Your TOP THREE most wanted gameplay changes

[Banazir864]

1. City-states shouldn't get massacred as easily (i.e., easier defense, increased warmongering penalties for conquering them, etc.), and the AI should be programmed to do it less. Additionally, there should be a CB to liberate city-states, even if you never got a chance to be suzerain of them or they were conquered long before the CB was unlocked (maybe no warmongering penalty for declaring the war, but increased penalties if you keep or raze any cities). Likewise, make it so you can't attack city-states that an ally or friend is suzerain of without first cancelling the alliance/friendship.
2. Change or remove the stupider agendas. At a minimum, this should include the agendas that are basically luck-based (Victoria, Chandragupta, etc., and especially flirtatious and curmudgeon, which might as well be additional "they just like/don't like you" modifiers), but should ideally include agendas that like or hate you for playing normally, especially if they trigger far too easily (Peter, Pedro, Frederick/Pericles, etc.). They should also make the agendas take into consideration whether it's even possible to comply with them (e.g., no more situations where Mvemba gets mad at you because you didn't spread your religion to him in less time than it takes for your missionaries to get there; likewise, Wilhelmina shouldn't dislike civs who are out of trade route range). Some of the agendas are great, so the devs do know how to make good, interesting, agendas. Special mention goes to Saladin, who would have a fine agenda (the positive half is a bit narrow for my taste, but doable)...if they'd stuck with disliking civs who attacked coreligionists (interesting) and didn't have him also dislike civs who don't share his religion (almost everyone).
3. More flexible national parks. I love national parks, but the "vertical diamond near a single city" requirement is overly strict and has no basis in reality. My suggestion: Naturalists can enter impassible terrain and have four charges. They can use a charge to either create a one-tile Park Entrance on passable terrain, or add a tile to an adjacent existing park (keeping the current requirements for park tiles other than arrangement). To encourage compactness, maybe have park tiles give big appeal bonuses to adjacent park tiles, and to discourage making strings of mountains into parks (under the reasoning that you can't build on them anyway), have mountain park tiles not generate tourism, but instead give increased appeal boosts to adjacent park tiles (so you'd still want mountains as part of your parks; you just wouldn't want to turn every mountain tile into a park).

Special mention: Troops in your own territory should never trigger "troops-near-my-borders" warnings. Likewise, scouts/rangers should never trigger such warnings. In the same vein, you shouldn't get warned for forward-settling (or count as breaking a promise not to forward-settle) unless the new city gets more loyalty from the complaining civ than from you.

 

[PhilBowles]

Joint war hasn't been as bad for me lately, because I'm allied or friendship with most of the civs. But I imagine once I get back to playing games with all the civs in it, the joint war thing will be a problem again. But with 8 or 9 civs it hasn't been a problem.

I think many people are confusing automatic war declarations from a civ's allies with joint wars. Though it's admittedly not clear why both systems exist, since things like defensive pacts can no longer be made with a non-allied civ.

 

[universecreep]

(1) United nations/world congress - Alpha Centauri/Civ IV
(2) Vassals like in Civ IV
(3) Make diplomacy more realistic - make the AI more "aware" of the global situation. For example, why are they demanding things from me when they have one city and I am the most powerful Civ? So silly. I think in Civ IV, they'd kiss up to you if you were strong and they were weak. That was kinda fun.
The warmongering issue should be tweaked again - you're still called a warmonger if you defend yourself from an enemy- frustrating.

 

[PhilBowles]

2. Change or remove the stupider agendas. At a minimum, this should include the agendas that are basically luck-based (Victoria, Chandragupta, etc., and especially flirtatious and curmudgeon, which might as well be additional "they just like/don't like you" modifiers), but should ideally include agendas that like or hate you for playing normally, especially if they trigger far too easily (Peter, Pedro, Frederick/Pericles, etc.). They should also make the agendas take into consideration whether it's even possible to comply with them (e.g., no more situations where Mvemba gets mad at you because you didn't spread your religion to him in less time than it takes for your missionaries to get there; likewise, Wilhelmina shouldn't dislike civs who are out of trade route range). Some of the agendas are great, so the devs do know how to make good, interesting, agendas. Special mention goes to Saladin, who would have a fine agenda (the positive half is a bit narrow for my taste, but doable)...if they'd stuck with disliking civs who attacked coreligionists (interesting) and didn't have him also dislike civs who don't share his religion (almost everyone).

I'm glad to see that agendas are probably the thing most highlighted here as in need of attention, but as I maintained in my post it's not simply a question of 'changing the stupider ones', it's an intrinsic problem with the system. In fairness to Firaxis, with so many civs each demanding its own agenda it's hard not to have stupid ones. Requiring civs to meet the conditions they themselves set (such as having a big navy) or understanding conditions that prevent you meeting certain conditions (no territory before turn 20, no navy when landlocked etc.) would all be improvements but are more complex and ultimately less necessary than simply removing the system altogether.

