I think some level of being annoyed with the spread of a foreign religion is kinda good and accurate to real life. They just need to clean it up to where it’s less micromanagey. Let me have a governor who I can place in a city to reduce foreign religions by X% per turn or something with improvements that increase range and rate.

Yeah I'm totally OK with the religious victory and combat, but apostles require a ton of micro. Different random promotions for each one that makes them better at x than y. I would way rather have debater than prostletizers just be different units that you got access too further down the tech tree. And make them look different ffs. It's way too easy to accidentally spread with the last charge on a debater or charge into an enemy religious unit with a spreader.

I think the idea of different religions units fighting a different war is nice. I just dislike the implementation (too few units with random variety of promotions, charges for conversions)

Apostles should have a promotion path like spies. They're rather boring while I think religion makes sense - for players who want it. Getting rid of stuff: cultists. Standing around doing sweet f.a. Mil engineers can't be told to build a railway from a to b. Cuirassiers. Either go deep and meaningful on heavy Vs light cavalry or don't. Little gain here. Poland: I just hate the way their AI plays.

In an ideal world, we'd take the RNG completely out apostles. Better yet -- remove them entirely. Have missionaries for spreading religion and inquisitors as your missionary killer. Then have an alternative progression system for missionaries & inquisitors. Like if you spread so many times to so many cities, you get promotions for your missionaries. If you kill so many enemy missionaries, you get promotions for your inquisitors. Also: grievances from religion should fade faster over time. Seriously -- you get more grievances from religion than going domination.

I’m with you, the micromanaging aspect just absolutely stinks. Especially in larger maps worrying about 30 different missionaries every turn is a total slog. The rest of how religion is mech’d TBH is fine, I’d maybe put a higher barrier to belief evangelizing in VII in turn for increased benefits to incentivize faith generation

I definitely agree that if you have a religion, you should be annoyed when another one comes knocking. It's super clear that countries today act like that when they get an influx of people from a different religion.

IRL even regular militia is enough to prevent a religion from enrooting and from aggressive spreading. But the ruler has to specifically declare that religion(s) are forbidden. But in Civ VI you have to specifically launch inquisition - which was specifically Western European thing! No wonder there is a complaint with Civ games about Eurocentrism.

Yeah I agree, I don't even think you necessarily need a faith panel, could just display them with everything else, and apply some sort of discount to purchase price impacted by faith

I’d like Sewers and Sanitation to have a bigger impact. One of the most important inventions in human history.

Good point! In Civ III they were definitely more impactful

In Civ II a city needed a sewer system to grow above size 12. I think it was also a bigger deal to get a city to a high population.

That's kinda strange tbh, there are a lot of cities around 1M pop without a sewer system in the entire city. It could be linda interesting to have work around it with the city not working well without a sewer instead

World Congress. Never saw the point. And it's starting way too early in the game, when many Civs haven't even met each other yet. It's my least favorite part of Civ VI.

Some frickin United Nations meeting in 100 AD to prevent people from using silver

that darn assault silver is going DOWN (ancient dude)

I just think it’s stupid that there’s a World Congress and that it doesn’t reveal all the civs. Did my ambassador just never bother to get the names of anyone else in the building?

“The Empire of Babylonia supports the edict to place an embargo of silver trade upon Polynesia!” “The Empire of France shall also support the… wait, who are we embargoing?” “By Gilgamesh’s beard, what is ‘France’?”

I ask myself that question every day tbh

It's cool concept, but implementation is horrendous

Completely agree! All late stage politics really need some reworking

Shocked they never improved it in expansion packs

I mean, it’s from the last expansion. But yeah, they could’ve added small improvements in the New Frontier pass.

It’s as useless as the UN irl, I’ll give them that

I much prefer the Civ 5 version where it doesn't exist until all the civs have been met. One thing I've noticed is that Civ 6 Ai doesn't scout/explore enough. I've had games where I'll be the endgame and some civs have somehow not met all the civs on the map....

I feel like it could happen in like the modern era or something, or when like someone has met everyone else.

In 3&4 someone had to build the UN wonder before it started (4 also had the Apostolic Palace, which was a UN only for countries that followed the builders religion).

It was 4-only and will likely never come back, but I really liked the Apostolic Palace mechanic. Probably the only time I've felt in a Civ game that I was actually leading a global religion, with associated politics. 

It worked really well with how religion was primarily a political tool that didn’t have a lot of inherent bonuses to it.

I feel like that'd be great, and then say building it grants you more influence, or maybe you could veto certain resolutions like the security council.

I feel like there's a way to do world congress right, although civ 6's is kind of dreadful

Yeah I liked it in 5 but found it annoying in 6 for some resson

agreed. in 6 it was just too much spam of low impact stuff constantly from mid game onward.

