Will there actually be a Civ 7?

[Leyrann]

I totally agree with this one. Before OldWorld and Humankind were available, I thought a Region System would be fun and also more immersive and realistic, but having experienced the region system in OldWorld a bit and followed multiple Streams of Humankind games, now I'm pretty sure that a Region System, while potentially balanced and realistic, takes away a lot of the fun and player control from the Game. I enjoy building settlers and sending them to distant Lands too much to sacrifice them to a boring limiting system. There are other ways to represent a Region System, like in the Ideas you have represented, City shared Production/Projects (similar to Humankind), regional Governors...etc.

I think Regions should be just Map Territories that mainly have 2 Gameplay roles and a visual one:
- Terrain/Features appearance should change based on Region (Visual) + same variation in the resources and Yields between Regions (Gameplay).
- Influence (Gameplay): Players spawned in a Region will have more influence in that Region, making them easier to influence minor Cities, and new cities they settle there are more resistant to foreign influence (like Identity/cultural pressure). Fighting in home Region increases Combat Strength and conquering a Capital City in a foreign Region is an act of Dominance and allows for more influence over that Territory (making Conquest more strategic).

Now this, this is an implementation of regions I can get behind.

Actually, no, even better, this is giving me ideas. Create small regions, something like 8-12 hexes each, with boundaries formed by rivers, mountain ranges, hills or just flat land (perhaps a river too minor to show on the map). Then there are larger regions which are made up of a bunch of smaller regions (perhaps you can even make these dynamic?), which themselves make up continents. Imagine Galicia -> Iberia -> Europe. (or maybe four tiers instead of three?)

Then, every small region can have one settlement. These are not necessarily cities, but function as hubs for their own region, and can be settled in any tile of the region (perhaps you can even add a mechanic where two settlements settled adjacent to each other might combine the two regions into a bigger one?). Larger, more important settlements are cities, and function very much like cities as we know them in Civilization. The smaller settlements are not full-fledged cities, but help you control land. Perhaps they can be linked to a city and share production with it, or perhaps they simply have their own, more limited, build options. You can also exchange food, and maybe production, between linked settlements/cities, allowing you to specialize for farmland, production, and urban areas.

There should be a balance between settlements and cities, where expansion is done with settlements, but at some point you want to start converting some (but not all!) of them into cities. Perhaps cities should have loyalty or happiness requirements that need to be met, or otherwise they might rebel, alone or several together, and even form new civilizations, but if you can keep cities loyal, they give more rewards than settlements, which are limited in their capabilities and receive penalties if they're too far away from a city.

Another thing this allows is for more minor wars. Settlements would be significantly easier to conquer than actual cities, so rather than either flipping a large swath of land belonging to a city, you can simply have a settlement or two change hands. Perhaps you can even introduce methods to flip individual tiles.

In addition, you could tie this into the district system, where districts now need to be adjacent to the already existing city (rather than being placed anywhere), and the number of districts a city can have depends on the number of settlements that are associated with a city. Adjacency bonuses are moved to settlements, which can specialize in different areas and receive bonuses depending on their terrain; for example a settlement in an area with mountains generates bonus faith if specialized towards it. Perhaps also reduce (or even remove) the production cost for the base district to go with it, turning them more into some sort of zoning thing, where the actual production cost goes to the buildings. This would also go a long way towards fixing Civ 6's production cost issues.

Bit of a wish-list item rather than directly related to this, but I would also love to see an implementation of technological diffusion, which could perhaps be related to this, and having that would also open the way for settlements to form in areas that no major civilization has settled, which can then turn into city states and eventually actual civilizations. There could be several methods for this (as well as city-states in general), but I don't think I should dive into it further or this post will get too long.

One last thing I shouldn't forget to mention: settlements should not be locked to a city that is part of their own higher-tier region, but there could be penalties associated with not following this, such as reduced loyalty, reduced yield generation, et cetera. Which perhaps can also be overcome by policy or simply time.

 

[kaspergm]

Actually, no, even better, this is giving me ideas. Create small regions, something like 8-12 hexes each, with boundaries formed by rivers, mountain ranges, hills or just flat land (perhaps a river too minor to show on the map). Then there are larger regions which are made up of a bunch of smaller regions (perhaps you can even make these dynamic?), which themselves make up continents. Imagine Galicia -> Iberia -> Europe. (or maybe four tiers instead of three?)

Then, every small region can have one settlement. These are not necessarily cities, but function as hubs for their own region, and can be settled in any tile of the region (perhaps you can even add a mechanic where two settlements settled adjacent to each other might combine the two regions into a bigger one?). Larger, more important settlements are cities, and function very much like cities as we know them in Civilization. The smaller settlements are not full-fledged cities, but help you control land. Perhaps they can be linked to a city and share production with it, or perhaps they simply have their own, more limited, build options. You can also exchange food, and maybe production, between linked settlements/cities, allowing you to specialize for farmland, production, and urban areas.