Even where agendas make sense, it's idiotic for certain civs to care about them and not others - pre-expansion Gilgamesh being the only one who cared about what you did to his allies, for instance. Where it makes logical gameplay sense for a civ to hate you, it makes sense for any civ to hate you - Trajan shouldn't be the only one watching for a smaller civ to pick on, say.

Civs IV and V had a suite of universal modifiers that incorporated many of the things treated as single-civ agendas, like close borders (Chandragupta), different religion etc. "We hate you going for Wonders" was so unpopular and counterimmersive in Civ V that they removed it in a patch - but bewilderingly it was back both as a random agenda and as the default Chinese agenda in Civ VI. There's no reason they couldn't revert to that system, and have the civs' personality vary on different axes as they did in those games (especially in Civ V). The agendas as they are don't even affect gameplay, only diplomatic modifiers - the civs all expand in the same way, all build in the same way (I've lost count of how many times Qin's shouted at me for having more Wonders than his 0), all create similar numbers and usually similar types of units, regardless of what it is they like or dislike about other civs.

The moral of the story is that agendas were a misconceived idea all along and ought to be ditched in their entirety.

Special mention: Troops in your own territory should never trigger "troops-near-my-borders" warnings. Likewise, scouts/rangers should never trigger such warnings. In the same vein, you shouldn't get warned for forward-settling (or count as breaking a promise not to forward-settle) unless the new city gets more loyalty from the complaining civ than from you.

Also, they shouldn't trigger the warning from allies or civs you're in a joint war with. If I'm fighting alongside the Germans and German territory borders that of our mutual enemy the Cree, I can't usefully comply with Barbarossa's demand for me to move my troops away from his territory.

 

[Magil]

I STRONGLY disagree! The 'fact' that the IV/V movement mechanics were totally asinine in this manner is not a good reason to duplicate them (other than players being accustomed to it).

The primary reason is to reduce tedium from an annoying movement system. If we're going to have one unit per tile we should try to make it as painless as possible, not as painful as possible. From what I've heard elsewhere Ed Beach pushed this mechanic in over the objections of others on the team--and he was wrong.

 

[iammaxhailme]

1. Add a diplomacy/"money" type victory/world congress/UN/whatever
2. Make coastal settling more important
3. Stop having the AI trade each other "joint war against player" every 30 turns for no reason
bonus 4. ease up the tile restriction on polders

 

[Sostratus]

Strictly gameplay changes:

1) Re-balance the melee & anticav lines. But would help to fill out some of the unit lines too (Riflemen, trebuchets, bazooka after machine gun)
2) Balance pass the government system. (Card distributions, bonuses, and tier 2 unlock timings. Line them up like t1/t3)
Tie:
3) CS tweak: stop the AI from murdering them all, and give stronger bonuses for liberating a CS when they do murder them
(like maybe more envoys reward as eras progress, a X turn lock on suze, etc)
3.1) Make the spy interface less tedious, especially for counterspies.

 

[Kruos]

1. Allow limited stacking to ease the congestion and help the AI a little, ex. : make range and siege unit stackable by puting them on the support layer.
2. Forbid DoW to CS without DoW to suzerain in the same time
3. Add global diplomatic tool like the United Nation and the Apostolic Palace in Civ4

 

[Kyro]

1. Make City Quality relevant.
2. Make Long-term investments relevant.
3. Make Peace Play competitive on Higher Difficulties.

 

[Esperr]

Instead of victory conditions have a victory point system.First player to a set threashold wins. Mix them up each game, that way each game plays different. Or have more point conditions revealed as the game goes on. This makes each game play very differently.it also can help alleviate some of the "you are winning" nonsense.

Use the civ IV diplomacy system. It was clear and transparent with no guess work on when they will become friendly. It also wasn't cumulative, which is silly.

Make governments more distinct and flavorful. They just feel like number systems right now. Make certain cards only available to certain governments. Introduce me as "Grand Czar of Communist Nubia" or Dictator of the great peoples republic of the Aztecs". Make city states align with certain governments, tie a base amenity level to governments.

 

[Zuizgond]

1. Spy mechanism needs to be reworked, it's boring and tedious
2. Religion needs to be reworked to more passive pressure (from trade routes, holy sites, relation with other civs) and remove religious units
3. Tourism is redundant with culture and needs to be reworked completely

 

[V. Soma]

I read lots of great suggestions here... I hope Firaxis have a look at them and take them seriously...

for me these stand out now:
- Ranged and melee units be on one tile - so kind of 2UPT (see Combat and Stacking Overhaul mod)
- we don't need religious units... religion should be spreading passively
- loyalty pressure should have some cultural/wonder building component, that is: tourism/greatness have effect on loyalty

and for immersion and info, I add in an idea:

I want Ai leaders appear on the diplo screen in accordance:
- to the era they are in (clothes, surroundings, city picture)
- have a background that reflects the government they have (buildings, interior)
- and reflect the military strength (with number of delegation together with the leader or sg. like that)

something like this was in civ1, if I recall...
I know it can't be made animated, but then give this as still pictures - who the hell needs animated leaders, anyways?