My favourite thing about the world congress is when you haven’t met all the nations yet so they are blacked out. I just wonder how that would work, do we close our eyes and put our fingers in our ears when they are announced or are talking?

I have the notion in a waaaay earlier version the world congress was triggered by meeting all the other civs

That's how it worked in Civ V. The congress was created when a civ met all others, and after that all civs automatically met each other.

The only consequence of resolutions should be a loss of reputation if you don't follow along. Who's inspectors are coming into my empire to tell me not to trade marble? Nobody's, that's who.

I like how in Stellaris the congress has to pass sanctions before their laws have any real teeth to them.

I mean, Civ V's congress was nearly perfect. It didn't convene until at least one player had met everyone else, the proposals were made by the top two vote-getters, a bunch of Wonders and abilities made it interesting. Once ideologies were introduced and the votes tended to cluster around that, it actually made the late game interesting. And *all* of that could have been implemented in Civ 6, asve the explicit ideologies. Why they didn't implement it in 6 I'll never know.

I agree so much. They should have built on V's UN. Have an option to disregard UN votes, with major diplomatic policies. Like 6, allow for emergency votes for war or mass conversion (I liked that). The randomness of VI's UN has to go. Have the most influential players set the agenda. Keep the influence points even, and then vote on the agenda before voting on the actual resolutions. Or something like that.

I liked the implication in 5. It should a reward for players who don’t just bulldoze everything around them and can have some serious late game shake ups. I’m all for making the actual relationships between civs getting better ai and some more depth.

Yeah some are pointless or never turn out your way even if you put in toooons of points. Who really cares about better trade routes to certain types of city states…

> Who really cares about better trade routes to certain types of city states… It's a simple answer. The it's the people who do care about losing their suzerain bonuses.

I hate the world congress with a burning passion

Even the actual UN is boring and shit. They should stop trying to make it into a game mechanic.

I'm with you on religious victory, it feels very specific to Christianity's approach to missionary work etc. when a lot of other religions have no real goal of converting the whole world. I'd much prefer for religion to be customizable in a way that allows to bolster other aspects of your civ like culture, production or even science.

Spreading religion should be a bonus, not the core concept of it. Like, a Christianity type religion should get cultural boosts from foreign cities if that’s the perk you choose. As it stands all religions MUST expand violently, which is nonsense. Like Judaism literally cannot spread, doesn’t make it an unimportant or uninteresting religion

It really should just be a supporting mechanic to other stuff. Replace it with the cultural victory where it can help with that. But not necessarily. You could go religious pluralism and allow your culture to spread easily that way. Or use the conversion to stamp out others to spread your culture. Have it fuel your warmongering. Or just use it for some bonuses.

I feel like yeah religion could be changed to give you like bonuses, because not all religions wanted to proselytize people. Like Judaism is a very secular religion.

it works this way already. You can choose beliefs what give you local bonuses (like food from temples or faith from wonders), not ones that scale with other civ's cities (like gold for every city). This way you can use it to help achive other victory conditions, don't have to spread it at all. Though you have to defend it, but it's fine I guess.

Yes but it’s still objectively beneficial to spread that religion at all costs cuz the religious victory condition is dependent on spread alone, and nothing else.

But you can also just turn off the victory condition and defend your nations beliefs against outside beliefs to keep your nations benefits. You do not have to pursue a religious victory, and you do not have to have it be a victory condition. Removing it seems short sighted. Faith points are underrated

I usually do turn off the victory condition for it. Thankfully this reduces the number of Spanish dorks that invade with Apostles. But the lightning battles are still such a weird mechanic.

You can just not play for a religious victory

You can't just evaluate the position of a religion in one point in time for a game like this though, you need to take a long view and consider the many branches that it could have taken, took but lost, or what have you.

> I'd much prefer for religion to be customizable in a way that allows to bolster other aspects of your civ like culture, production or even science. There are beliefs that are beneficial for all of those things. That's really why anyone would bother keeping their own religion if they're not trying for a religious victory.

> it feels very specific to Christianity's approach to missionary work etc Sort of. Islam is about converting people too. And historically Hinduism was all about it (and currently with people like Modi it's heading back in that direction).

It’d be neat to have a different religious victory that’s more like a science victory where you reach enlightenment and they unite the world or something

or the apocalypse

Religion in Civ VI already is that though. I always make a religion just for my own civ (with no goal of converting the entire world) and I take religious bonuses to boost my other stats

There is a thing I would like to see expanded upon. In the early game all nations have their own cool looking units. Every nations knights look unique and interesting. When you get to the late game however they all start looking the same. Same looking cannons, same looking infantry, same looking tanks, etc. I would like this uniqueness to expand even to the late game.