There should be a balance between settlements and cities, where expansion is done with settlements, but at some point you want to start converting some (but not all!) of them into cities (...)

I agree pretty much with everything you envision here.

I have a question for you: Are you familiar with the City Lights mod project for Civ6? It attempts to do something like what you envision here with Settlements and Cities, albeit limited by the modding options offered by the game. Basically the mod offers two new different kinds of districts you can build in your cities: Urban districts ("Boroughs") or Rural districts ("Villages"). A city can only have one *or* the other (or neither): So you can have an "Urban" city, which builds "boroughs" (basically secondary city centers, offering housing, specialty district adjacency and specialist yields, which will be your "tall" cities where you have your specialty districts located. Or you can have a "Rural" city, which builds either "Farming Towns", "Mining Colonies" or "Fishing Villages" to improve yields from their respective kinds of improvements but offers negative adjacency to specialty districts.

What City Lights offers on a limited scale, I would like to see more strictly incorporated into Civ7: So you can have a district host an "Urban" city, similar to the cities we know in Civ6, or you can have a district be a "rural" district, specializing in farming, mining, lumber or fishing, which will provide yields for the urban city. So instead of the "magical" trade routes of Civ5/6 where food and production appears out of nowhere when connecting two cities, the rural city should port its food and production off to the urban city. And the urban city in turn should be more compact, with districts nestled together instead of the scattered layout we have in Civ6 where districts mix with farms and mines in an incoherent sense.

I also think such a system would make a lot more meaningful sense of internal vs. external trade, river trade, importance of railroad system (to transport goods over longer distances, allowing a city to draw in resources from more distant regions), etc. One thing it also would have, which I think worked fairly well in Humankind, is the question of how many of your regions you want to make urban vs. how many to keep as rural districts, which offers some interesting strategic choices.

 

[Zegangani]

We already have something like this with continents

Yes, but in Civ6 Continents sometimes cover very big Areas where up to 20 Cities could fit in, much more than I think a Region should have (max 5-6 Cities).

What I am proposing would be different from Humankind because there would just be regions, no hexes at all. The map would be like RISK or Axis & Allies, but with smaller regions, so more regions per map.

While all the advantages of smaller Regions that you have listed might be true, I think it would be just a better version of Humankind's Region System, but it would still take away a lot of the fun from the Game. I would mainly miss the interaction with the Map (like working plots) and the settling Game. Having to plan where exactly to settle a city to get the best yields is a decision that I want to keep and have to make in Civ. Besides, in smaller Regions, how would tile specialists/workers function? would it be automated and make tile workers redundant as in Humankind, or would they still work as in Civ? and if it's the latter, would they be able to work any tile in the region or you still need to unlock tiles with culture/gold?

IMO, whether a Region System could work in Civ or not is very dependant on Questions like those. With Civ6, the Map became a major aspect of the Gameplay side of the Game, individual Tiles are much more important than before. So if there is going to be a Region System in Civ VII or XII, I think it should respect that and not step down from it, or actually, build on that and make certain regions more valuable than others, either for the strategic location, its variety of resources or because of the fertile tiles (yields).

Actually, no, even better, this is giving me ideas. Create small regions, something like 8-12 hexes each, with boundaries formed by rivers, mountain ranges, hills or just flat land (perhaps a river too minor to show on the map). Then there are larger regions which are made up of a bunch of smaller regions (perhaps you can even make these dynamic?), which themselves make up continents. Imagine Galicia -> Iberia -> Europe. (or maybe four tiers instead of three?)

Then, every small region can have one settlement. These are not necessarily cities, but function as hubs for their own region, and can be settled in any tile of the region (perhaps you can even add a mechanic where two settlements settled adjacent to each other might combine the two regions into a bigger one?). Larger, more important settlements are cities, and function very much like cities as we know them in Civilization. The smaller settlements are not full-fledged cities, but help you control land. Perhaps they can be linked to a city and share production with it, or perhaps they simply have their own, more limited, build options. You can also exchange food, and maybe production, between linked settlements/cities, allowing you to specialize for farmland, production, and urban areas.

There should be a balance between settlements and cities, where expansion is done with settlements, but at some point you want to start converting some (but not all!) of them into cities. Perhaps cities should have loyalty or happiness requirements that need to be met, or otherwise they might rebel, alone or several together, and even form new civilizations, but if you can keep cities loyal, they give more rewards than settlements, which are limited in their capabilities and receive penalties if they're too far away from a city.

