able to build my own roads and stuff. This isn't key, as I do like the new way they work too.. but.. being able to design your own exact routes was just so satisfying.

Other than all that, the devs are doing a great job and will probably deliver some 85% finished game whenever it drops
 
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More stylised graphics. They age better than any attempt at realism and styles can allow for detail relevant to the game's mechanics to be highlighted (whereas they might otherwise be obscured or overshadowed by the rest of the asset when rendered realistically).

I've got more than this I reckon, but that's near the top of the list.
 
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Your list seems to be "more Civ V". Haven't played VI, did it differ much from V?

After IV I've drifted to the paradox games for more complexity. When I have the patience for it. Imo going back to the civ IV map system would now be a break from the last decade. That with newer graphics, some effort at an AI, limits to the number of units stacked (per terrain type) and funny advisor videos back (think II) would justify a Civ VII.
 
I have played all the civ games ever made except the mobile version. In my list I am including both releases of colonization, alpha centauri, the other alpha centauri that had a new name but sucked a bit, and all the CTP civ games by another studio. And Humankind. But not the board game
 
I played all the CIV games too.

Decent AI. The AI has never been able to cope with 1UPT. The game has got better and better, and more and more complex. The AI has become more and more unable to do anything. 2k hours in CIVI and I dont think I've ever been bombed, ever faced a credible amphibious invasion.
 
Here’s a thought: how about something like where you could negotiate broad deals with other powers like the Peace of Westphalia or the Congress of Vienna? (Or Berlin, if you feel cheeky as the British say.)

How much history as we know it has been because some Hapsburg said “uhhh, let’s give Bremen to — oh, let’s say, England. All good?”
 
I'm happy with Civ II: Test of Time. There's so much more I could accomplish with that, with strategies I haven't tried or even figured out yet.

Unfortunately, I'm not proficient at mucking around with making it playable on a Win 10 computer.

Any other Civ game I might try... would need the Advisors and the Throne Room.

@warpus: Do you mean the Avalon Hill board game? I've played that. It's fun, but you need a large table and several hours. I'm not great at war-themed strategy games, but I actually won a time or two. Not being great at war-themed stratey games meant that the guys in the group tended to ignore me, since they figured I'd end up with all my cities gone at some point.

What they didn't realize was that I was quietly amassing Civilization cards (tech) that carried enough points to beat them.

In another game, I quietly slipped a Calamity Card to my boyfriend in the trading round (that's the round where the players trade commodities like grain, hides, gold, silver, textiles, etc. and if you have a Calamity Card you can slip it in to make things rough on the player you're trading with - flood, famine, earthquake, civil disorder, etc.). We were in the final round, I realized I was in a precarious situation with my cities, and slipped him a Civil Disorder card. In the resolution round (calamities have to be resolved before players can buy more tech cards), he lost half his cities.

The looks on the other players' faces were priceless. My boyfriend was upset and started fuming. The other guy (there were just the three of us playing; it was a very quiet New Years gathering) stared at me; that was a bit of strategy he hadn't realized I'd pull (you need a poker face to slip calamities in with the good stuff; one smirk and people tend to suspect you and will refuse the trade), and it was enough to knock both of them out of the top spot. He was delighted that his main opponent was now at the bottom of the heap, and grinned at me: "Beautiful! Just BEAUTIFUL!" :D

My boyfriend's reaction: "Grrr..." (he never took losing a game gracefully, especially when he never expected me to beat him).
 
I'm happy with Civ II: Test of Time. There's so much more I could accomplish with that, with strategies I haven't tried or even figured out yet.

Unfortunately, I'm not proficient at mucking around with making it playable on a Win 10 computer.

Any other Civ game I might try... would need the Advisors and the Throne Room.

@warpus: Do you mean the Avalon Hill board game? I've played that. It's fun, but you need a large table and several hours. I'm not great at war-themed strategy games, but I actually won a time or two. Not being great at war-themed stratey games meant that the guys in the group tended to ignore me, since they figured I'd end up with all my cities gone at some point.

What they didn't realize was that I was quietly amassing Civilization cards (tech) that carried enough points to beat them.

In another game, I quietly slipped a Calamity Card to my boyfriend in the trading round (that's the round where the players trade commodities like grain, hides, gold, silver, textiles, etc. and if you have a Calamity Card you can slip it in to make things rough on the player you're trading with - flood, famine, earthquake, civil disorder, etc.). We were in the final round, I realized I was in a precarious situation with my cities, and slipped him a Civil Disorder card. In the resolution round (calamities have to be resolved before players can buy more tech cards), he lost half his cities.

The looks on the other players' faces were priceless. My boyfriend was upset and started fuming. The other guy (there were just the three of us playing; it was a very quiet New Years gathering) stared at me; that was a bit of strategy he hadn't realized I'd pull (you need a poker face to slip calamities in with the good stuff; one smirk and people tend to suspect you and will refuse the trade), and it was enough to knock both of them out of the top spot. He was delighted that his main opponent was now at the bottom of the heap, and grinned at me: "Beautiful! Just BEAUTIFUL!" :D

My boyfriend's reaction: "Grrr..." (he never took losing a game gracefully, especially when he never expected me to beat him).

The AH Civ game was an excellent boardgame, one of the best if you had 4-6 players and 8+ hours to spare. There have been 2 boardgames called Sid Meeir's Civilisation: The Board Game and also Sid Meeir's Civilisation : A New Dawn since then. None were as good as the AH Civ game. If you fancy a Civ type game playable in a normal evening I would recommend Through the Ages or my personal favourite Nations.
 
Do you know the Test of Time Patch Project? A lot of interesting stuff is being made, and I think TOT runs now on 64 bit machines (don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player.)
I've read that thread now and then, and it sails right over my head. I'm uneasy about messing around with changing things when I don't know what I'm doing and don't have anyone around to ask for help.
 
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