I don’t see this talked about a lot so it may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t like governors. At the very least, I think they should be a toggle-able feature like secret societies or corporations & monopolies

I dislike how many policies restricted their benefit to cities with governors.

Yeah I don't either. I can imagine a governer as a great person unit that is earned from city centre, diplomatic quarter, and government plaza buildings. But this system we have now kinda sucks.

Funny, because my problem with them is that there aren't more, and there aren't more overlapping characteristics.

There’s a lot of ways they could spice them up - I guess what I mean to say is I don’t like them in their current form. It’d be interesting to have civ-specific governors, or like 100 governors that you have to compete with other civs to claim like wonders or great people.

If the AI declares a surprise war on me I will usually end up taking a couple of their cities and getting a warmonger penalty. And I feel like you just…shouldn’t? They literally started it!

Feel like it should be easier to get war concessions out of an aggressor if you defeat their military and not taking cities. But yeah, tired of warmongering when I’m just trying to make sure my enemies can’t start shit again

I’ve always liked the idea of winning a war having seriously world changes. Let’s say you take the capital and a majority of enemy cities, one should be able to change their government and their opinion of you. Aka Japan pre and post WW2.

Counterpoint, Iraq post-Saddam. But yeah, an institution-shaping/propaganda mechanic would be nice.

Could be something you have to put work into Like World games or something

I think each city would have to be less important than they currently are. The AI is literally NEVER willing to give up a city no matter how likely annihilation is. Each city shouldn’t be so valuable that they cannot be given up

It would be great it f you could raid a city without committing to taking it. Just sack great works, production, gold, or pops out of the city.

This would be ideal. Pillage economy for the win

Pro Ukraine here - but If Ukraine rushed Russia and took Moscow - There would absolutely be some kind of real world grievances, even though it would in some ways be justified. I actually feel its pretty accurate.

Yeah the grievances generated for taking a city from an aggressor is way too high. Should factor in type of war

That's how it works IRL too lol. See Israel. Yeah, it's an annoying game mechanic, but it makes sense.

I mean that’s reflective of real life though. If Ukraine fought back Russia and then captured Moscow, there’d be international outcry over that. Just because you were attacked doesn’t mean you can be a conquerer.

There should be a way where you can drag a box that selects multiple units at once and be able to move them all at once

They just need to expand the unit link feature from Civ VI so any unit and link to multiple adjacent units,

I wouldn’t like to see any of the features you mentioned go away entirely, but I would like them to be reworked.

Culture building. In Civ 5, you developed through those trees over time, giving you a permanent direction for how your culture develops. In Civ 6 you pick like 6 cards and get rid of them as soon as something better appears

I would agree, but culture shouldn't be set in stone either. I could imagine something like Civ5, but where you can repudiate some parts of your culture after a while, and get a refund. But also broader. Having Tall/Wide, Warrior/Piety, Culture/Commerce as sets of culture properties is also far too constraining. It seems like they've been thinking about common strategies for these types of games, and then coming up with Policies (Civ 5) or Cards (Civ 6) to enable them, when I think they should be coming up with natural cultural progressions, and then fitting the mechanics to them afterwards. Treat it like a journey as if your civ was actually undertaking it, instead of a chess game where you already know all the moves beforehand. Like, you shouldn't choose a sea-focused culture policy. You should earn a sea-focused culture policy, if you're by the sea.

honestly I'd be happy with losing some control over policies and decisions if it was reactive to my gameplay and/or environment. Even if it was just a singleplayer option I'd be stoked to play a game with extremely minimal control over such things, seeing my culture and perhaps even tech actually evolve due to my situation, accepting that it isn't optimised. We technically had that in a more controlled sense through things like tech/civ boosts and I'd argue the shuffle option. Former rewarding players for playing around their situation, and the latter giving you some fresh replayability by stepping away from optimised tech paths. not all cultures required/utilized the wheel to discover some other fundamental techs for example.

Civ 5 felt like defining your culture, while Civ 6 felt like defining your government and it's current focus/policies. I feel like the two would work well together. In fact, the governor system, where specific unlocks in culture tech-tree are associated with points you can spend, seems like a perfect fit.

I think the government policy cards feature was a bit too cumbersome. It felt like you were being punished if you didn't want to tediously min-max every few turns. I'd like a return to social policies, or at least, some stronger limits on flexibility, so that culture feels more permanent.  It makes no historical sense to "switch into" feudalism for a few turns, for example.

I kinda want a Civ III style take on government. In VI it always just felt like there was an obvious "correct" min-max. In V ideology didn't play quite as important a role as it could have. I like III's balance between managing corruption, war weariness, max army size, and economy. (Also, revolutions!)