Another thing this allows is for more minor wars. Settlements would be significantly easier to conquer than actual cities, so rather than either flipping a large swath of land belonging to a city, you can simply have a settlement or two change hands. Perhaps you can even introduce methods to flip individual tiles.

In addition, you could tie this into the district system, where districts now need to be adjacent to the already existing city (rather than being placed anywhere), and the number of districts a city can have depends on the number of settlements that are associated with a city. Adjacency bonuses are moved to settlements, which can specialize in different areas and receive bonuses depending on their terrain; for example a settlement in an area with mountains generates bonus faith if specialized towards it. Perhaps also reduce (or even remove) the production cost for the base district to go with it, turning them more into some sort of zoning thing, where the actual production cost goes to the buildings. This would also go a long way towards fixing Civ 6's production cost issues.

Bit of a wish-list item rather than directly related to this, but I would also love to see an implementation of technological diffusion, which could perhaps be related to this, and having that would also open the way for settlements to form in areas that no major civilization has settled, which can then turn into city states and eventually actual civilizations. There could be several methods for this (as well as city-states in general), but I don't think I should dive into it further or this post will get too long.

One last thing I shouldn't forget to mention: settlements should not be locked to a city that is part of their own higher-tier region, but there could be penalties associated with not following this, such as reduced loyalty, reduced yield generation, et cetera. Which perhaps can also be overcome by policy or simply time.

That would be a Concept I would love to test, but honestly, this sounds more like a combination of Humankind and Civ, but more towards Humankind. I like the Idea of having settlements what help you expand and control Land, and settlemet specialization sounds also nice, as well as their interaction with districts. Though, how much Civilization would still be in that Region System? Because to me, it sounds like a different Game than Civ as we know it (maybe because I didn't quite understand the concept of your Ideas to envision and imagine them in a Civ Game).

Anyway, what I do want to see changed in Civ7, is the restricted border expansions of Civ6. Civ5 was better in that perspective IMO (but still with Issues). Borders shouldn't just expand based on the radius to the City Center, but more organically and dynamically with rivers, improved and worked tiles, natural Boundaries, roads...etc. And @SupremacyKing2's Idea of 2-3 tile expansion is also good. But most importantly, don't lock workable tiles to an arbitrary and gamey limit of a radius of 3, any tile owned by a City should be workable.

 

[Leyrann]

I agree pretty much with everything you envision here.

I have a question for you: Are you familiar with the City Lights mod project for Civ6? It attempts to do something like what you envision here with Settlements and Cities, albeit limited by the modding options offered by the game. Basically the mod offers two new different kinds of districts you can build in your cities: Urban districts ("Boroughs") or Rural districts ("Villages"). A city can only have one *or* the other (or neither): So you can have an "Urban" city, which builds "boroughs" (basically secondary city centers, offering housing, specialty district adjacency and specialist yields, which will be your "tall" cities where you have your specialty districts located. Or you can have a "Rural" city, which builds either "Farming Towns", "Mining Colonies" or "Fishing Villages" to improve yields from their respective kinds of improvements but offers negative adjacency to specialty districts.

What City Lights offers on a limited scale, I would like to see more strictly incorporated into Civ7: So you can have a district host an "Urban" city, similar to the cities we know in Civ6, or you can have a district be a "rural" district, specializing in farming, mining, lumber or fishing, which will provide yields for the urban city. So instead of the "magical" trade routes of Civ5/6 where food and production appears out of nowhere when connecting two cities, the rural city should port its food and production off to the urban city. And the urban city in turn should be more compact, with districts nestled together instead of the scattered layout we have in Civ6 where districts mix with farms and mines in an incoherent sense.

I also think such a system would make a lot more meaningful sense of internal vs. external trade, river trade, importance of railroad system (to transport goods over longer distances, allowing a city to draw in resources from more distant regions), etc. One thing it also would have, which I think worked fairly well in Humankind, is the question of how many of your regions you want to make urban vs. how many to keep as rural districts, which offers some interesting strategic choices.

I'm familiar with it; I came across it when I was browsing mods but didn't download it. Part of the reason for that is that I don't like splitting cities into urban and rural; in my opinion, cities should be urban, and there should be other parts of your empire that are rural, with villages and towns and such. I do suppose that would probably be hard to introduce in Civilization VI, however. But that's also the view my suggestion came from.

I do agree with most of the other things you mention, such as giving more incentive to actually sprawl cities rather than throw around districts haphazardly, or having trade move resources (they can still generate gold, I'd say).