(Or if Firaxis thinks animated leaders are a selling eye-candy, then give this still picture thing as a selectable version at setting)

 

[Thibaulthc]

1. The return of the United Nations (ok, that's more than a "mechanic change")
2. Unique Improvements staying after conquest
3. Automatic Open Borders when liberating a city
4. ( coz 1. is not a valid) Being able to scroll a list of all the combats results (to follow all the action while being in "fast combat")
5. (coz 4. is more an UI change) Tourism having effects other than just points toward CV. (combat , trade, loyalty bonuses)

 

[Arent11]

We don't already have a thread like this, do we? Top 3 changes you'd like firaxis to make to the gameplay.

Only three?

(1) Make civilizations more iconic/better balanced traits
(2) Give population units an own nationality, religion, ideology & education & let them migrate between cities depending on wars, sanitation etc.
(3) Revamp the 1 UPT to make infantry units again 1 move/turn & only siege weapons having 2 range

 

[blackcatatonic]

1. Return to Civ V's system of movement rules. The Civ VI system results in wasted leftover movement points which serve no purpose other than to irritate. By all means reduce the movement points of some units if needed.

2. Diplomacy tweaks: remove the "formal war" distinction for joint wars and make the AI far less likely to agree to them if relationship with the target has always been friendly. Get rid of the sillier agendas. And make it possible to intervene peacefully if your friend/ally attacks your suzerained CS.

3. Tweak or replace some Civ abilities to make each Civ or leader feel more unique. A good start would be to replace some of the casus belli-themed buffs as there are far too many and oftentimes they are too situational to get much use from. Let's have more things like Civ V Carthage's ability to cross mountains, Indonesia's free luxuries and so on. Less number tweaking, more flavour please.

 

[LMT]

Mine are similar to some others that have been suggested.

1) Some type of economic victory, possibly tied to a UN/World Congress.

2) Great prophets available throughout the game, though still limited. This in combination with fewer apostles. And perhaps some type of scientific penalty with increased religiosity in the later game stages.

3) Have a more specific goal/direction for a cultural victory. Of all the victory types, this is the most amorphous.

 

[Portinou]

1. Joint war
2. Joint war
3. Joint war

 

[PhilBowles]

1. Make City Quality relevant.
2. Make Long-term investments relevant.
3. Make Peace Play competitive on Higher Difficulties.

Not sure what 1. means, 2. seems to be demanding that Civ VI become a real strategy game, which would require a complete rework, and 3 is possible - I've done it.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Not sure what 1. means, 2. seems to be demanding that Civ VI become a real strategy game, which would require a complete rework, and 3 is possible - I've done it.

(But there was no end of the complaining about "Long Term Investments" when they were in 5. Social Policy was one of the top complaints from the "but it's not Civ 4!" crowd.)

1. Tourism! Ugh!
2. Make my arrow keys move my guys around again. Make "C" Center on unit, etc. (yeah, I'm kinda being a hypocrite here. I just got done complaining about people not letting Civ 4 go and now I'm complaining about things they should have kept from CivIV).
3. Free tacos.

 

[leandrombraz]

2. Change or remove the stupider agendas. At a minimum, this should include the agendas that are basically luck-based (Victoria, Chandragupta, etc., and especially flirtatious and curmudgeon, which might as well be additional "they just like/don't like you" modifiers), but should ideally include agendas that like or hate you for playing normally, especially if they trigger far too easily (Peter, Pedro, Frederick/Pericles, etc.). They should also make the agendas take into consideration whether it's even possible to comply with them (e.g., no more situations where Mvemba gets mad at you because you didn't spread your religion to him in less time than it takes for your missionaries to get there; likewise, Wilhelmina shouldn't dislike civs who are out of trade route range). Some of the agendas are great, so the devs do know how to make good, interesting, agendas. Special mention goes to Saladin, who would have a fine agenda (the positive half is a bit narrow for my taste, but doable)...if they'd stuck with disliking civs who attacked coreligionists (interesting) and didn't have him also dislike civs who don't share his religion (almost everyone).

I think they changed Pedro's agenda trigger. I got several Great People in my game and it never triggered. It either only trigger if we get a Great People he was actually going for or they broke it for good and now it never trigger. Either way, I didn't get penalized as soon as I got a GP.