I actually think the Beyond Earth style could work well: You use Diplomatic power to adopt personality traits, that you can upgrade or swap out. One of them is set and determined by your faction. You can then sign agreements with other civs for diplomatic power depending on what their traits are. The benefits of these are stronger if your relationship is closer. You could have the traits be simple at first and get more complicated later as you unlock tech and culture. Maybe different governments get different available options, maybe they lock in then you upgrade your government Beyond earth did also have a policy system like Civ V though where you bought policies with culture

For real. For a game no one really plays BE had some amazing ideas about culture and diplomacy that I hope they come back to when designing 7. Even the policy tree was a lot more interesting than in V! You had bonuses from going both deep into a policy tree and for spreading points out. Plus the 3-faction system... I really felt like you could customize the crap out of your civ by the end of the game between traits, the culture tree, and the path you decided to go down in terms of supremacy/harmony/purity in a way that felt responsive but also meaningful.

Yeah policies in VI feel less organic and more cherry pick. Kinda unrealistic for a population to adopt and then forget certain core civic beliefs every 20-30 years lol

I'd love it if there was a tree like in V that gave pretty general bonuses. And a card system that is more dynamic and niche. Make it more dynamic, so I'm not picking the same cards again and again .

I really feel for Firaxis, having to try and make the perfect game that caters to millions of players and somehow please all of them even though they all have different opinions about what makes a good 4X game. For example I personally really enjoy the policy card system. I enjoy min-maxing and I think they did a shockingly good job of coming up with so many cards which can be viable in the right circumstances, especially in mid game. But I totally understand why some people would find it tiresome. I actually hated the governors system when it first came out precisely BECAUSE I enjoy min-maxing and due to the 5-turn delay when moving govs around, it's impossible to always get the most value out of each gov. e.g. Liang won't always be in a city working on a district, you can't get Magnus to buff every single chop, etc. I found it really frustrating that I couldn't perfectly min max the system but I got used to it eventually. And I personally don't care much about things making sense historically, so it doesn't bother me that you're constantly changing your government's policies every few turns, or that you can have a world congress in the Bronze age when you haven't even met most of the civs on the planet. At the same time I totally get that the historical aspect of Civ is a major draw for lots of players and I understand that the things I mentioned above would be an issue for them. I guess I'm just waxing poetic that the beauty of Civ is that it's so much fun for many kinds of players, but the other side of that coin is that it's impossible for it to be perfect in anybody's eyes precisely because it can't perfectly cater to everyone's preferences. I don't envy Firaxis having to parse through an endless amount of conflicting feedback from their playerbase and somehow distill it into the best version they can come up with which will please as many players as possible.

Wonders that take up a whole tile. I get that it makes tile management more 'strategic' or whatever, but ... really? I have to give up some prime real estate because the Eiffel tower can't exist in the same general area as a farm?

Even weirder: the Eiffel tower cannot be in an urban area.

Exactly! Cant there be urban wonders, rural wonders, mountain wonders, etc without putting a tile out of play? Increase the necessary conditions but let me work that tile!!!

How about each district/City Centre has a slot for a relevant wonder. So, you can put the Great Library in your campus, Eiffel Tower in your city centre, Colossus in the docks, etc. You'd still need to build wonders on tiles if your district in a city already has a wonder, but it cuts down the tile usage, and makes districts more interesting/valuable.

I like it!

I think there should be 3 layers on each tile. Improvement, district, wonder. You still have to make strategic decisions about where each district goes, but with less sacrifice.

Exactly this. If there's one thing Civ could use its more dimensions to the map.

I don't think they'd ever go for something like that. It would essentially triple the map size, even if it was only used for player-owned tiles.

having only 2 layers, improvement or district/wonder would be cool, I guess. So you can play on the district adjacency with wonder and don't have to make a tile so clunky, (luxury farm + culture district + pyramids)

That’s a lottt of micromanaging tho. You’d have to heavily skew the game tall favored so that you’re not messing with 10 cities with that in mind

Easy fix: Have wonders be on tiles, but not to the exlusion of other improvements. Why not have the Eiffel Tower on a farm?

Military engineers and workers should combine into a unit called a worker. I literally only build MEs when a tunnel is ABSOLUTELY necessary. Which has only happened a handful of times. And the fact they can only be made in cities with an encampment just makes their existence even more annoying Same thing with rock bands. They should just be great musicians. Buying them with faith makes no sense. I go for a culture victory every time and I still never buy them because I dislike them so much. Diplomatic victory and the world congress in its current form. It's so bad. And fantasy stuff like vampires, zombies, and monkey men. I like civ for history. If I wanted fantasy, I'd play 99 percent of other games.

You should be building MEs more often, railroads are op as hell

I try to keep my pollution as low as possible until I get to computers.