That would be a Concept I would love to test, but honestly, this sounds more like a combination of Humankind and Civ, but more towards Humankind. I like the Idea of having settlements what help you expand and control Land, and settlemet specialization sounds also nice, as well as their interaction with districts. Though, how much Civilization would still be in that Region System? Because to me, it sounds like a different Game than Civ as we know it (maybe because I didn't quite understand the concept of your Ideas to envision and imagine them in a Civ Game).

I'll admit my experience with Humankind is rather limited, but I have two major points of criticism on it. The first is how huge the regions are - the base region that I want to see would be barely bigger than a Civ VI city that just got settled and hasn't expanded it's borders yet (though not all need to be in that shape), and capping out at less than twice that. A Humankind region would probably compare more closely to the tier of region above the lowest tier in this concept. You might have two or three cities inside it, and who knows how many small settlements.

My second issue, meanwhile, is the sheer number of districts that any single city seems to get, at least from the little bit I have played the game and the YouTube videos I have seen. I absolutely love seeing urban sprawl represented on the map, but that doesn't mean I want to see a city that stretches from coast to coast in what can't even really be called an isthmus. 6-8 districts by the end of the game, including city center, is the balance I'd like to see.

So those are things I would want to be very different from how they work in Humankind.

I will now segue extremely naturally in the next part, which I decided to rewrite after realizing I had started to work out the region idea further.

The smallest regions (let's call them tier 3 regions) are designed to divide the map into parts while minimally altering the settling game that we know. While you could perhaps use the region's boundaries as initial borders for the settlement you settle, you're still looking at the quality of a settling position that is comparable on size to a fresh city in Civ 6 - "how good is the settling tile, how good is the first ring, and how good are the first few tiles in the second ring?" You could even up the importance of the exact settling tile a bit more by making a settlement's yields depend on it's directly adjacent tiles, independent of the region those tiles belong to. In addition to that, they provide a means for small-scale external wars, where the goal is simply to conquer a few tier 3 regions, which might not even include a city. This should, in particular in earlier ears, be coupled with a reduction of warmonger penalties (in whatever form) for declaring war, so that the penalties eventually applied can better discern between a small land-grab of a tier 3 region on one hand, and conquering two cities on the other.

On a slightly higher level, you have city versus village/town gameplay (let's be real, they won't be called settlements in the final product). Once you're starting to expand, your settlements become inefficient, and you'll have to start turning some of them into cities. Cities could become somewhat more autonomous, perhaps having their own desires in a way, and maybe having the potential to culturally diverge someone; you as the ruler need to manage this to make sure the cities remain happy to be part of your empire. Of course, the absolute simplest way of doing this is by keeping happiness as the mechanic that we have right now. In addition, you need to figure out which settlements are best positioned to become cities, and which towns and villages should support which cities for optimal results. Proximity would increase the efficiency of a town or village, but perhaps a town that produces a lot of food should be linked to a city that's somewhat further away in order to feed it, even if efficiency is lower.

Then, on yet again a higher level, you have tier 2 regions, which revolve around internal empire management and large external wars. Tier 2 regions will usually contain five or six cities (and therefore several times more than that worth of settlements) once fully developed, and are something like half the size of the average civilization. Within a region, cities and settlements tend to be more loyal to each other than to those outside the region. If someone controls one city in a region otherwise controlled by you, it will be (relatively) easier to get that city in your empire, be it through warlike or peaceful means, whereas if you're trying to subvert a city that's in the same region as the civ's capital, it becomes a much bigger undertaking. This could tie into war weariness generation, loyalty/cultural pressure, occupation penalties (or lack of them), or perhaps even tie into a potential event system; imagine an event where dissidents damage the walls or sneak troops inside that then weaken a city, or in the opposite situation partisans that perform guerilla attacks on the military camps of a sieging army.

The level beyond that is civilization-level, and is pretty much how we know it, except with above mechanics to increase the viability (and therefore likelihood and occurrence) of small-scale wars. This should probably be paired with changes to the AI because right now even small-scale wars have extremely long-term effects on your relationship. A scuffle over a tier 3 region shouldn't stop you from becoming friends forty turns later. Conquering two cities, on the other hand, should lead to long-term resentment.

And then, again a level higher, there are tier 1 regions, which are basically continents as we know them from Civ 6. They deal with things like luxury resources, maybe geography like in GS, and diplomatic relationships between civilizations; from long-standing rivalries to trade to unions and the like.

Anyway, what I do want to see changed in Civ7, is the restricted border expansions of Civ6. Civ5 was better in that perspective IMO (but still with Issues). Borders shouldn't just expand based on the radius to the City Center, but more organically and dynamically with rivers, improved and worked tiles, natural Boundaries, roads...etc. And @SupremacyKing2's Idea of 2-3 tile expansion is also good. But most importantly, don't lock workable tiles to an arbitrary and gamey limit of a radius of 3, any tile owned by a City should be workable.