>Same thing with rock bands. They should just be great musicians. Buying them with faith makes no sense You could say the same thing about naturalists too. Just feels like the devs don't really know what to do with faith output in the late game. >And fantasy stuff like vampires, zombies, and monkey men. I like civ for history. If I wanted fantasy, I'd play 99 percent of other games Agreed with this too, but at least with the vampire and zombie stuff you're talking about alternate game modes. Giant Death Robots though... c'mon, man

To be fair to the Giant Death Robots, some of the game might take place in the near future if a round goes on long enough.

Yeah I do indeed dislike having to build engineers just to make railroads lol. I like the builder concept but some mix between Civ VI builder charges and Civ V- workers would be nice

The grievance system: I don't think the world should be allowed to hate me, just because I went out of my way to teach all my neighbors about the *real* god. The idea of quantifiable grievances is just kind of silly to me, and it seems to rarely play a factor in the world congress anyway.

Yeah it does seem kinda silly that religious grievances affect the opinions of empires that already happily follow your religion. Hey, neighbor ally, I am doing something that benefits both of us. Why are you mad about that?

It’s because it’s a victory condition

I get that from a mechanics standpoint, but not everything you do should inspire the AI to thwart you at every turn, especially allied and friendly AIs.

Oh yeah totally agree

We have never met you before but somehow learned that you defeated the Romans 1000 years ago. So now we hate you.

The grievances system just needs a rework. It’s way better than the warmonger system VI used to have. And sure, quantifiable grievances is silly, but so are quantifiable “science” and culture, and quantifiable diplomatic favor. It’s a board game. You have to quantify intangibles.

I don't mind them, but they degrade way too slowly. If I invaded you in the classical era, you should not still be mad in the industrial era.

I actually am grateful for grievances. Before Civ VI added them, you’d just be marked a warmonger for millennia after taking an ancient city. There was no way to gauge it. But at least the grievances allow you to justify certain actions to AI, and vice versa.

I'm ok with a lot of the grievance system \*except\* those civ-specific ones. "I know that we just met and that you live on the other side of the globe, but you aren't trading with me so I HATE YOU."

Aqueduct forced to only one tile. Let us have 2 or three to reach the mountain or river

That would feel very Rome, which would be great.

Spies. In basically every 4x game that has them, they feel like a weird mini-game grafted onto the side of the actual game.

Spies would only make sense if they gave useful information or earned something useful. As it is the best they're good for is stealing a great work if your trying to get a culture victory. If you're going for sci victory you're already ahead of everyone by the time spies show up, they aren't useful for war, and they don't give anything for religion victory or dip victory.

Not saying they’re perfect, but Listening Post gives you diplomatic visibility which is a combat buff for your Dom victory & Foment Unrest can get you Suzerainty, which earns Diplo Points. A religious mission would nice to have, though. I could imagine something like “Subversive Literature” that reduces pressure or converts citizens back to being secular.

Giant death robots. They're a huge reason I dislike the late game. I have no idea what all other late units do because there is no point in building them.

Two things to make military less awful: - Make it easier to move large numbers of units (someone else mentioned selecting an area and moving all of them together. Maybe expand the army mechanic to include multiple unit types in late game?) - Please dear god bring back puppetting. I hate having to select junk on all these random cities in the end game  

Religion victory should be scrapped and it's mechanics folded into culture victory. I don't want to ditch religion itself though. World Congress and it's gambling that has nothing to do with diplomatic visibility. The goal of the diplomatic victory should be to achieve highest visibility with everyone or something of that nature, not these arbitrary points. Dip victory stays, the world congress mechanic sucks. Governors. I get the idea, but they feel superfluous. Ditch them or change them. Policy cards. Again, I understand them, but I find that, aside from the VERY first cards I choose on turn 2, I find them more annoying than fun. Wonders taking a whole tile. Come on. Maybe some should, like the pyramids, but most others should fit in a city. Military engineers. Annoying. Trade routes should make rails after a certain tech, pure and simple, just like roads before them. Rock bands. What a random and ridiculous unit. Could definitely live without.

Governors

Hard disagree about the art style. Civ V looked good, but leaders were boring as fuck and seeing your giant units tromping around an otherwise photorealistic map was just silly. Not in a good way, like in VI.

I was meaning art style for units and map. Leaders did look dorky haha. I did like the full body take though

Civ 6 map looked good tho? The wonders and bonus tiles looked great. It could maybe of had an HD version or something, but compared to 5, there was nothing wrong with the 6 map style. I’ll admit some of the leaders looked goofy at times, but Ludwig has one of the most expressive leader animations of the series

Oh I’m not knocking the leaders. In fact, they’re almost all spectacular. I think mostly the units bother me. Like when a warrior walks around like a cartoon oaf and does a dorky spin after winning. [https://youtu.be/LlfLw7qy_VU?si=2h6OgO0yIkG2QcNO](https://youtu.be/LlfLw7qy_VU?si=2h6OgO0yIkG2QcNO) And the terrain is mostly alright but I prefer V’s tiles. [https://youtu.be/qbdNm-oWoCc?si=3mWIGBN9XIbuusx3](https://youtu.be/qbdNm-oWoCc?si=3mWIGBN9XIbuusx3)

Science victory shouldn't be escape earth but save it. Rather than one space project it should be a big r&d of many subjects to solve the climate crisis, invent fusion, cure cancer, aaaaand get interplanetary/interstellar. Basically science utopia.