I agree that border expansion in Civ 6 feels too slow and a bit too formulaic, but I don't like giving cities an arbitrary range. Perhaps allow 4th ring on the condition that no city has it within three tiles and without letting you buy 4th ring, but that's it.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Besides, in smaller Regions, how would tile specialists/workers function? would it be automated and make tile workers redundant as in Humankind, or would they still work as in Civ? and if it's the latter, would they be able to work any tile in the region or you still need to unlock tiles with culture/gold?

Well, if we go with regions with hexes. regions would be about the size of a traditional city radius. So yes, you could place workers on any tile in the region to work. You would not need to unlock tiles with culture and gold. You could still chose any tile in the region to place the city to determine the defensive bonus and initial yield of the city. So I think city placement would still be important. So I don't think you would lose much of what you want. The main difference would be that borders would be more realistic. You would no longer have borders expand 1 hex at a time, creating slow, unrealistic borders. If we go with regions with no hexes, then the game would need to change how workers work obviously. Players would assign workers to different areas (food, production, gold, culture, science) instead assigning them to hexes. And you could still build "tile improvements" in the city queue like you do buildings or units and they would enhance the base yields of the region. Personally, I've always hated the micro of selecting what hexes to place workers on so I always automate that part.

My main gripe is that civ6 borders expand too slowly and too unrealistically.

 

[CoconutTank]

Hmm, so the Russians get an additional 5 tiles when they settle a city. What if this was a generalized effect for everyone, so that say everyone gets an additional 6 tiles when they settle a city (and Russia gets an additional 11 tiles)?

My main issue with regions in Humankind is how they can be strangely arbitrary, with resources being claimed in long strange necks or regions being weirdly stretched. I also agree with the fact that basic expansion in Civ6 feels really slow and cumbersome.

I think bonus tiles upon settling a city can help with accelerating expansion a bit, while still giving the freedom of being able to settle nearly anywhere and not being locked into gerrymandered regions. If the UI could be updated to also show which bonus tiles will be claimed by the city upon settling, that would make the process feel less random and let players plan around what they get upon settling a city.

 

[kaspergm]

I'm familiar with it; I came across it when I was browsing mods but didn't download it. Part of the reason for that is that I don't like splitting cities into urban and rural; in my opinion, cities should be urban, and there should be other parts of your empire that are rural, with villages and towns and such. I do suppose that would probably be hard to introduce in Civilization VI, however.

Yeah, I agree completely, but within the framework of Civ6, I think this is the closest we will come, unless a dll-release happens.

 

[Zegangani]

I'll admit my experience with Humankind is rather limited, but I have two major points of criticism on it. The first is how huge the regions are - the base region that I want to see would be barely bigger than a Civ VI city that just got settled and hasn't expanded it's borders yet (though not all need to be in that shape), and capping out at less than twice that. A Humankind region would probably compare more closely to the tier of region above the lowest tier in this concept. You might have two or three cities inside it, and who knows how many small settlements.

My second issue, meanwhile, is the sheer number of districts that any single city seems to get, at least from the little bit I have played the game and the YouTube videos I have seen. I absolutely love seeing urban sprawl represented on the map, but that doesn't mean I want to see a city that stretches from coast to coast in what can't even really be called an isthmus. 6-8 districts by the end of the game, including city center, is the balance I'd like to see.

So those are things I would want to be very different from how they work in Humankind.

I will now segue extremely naturally in the next part, which I decided to rewrite after realizing I had started to work out the region idea further.

The smallest regions (let's call them tier 3 regions) are designed to divide the map into parts while minimally altering the settling game that we know. While you could perhaps use the region's boundaries as initial borders for the settlement you settle, you're still looking at the quality of a settling position that is comparable on size to a fresh city in Civ 6 - "how good is the settling tile, how good is the first ring, and how good are the first few tiles in the second ring?" You could even up the importance of the exact settling tile a bit more by making a settlement's yields depend on it's directly adjacent tiles, independent of the region those tiles belong to. In addition to that, they provide a means for small-scale external wars, where the goal is simply to conquer a few tier 3 regions, which might not even include a city. This should, in particular in earlier ears, be coupled with a reduction of warmonger penalties (in whatever form) for declaring war, so that the penalties eventually applied can better discern between a small land-grab of a tier 3 region on one hand, and conquering two cities on the other.