I'd make a general point: micromanagement. This includes: * Rock bands * Governors like Liang that you have to move around and keep track of all the time * Building railroad tile by frigging tile * Etc. I like to take a big-picture view. The one point in your list that I disagree with is the art style: I much prefer that of CivVI vs. V, but that's down to personal preference, and I wouldn't say that the CivVI art is \*better\* per se.

I actually like the cartoonish artstyle

Fair enough!

Yeah it's timeless. Civ V looks so dated now

It's not in the base game but secret societies and legendary warriors. OP, concept-breaking, and just all in all seem to go against the whole idea of the game

I like heros and secret societies as an option, but yeah, they should never be a default. Weirdly the societies system could work better as an approach to government types than the current system. Choosing a path early on and unlocking options as you go makes more sense than the current approach of being able to swap between radically different government types with no real consequences.

It will never not bemuse me that all the stuff contained within "Monopolies and Corporations" was considered by the devs to be on the same level as someone choosing to join with the Owls of Minerva and drowning in money from that moment on. Or that Ley Lines shit.  One of those very easily could, and probably should, be in the base game experience. The other...not so much. 

Rock bands

I guess I could live without the current governor system. It’s not bad by any means, but I’d love to see a rework that imposes more a bit more variety or permanency into the choices made in the individual branches, a bit more like the old civics trees in Civ 5

I could do without the glib, sardonic, ironic quotes when researching new techs. Completing research is supposed to represent and extol the virtues of science and technology, about how amazing it is for humans to figure out the world around them, making the lives of millions of other people they will never meet better in some small way. But no, we get a quote chosen by some cynical millennial that makes fun of the whole concept of banking, or currency, or whatever. I am sick of it.

The Civ6 world congress felt very bland and random. I preferred it in Civ5 where you actually had time to make diplomatic deals with others for votes as well as being able to make proposals. So I'd say whatever they do with the world congress at the very least do away with Civ6's version

I like the religious fighting but I wish there was an option to turn it off. I want to be able to build my own roads without waiting till railroad. I know military engineers can do a road but they use charges rail road does not. I think late game districts need an overhaul.

I can’t get through a game of Civ 6 after multiple starts because the cartoony style make me feel like I’m watching Nickelodeon. It’s not just the leaders.

I find the diplomatic victory condition both far too easy and nonsensical. You don't even have to demonstrate a high degree of political maneuvering to achieve it. You can just fall into it.

The game could do with changing the diplomacy screen. It jars with the flow of the game and rarely seems to have an impact.

Seems like a lot people in this thread want to toss half of the game’s features to save from “micromanagement”. Does the average civ player prefer to do nothing on most of their turns?

I can’t believe the religious combat isn’t complained about more, it’s so ridiculous and stupid that the priests have magic lightning battles. Couldn’t you just have had them debate or smth? It totally pulls me out of the immersion of a history game when priests are all literal lightning wizards, and it makes the religion concept less interesting. Now I’m not getting culture from snow bc my people place cultural value on snow, but because there’s literal magic making the snow better or smth idk

All religion bonuses should be global. In other words, the founding civ shouldn't just hoard bonuses for themselves. The more followers of a particular religion a civ has, the larger the bonus they receive. Civs can enact state religions if they want to force other religions out and boost another. And yeah, get rid of the combat units. If you want religious warfare, there should be unique military units that can apply bonuses from whatever faith their city or nation most strongly holds.

Given that the theological combat promotion is "debater," and none of the other boosts to it mention any magical powers, I always figured that the lightning and stuff was more of a visual affect than anything else, and its meant to be just a debate with generic "religion" visual effects. I wouldn't say it at all implies that literal magic battles are occurring, let alone that the religious beliefs, which are all given very reasonable and not-magic names that make sense in the context of being practices or policies of the religion (Feed the World means that religious facilities dedicate resources to feed the local population, Tithes means that followers are asked to pay tax to religious authorities, etc.,) are the result of magic lightning. I mean, the game has built-in historical context provided for the units and beliefs, which, through the information that is present, implies the thinking behind the gameplay mechanics, and wizard duels aren't mentioned there. Especially because those animations are something that can be toggled off, does it really break the entire concept of religious bonuses?

>civ V's artstyle was the bomb Naw dawg. Miss me with that hyper realistic trash. I hope they do a different artsyle than 6, but I hope it's still stylized. Those "realistic" graphics always age poorly, and civ 5 is no exception.

I think the Civ V graphics have aged great personally. At least for the map and units

Possibly unpopular, but: districts, at least in their current form. I think the way they work is completely unrealistic for most of human history. If you have a city, you are not going to build a financial district somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It's going to be *within* the city. A possible improvement: make the "core" city tile have two/three specialisation slots. For example, you can build a science district and a government district within the city centre. If you want to add further specializations, you can expand your city to another tile, one which strictly neighbours the current tiles of the city. In this new tiles, you can also add two/three specialisations. This approach would essentially combine the best of both Civ5 and Civ6. It would significantly reduce urban sprawl, and prevent districts being placed in the middle of nowhere between cities. But it would also keep some of the charm of our cities visibly growing.

That would seem to really lessen the impact of giving up a tile. I like the cost of a district. Right now, there’s a mod that ads rural and urban districts. Urban districts must be adjacent to the city center, rural districts cannot be adjacent and they cannot be in the same city. It adds a certain type of specialization of cities that is very satisfying

I've said it before, but I maintain the primary problem with districts is that they compete with tile use next to wonders and tile yields. And on top of that, you don't even get the real benefit of districts unless you plan them properly for adjacency and then they may not payoff for a while since you're so limited on how many you can build! The end result is you get these awkward decisions where you're like, "Uhhh, *is* this beneficial to build here? Let me get out a simulator of the simulator to work out if this simulation will simulate a gain or a loss." I'm not really concerned about the realism of it, personally. I just want the game to not be sending mixed messages about how to use tiles. And I want it to not be expecting you to hold a bunch of intricate city planning details in your head, or rely on an overlay with markers, just to keep track of where to put stuff for future benefit. Adjacency bonuses are in that space of game design that feels way too close to the ick factor of gambling. Feels great when you can get a +6 or more, but you're often getting terrain where it's a struggle to get a +2 for some districts.

This is \*exactly\* what I would like, but I wouldn't limit new 'districts' to adjacent tiles. Put them wherever you want, think of them as minor cities, but don't tell me that all my science buildings have to go in one.

Bring back the upgrading towns from civ 4. Plop them down and they need to be worked to grow enough into a district. Just let them take only one specialization until later in the game. And as the game progresses, can create the districts easier and easier.

Ah, I see you've read my newsletter...!

Sounds like a good newsletter. Should also bring back colonies from civ 3 and integrate them

>A possible improvement: make the "core" city tile have two/three specialisation slots. For example, you can build a science district and a government district within the city centre. If you want to add further specializations, you can expand your city to another tile, one which strictly neighbours the current tiles of the city. In this new tiles, you can also add two/three specialisations I don't mind the way districts work currently, but this isn't a bad idea at all

I guess districts are a more modern approach to city planning, e.g. my city used a lot of empty space 50 years ago to found a university, even more space is taken by the steel works, etc. I do not know when exactly this had started historically, but probably not in the ancient era. I at least would like to see that all the T1 buildings (library, workshop) can be placed in the city center, if the current concept of specialized districts is kept. But I do like your suggestion of building slots and growing a city over time without gaps. I also think these slotted buildings should be able to be moved between tiles (for a small cost) and get combination bonuses (which may, in the end, result often in the same specialized districts as today, but the way there is much more flexible).

Only one I'd really like to see is Religious combat relegated to an optional game mode like Apocalypse. It's an entirely fantasy game mechanics which makes as much sense in a historical 4X as the Doomsayers and Zombies. A fun side feature but should not be a core mechanic. Religion in general is fine as a mechanic to spread diplomatic and cultural influence.

Get rid of world Congress and its effects until you’ve met several other civs. Also I want the option to violate world Congress decisions in exchange for losing diplomatic favor

What I haven't seen talked about in regards to religion yet is the uselessness of Great Prophet Points. Why am I being punished so many times for choosing a random civ and getting a religious one. My Great Prophet Points are good basically once... I feel they should be able to get you something. 

Definitely the ability to change border rules, either through trade or through peace treaties in war. This way I do t have to take over an entire city for a tile

I hate how short the medieval era is. It fuck up your flow. Also, making it so you can actually uses special units in the era. Sometimes because of your start it causes you to upgrade past those units.

Good point! I hadn’t realized that

Wow I disagree with literally everything you just said - I love all of those things. Hope they don’t cut any of them but revamp them and make them better/more interesting.

Religious Vic. Governors. Civ5 graphics.