On a slightly higher level, you have city versus village/town gameplay (let's be real, they won't be called settlements in the final product). Once you're starting to expand, your settlements become inefficient, and you'll have to start turning some of them into cities. Cities could become somewhat more autonomous, perhaps having their own desires in a way, and maybe having the potential to culturally diverge someone; you as the ruler need to manage this to make sure the cities remain happy to be part of your empire. Of course, the absolute simplest way of doing this is by keeping happiness as the mechanic that we have right now. In addition, you need to figure out which settlements are best positioned to become cities, and which towns and villages should support which cities for optimal results. Proximity would increase the efficiency of a town or village, but perhaps a town that produces a lot of food should be linked to a city that's somewhat further away in order to feed it, even if efficiency is lower.

Then, on yet again a higher level, you have tier 2 regions, which revolve around internal empire management and large external wars. Tier 2 regions will usually contain five or six cities (and therefore several times more than that worth of settlements) once fully developed, and are something like half the size of the average civilization. Within a region, cities and settlements tend to be more loyal to each other than to those outside the region. If someone controls one city in a region otherwise controlled by you, it will be (relatively) easier to get that city in your empire, be it through warlike or peaceful means, whereas if you're trying to subvert a city that's in the same region as the civ's capital, it becomes a much bigger undertaking. This could tie into war weariness generation, loyalty/cultural pressure, occupation penalties (or lack of them), or perhaps even tie into a potential event system; imagine an event where dissidents damage the walls or sneak troops inside that then weaken a city, or in the opposite situation partisans that perform guerilla attacks on the military camps of a sieging army.

The level beyond that is civilization-level, and is pretty much how we know it, except with above mechanics to increase the viability (and therefore likelihood and occurrence) of small-scale wars. This should probably be paired with changes to the AI because right now even small-scale wars have extremely long-term effects on your relationship. A scuffle over a tier 3 region shouldn't stop you from becoming friends forty turns later. Conquering two cities, on the other hand, should lead to long-term resentment.

And then, again a level higher, there are tier 1 regions, which are basically continents as we know them from Civ 6. They deal with things like luxury resources, maybe geography like in GS, and diplomatic relationships between civilizations; from long-standing rivalries to trade to unions and the like.

Yeah, I have a better Idea now of what you're envisioning with Regions. And I really like your Idea of having different Tiers of Regions, with each one serving a different purpose and playing a different role.

The Tier 1 Regions in your Concept would improve Expansion and Extraction as well. Beside easier Expansion via conquest or through peaceful means, the smaller Regions could play a big role for Outposts and settling Colonies. The big Regions in Humankind come at the price of Colonization IMO, and smaller Regions would fix that Issue. Sometimes you only want to control a small area where X Resources are that you want or because of its strategic location, but don't want to deal with the other things that come with it, like a big diplomatic penalty for conquering a big area. Smaller Regions wouldn't cause big diplomatic Penalties, and maybe we could even have Territorial Wars, which (similar to Humankind) you can claim and fight over (peacefully though diplomatic/cultural means, or with conquest).

Well, if we go with regions with hexes. regions would be about the size of a traditional city radius. So yes, you could place workers on any tile in the region to work. You would not need to unlock tiles with culture and gold. You could still chose any tile in the region to place the city to determine the defensive bonus and initial yield of the city. So I think city placement would still be important. So I don't think you would lose much of what you want. The main difference would be that borders would be more realistic. You would no longer have borders expand 1 hex at a time, creating slow, unrealistic borders.

I would just like to suggest that Cities in (big) Regions could still be limited in which tiles they could work, like at the start of the Game, you can only work tiles that are adjacent to the City Center, have a road to it or are along the river/lake/coastal line that passes through the CC, and Civics/Techs/Policies could increase the radius that the city can work (would make it also more immersive and realistic). The Benefit of that is keeping the settling choice important, compared to the ability of being free to work any tile in a region.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I would just like to suggest that Cities in (big) Regions could still be limited in which tiles they could work, like at the start of the Game, you can only work tiles that are adjacent to the City Center, have a road to it or are along the river/lake/coastal line that passes through the CC, and Civics/Techs/Policies could increase the radius that the city can work (would make it also more immersive and realistic). The Benefit of that is keeping the settling choice important, compared to the ability of being free to work any tile in a region.

Yes, I think that would work.

I also wanted to add that if civ7 implements regions that their size should be customizable in the map settings. So players could choose to play with small, medium, standard or large regions. There could also be a "mixed size" option where the game would have regions of different sizes on the same map. Smaller regions maps would mean more cities and harder to conquer the world. Large regions maps would mean fewer cities and easier to conquer the world. This way, players could customize the game to what they prefer.

 

[Zegangani]

I also wanted to add that if civ7 implements regions that their size should be customizable in the map settings. So players could choose to play with small, medium, standard or large regions. There could also be a "mixed size" option where the game would have regions of different sizes on the same map. Smaller regions maps would mean more cities and harder to conquer the world. Large regions maps would mean fewer cities and easier to conquer the world. This way, players could customize the game to what they prefer.