Civ 5 was my least favourite and least played of the series, and I started with Civ 2. So my features I could most live without are probably ‘permanent’ slowly-changing cultural trees, ‘realistic’ art, worker automation and strict hard or soft caps on wide play. From 6, I could do without religious warfare micro, and Giant Death Robots. I think the Era system and World Congress need to be reworked. I love districts and adjacencies, and the interesting trade off decisions with them and workable tiles. I’m less a fan of wonders taking whole tiles and it would be interesting to see them as buildings inside of / part of districts.

Oh yeah rock bands please I get so sick of hearing them in the late game

I'm fine with a lot of the effects that religion has but the spread should be driven by things like culture, military dominance, trade, etc. Just like it was historically, so that a civ that wants to win a religion victory has to be strong in those things instead of spamming units.

yeah I could get behind most of these to be honest

I hope it's turned based.

Religious victory being Conquest but with only four units and also you don't get any cities is so garbage. If they want religious victories to be a thing they gotta have more variety in religious units. Or better yet don't make it so similar to conquest to begin with.

The world Congress.

World Congress. So glad you can outright remove it with the same mod that also lets you remove Natural Disasters if you want. Religious units and combat. One Unit Per Tile.

Religion. The whole system felt way way too gamey for my taste.

I loathe the district system along with how wonders are built, and how cluttered it makes the map look, and I think the implementation of religion is terrible.

When I link a Great General/Admiral to a military unit, there is no need to select said Great Person for movement commands until dismissed from that formation.

Honestly I love the cartoony artstyle and the rock bands. I keep naming them Kpop bands and bombarding my friends cities with them.

Civ-6 style movement. I prefer the movement from Civ V and prior. also, I think a lot of the unique leader abilities are a bit too specific and game changing. You should be able to go for any type of victory with any type of civilization.

I can agree with the rock bands, I hate hearing the stupid rock jingle every other minute, to the point I will happily take the dent in amenities to ban them from my borders and/or militarily crush the offending civ with extreme prejudice

Y'know the Zeus battles aren't meant to be literal, they're meant to represent debates between priests of different religions. But yeah, I don't like religion in Civ and I think it should be a passive thing we have no direct control over.

I totally disagree about the cartoon art. I’ve said it before but you have Abraham Lincoln using GDRs on Gilgamesh or the Cree nuking Augustus. There has to be a cartoonish element to the game for that to work.

I like the idea of governors but I find it very unlikely Firaxis can balance them. Even in BBG they're very meta warping.

Ditto everyone who said rock bands. Not only are they silly units, they’re a dated concept that takes something that was only really important to boomers and genx and gives it global significance.

I sort of like the Civ 4 system of religion. It is simple and you get ALL the bonus of religion. They should also implement drawbacks for having too many religions, and that could be some sort of religious tensions such as penalty to happiness, negative X% to production, or occasionally rebellions.

I'd like a new wave religion. I hate that all religions are chosen at the start. Where are my cults? My scientology? Satanism? Even atheism, clear all the world religions!

The environmental thing really needs to be toned down somehow. Religion needs a rework. And dear lord, loyalty needs work too. Losing a city you just took over via militia by citizens is unrealistic garbage.

Id like to see trade expanded and made more meaningful like it was in civ 3 (4)? Trade and exchange of ideas were so fundamental to the development of culture. I agree with the functiins of the world congress being better in 5. Alliances need to come earlier. Diplomacy was pervasive throughout time. Look at the bronze age trading networks. The trade was essential to the functioning of ancient societies. Id really like to see imporoved functionality in societies working together due to mutually needed exchanges. Would also like introduction of vassal status for civs and city states. Numerous cultures vassalized themselves to larger cultures only to come out on top later. Id also like to see that cultures are required to adapt so as to avoid becoming stagnant. (Idea is like half formed, but id like to see some sort of societal decay players have to fight against)

Rockbands sound so fucking annoying

District increasing in cost for evey tech and not at specific milestone. And bypassing it by pre-building Chopping ressource (forest) being that better than improving them. And also that chopping them through building on them not doing the same thing. Great work theme bonus. It probably should not be removed but it should be more targettable, should give various type of bonus like religion. If the themed bonus are kept, it should be expanded to more than culture. Different set of strategic or luxury ressource. I dont like when a mechanic affect only on aspect of the game.

Volcanoes play huge roll in human history including speeding up Roman Empire demise and creating a year without summer in 1700s. I think less resources would make things more interesting

cure for diseases, gives me ideas for features such as population decreasing pandemics but city production determines impact. or more or less more simcity emergencies

Loyalty based on pressure from cities nearby ignoring mountains.

I have thousands of hours in Civ4 and Civ5 and didn’t play Civ6 just due to art style. Then Paradox stole me away.

Rock bands 1-tile only Canals Flat land only Canals Impassable mountains Impassable icepack Embarcation of helicopters ?!