This is a good Idea, it would help making Conquest on larger Maps much easier an less cumbersome, and smaller Maps less easy to conquer.

 

[tedhebert]

A little late to the party here... Sorry was away from home and computer for a while

I've been reading some comments, here and in other threads as to how CIV 7 should cut down on civ specific detail and abilities. I SO completely disagree with that !!!

I have over 3000 hours of playtime on 6, and for me, 75% of the magic of this particular version comes from 2 things:

• The quality of diversification and the quantity of Civilizations and leaders available. This alone makes for SO MUCH of the replay value of the game. I have gone through All Civs to get a win with each, and that was a Blast. Of course, it changes absolutely nothing of the mid to late game, so yes THAT part could be enhanced, but boy does it really change the first 100/150 turns
• Addition of Districts. I'm a builder kind of player, and I love to play the map. So districts were a huge candy handed to me in CIV 6

There are many things I wouldn't mind at all being redesigned or even written off in CIV 7 from the panoply of features in CIV 6, but those two are in the DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT zone for me.

Funnily enough, I couldn't care less about alternate leaders Honestly, they add so little to my gaming experience that I feel it's wasted effort and money on FXs part to work on that. But I DO go out and get the best new CIVs in the mods, when I feel they're well thought out and balanced. Because I love tackling games differently simply because the CIV I'm playing has strengths and weaknesses that I always try to play into

So... My 2 cents because I haven't seen this opinion discussed often on these here boards, and I know that FXers DO come and read us from time to time. So PLEASE, Keep the civs specificity to the same level or even more in CIV 7, it's your strong link into fantastic replay value, which itself is the principal key to your success story !

 

[Pistol90]

hmm ... any chance we see something Civ related in upcomin summer of gaming 2022 ?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

hmm ... any chance we see something Civ related in upcomin summer of gaming 2022 ?

I'd consider it unlikely. If they were going to do anything substantial with Civ VI this summer, I suspect there would be substantial hints already.

Civ II came out in February 1996. All other Civ games: I, III, IV, V and VI, came out in September or October. That's only 4 - 5 months from now, which is also pretty short to start hinting at Civ VII.

I suspect, therefore, that we are in for a slack period Civ-wise until next year, but as close-mouthed as Firaxis has been in the recent past, they could surprise me and spring something new on us this fall. That would mean the "Summer of Gaming" would be a "Summer of Anticipation and Speculation" in Civ terms - which, to be frank, is what a great deal of these Forums are about anyway!

 

[Chekko]

The last game update was about a year ago and they have been completely silent since. Which is very un-Firaxis like as they have always been nice and social to their fans, which could mean they have all their guys working on the new Civ.

 

[Xur]

A little late to the party here... Sorry was away from home and computer for a while

I've been reading some comments, here and in other threads as to how CIV 7 should cut down on civ specific detail and abilities. I SO completely disagree with that !!!

I have over 3000 hours of playtime on 6, and for me, 75% of the magic of this particular version comes from 2 things:

• The quality of diversification and the quantity of Civilizations and leaders available. This alone makes for SO MUCH of the replay value of the game. I have gone through All Civs to get a win with each, and that was a Blast. Of course, it changes absolutely nothing of the mid to late game, so yes THAT part could be enhanced, but boy does it really change the first 100/150 turns
• Addition of Districts. I'm a builder kind of player, and I love to play the map. So districts were a huge candy handed to me in CIV 6

There are many things I wouldn't mind at all being redesigned or even written off in CIV 7 from the panoply of features in CIV 6, but those two are in the DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT zone for me.

Funnily enough, I couldn't care less about alternate leaders Honestly, they add so little to my gaming experience that I feel it's wasted effort and money on FXs part to work on that. But I DO go out and get the best new CIVs in the mods, when I feel they're well thought out and balanced. Because I love tackling games differently simply because the CIV I'm playing has strengths and weaknesses that I always try to play into

So... My 2 cents because I haven't seen this opinion discussed often on these here boards, and I know that FXers DO come and read us from time to time. So PLEASE, Keep the civs specificity to the same level or even more in CIV 7, it's your strong link into fantastic replay value, which itself is the principal key to your success story !

I dont think anyone ever has been opposed to diverse civs and leaders. My problem is the way they implement it. It is silly that bonus are static and locked in before you even start the game. I would argue that a more fluid and changing system ingame (during actual gameplay) would make for better replayability. Imagine your actions ingame actually matter? Wild thought, I know.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I dont think anyone ever has been opposed to diverse civs and leaders.

At least in the way it is implemented in last Civ games. What I would want instead is all civs past and present playable, with cities unique names and other unique names. That would make everybody can roleplay his own country / any country, particularly if "Culturally linked starting location" is enabled (you start off near the actual neighbours of that civ). That would make for an amazing "rewrite History", but for everybody on the planet. As to leaders, I'm not sure if they would be compatible with such an amount of playable civs. And no, there would not be any other uniques such as unique units, for less unique abilities. Anyway, I feel there miss an option in multiplayer to play with blank civs. It lacks greatly in my opinion.

As to your solution, that could be it. Discovering uniques as the game occurs, although that's already a little bit the case with pantheons, religions, policy cards, promotions, great people, Civ5 ideologies, etc. But for sure it could be extended yet more and some bonuses could be inspired by Civ3-6 unique abilities/units.

 

[UWHabs]

At least in the way it is implemented in last Civ games. What I would want instead is all civs past and present playable, with cities unique names and other unique names. That would make everybody can roleplay his own country / any country, particularly if "Culturally linked starting location" is enabled (you start off near the actual neighbours of that civ). That would make for an amazing "rewrite History", but for everybody on the planet. As to leaders, I'm not sure if they would be compatible with such an amount of playable civs. And no, there would not be any other uniques such as unique units, for less unique abilities. Anyway, I feel there miss an option in multiplayer to play with blank civs. It lacks greatly in my opinion.

As to your solution, that could be it. Discovering uniques as the game occurs, although that's already a little bit the case with pantheons, religions, policy cards, promotions, great people, Civ5 ideologies, etc. But for sure it could be extended yet more and some bonuses could be inspired by Civ3-6 unique abilities/units.

Yeah, it's always a tough balance. Secret societies and pantheons are both a nice early way to pick a bonus (or bonus track) and have that apply throughout the game, although at some level I think pantheons are too weak (except when they're super strong), and societies are too strong (ignoring the whole non-historical aspect of them too, obviously).

I would love to see more times in the game when you have a choice of bonuses. Like, say 50 or so turns into the game, you get a popup saying that your people are cultivating the land, but aren't sure if they should focus on farming or herding for nourishing. Do you pick +1 food for all farms in your empire, or +1 food for all pastures?
Or maybe you cut down on some of the adjacencies, and then you get a choice to either give your campuses the reef bonus or the mountain bonus?

As for leaders, I do think they have gotten a little complicated. To me, the best leader/civ combos are the ones that are strong, unique, but also easy to understand and remember. Like Greece and their leaders - you get a bonus wildcard slot, your leader has ability X related to culture, and you have your district and unit. Some of the chatter on the boards recently had me wanting to play a Spain game again, and while the civ is great in many ways, there's so much going on with them. Like, adding up all the bonuses:
-Inquisitors get an extra charge and are stronger
-You gain combat against other religions
-You can do fleets and armadas faster
-You get better trade routes (with an extra bonus cross-continent)
-Cities on a new continent get a free builder and production bonus
Plus your UU and UB with multiple abilities and bonuses each. Not counting them, you have 5 completely separate and unique abilities. Now, they're interesting because their abilities have both a religious and exploration/continent focus to them, and their UU and UB fit those themes as well, and the abilities work together. But then you also have this naval ability too. It's just a lot overall to deal with and remember. When I play a civ, I like to maximize their abilities, and one big problem with them is that it's going to be so hard to use all the distinct pieces of that in a single game, so I always will feel like I have "wasted" some of their abilities.
Even a civ like Canada at the start was a little more moderate in their abilities, but when they went to make them stronger, the ability text just drags on. I mean, I know at least for them it's basically "snow and tundra are awesome", but when I'm playing, I kind of want to always have in my head the total of their abilities. And if I keep having to open up the leader screen to refresh what their civ does, it can be frustrating.

 

[Leyrann]

I would love to see more times in the game when you have a choice of bonuses. Like, say 50 or so turns into the game, you get a popup saying that your people are cultivating the land, but aren't sure if they should focus on farming or herding for nourishing. Do you pick +1 food for all farms in your empire, or +1 food for all pastures?

I'd say this specific choice is unbalanced, as you're likely to have many more farms than pastures (a better trade-off would be if the pastures would receive +1 food and +1 production), but I do really like the concept, as well as the other things you mentioned in your post. I could even see a game that's balanced on these choices coming up throughout the game. For example, you might have higher food consumption for big cities which creates a natural soft cap on growth that you overcome through selecting something like crop rotation (more food on farms) and things like that.

 

[blackbutterfly]

tbh I wouldn't mind seeing Beyond Earth 2 before 7.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1554180168998068229

 

[tedhebert]

Whoa... That one REALLY reads like a major hint to me...