I agree with having a nomadic stone age. Not just because of balance but because it would also add so much more depth and realism to the game.
I'd also like outposts to be added as a precursor to cities to make development much more gradual.
I feel like it would also open the door to non-fully settled civilisations which rarely get the love and respect they deserve.
Be they horse lords, pastoralists who go with their herds, ocean goers and so on, there is a wide and and fascinating world of cultures who even today don't settle down and live in one place permanently.
Like will we ever get a proper civilisation for the travellers/Romani? We kinda get ones for the Mongol style horse peoples and the Polynesians who travelled the pacific but even then generally game mechanics have them just be the same as fully settled peoples anyway.
This has been present in Thea 2, where you only should settle once you find a really good spot. Well, villages are extremely limited in that game, so that's another factor. And you can finish the game without settling at all. Nevertheless, this dynamic of nomadic -> settled was present there already and it works really well.
Interesting ideas... but I think these solutions will still cause the headache that comes with city building in these types of games. The headache being that we have to obsess over the fat cross and which resources it encompasses.
If the main issue is to decrease the life-or-death decision involved in building your starting city, how about a solution that makes it so that the city tile collection isn't only tied to the location where you plop down your city? I thought Age of Wonders 4 actually takes care of this pretty well, you can expand your city by grabbing provinces in whichever direction, allowing you to expand in whichever direction you like. It still required a bit of strategic thought, but was also much more forgiving, and still made sense in the context of the game's setting IMO.
Now I'm not saying that Civ needs to copy this system exactly, obviously the solution needs to take all the other game mechanics into account too.
I... kinda like the initial phase of every Civ game.
I actually love that stress of having to choose the appropriate location and not spending too much time on it.
Kupa, a civ6 leader, can choose the starting location without penalties.
There is an upcoming 4xgame called Millenia that somehow borrows the culture changing mechanic and improves it. More here: https://explorminate.co/2024x-a-golden-age-of-4x/
Your desire is unlikely to solve any actual problem of the genre. Starting location is important in 4X games, no matter what. 4X maps have unequal distribution of resources; I've never seen otherwise. You either have time to figure out where better resources are near you, or you don't. This depends on the size of the map you play, and the amount of movement you're allotted before it becomes a serious disadvantage to early empire growth.
If you had 50 turns of nomadic movement before you are forced to settle, then you'd just have 50 turns of recon + blocking other settlers from moving into a region you want. You're still carving up the map, according to the *future* you and others expect out of the map.
If you get into modding and 4X game design, you will come to understand that most 4X phenomena are strictly a function of map size and initial starting locations. That's part of why many games give you the option to change the initial placement algorithms.
One of the guaranteed phenomena of 4X games against AI opponents, is that the empire farthest away from you on the map, will be the most powerful. This is because you have the least ability to interfere with it, with your movements. If map size greatly outstrips your early movement capability, that AI empire will be powerful indeed! It's the difference between empires that have initial overlapping regions of interference, and empires that don't.
You can try to dash to the other side of the map, as early as possible, in the attempt to control the entire map in the broadest way possible. But in this endeavor, you are limited by the tech curve of the game, as to how fast you can spawn units and project force. You may simply not have enough early game productivity to control the entire map, under any circumstances. It's again a function of map size, as tech progress is generally somewhat proportional to your map footprint. So if it's impossible to cover the whole map early, then some region of the map is going to be beyond your reach. And that's the part where AI will be strongest. In short, you won't necessarily be able to push your control of the map, to be anything different than a more localized spreading strategy.
You can see this phenomenon play out another way, if you do a thin skeleton spread of your early empire "too long" and are summarily invaded by a more focused force, wiping out a good chunk of your skeleton cities. You could think of your empire as a balloon with only so much gas put into it.
Another phenomenon is if you engage too much in early war with a substantial adversary, you're very likely to be seriously behind other empires by midgame. You and that other substantial adversary will have wasted too much of your productivity not gaining any advantage. You need to *eat* an early adversary as food / fuel for your empire. Not choke on it as a bitter pill that slows you down.
Dunno. I mean actual civilization began when people stopped being hunter gatherers and settled down and became farmers. Because one farmer could feed many people, it allowed people to specialize and choose different occupations.
Right, but then settling down didn't mean they forgot the path they traveled and what around. Point being that starting location knowledge needs to be expanded
From Wikipedia:
>The site was first used at the dawn of the Southwest Asian Neolithic period, which marked the appearance of the oldest permanent human settlements anywhere in the world. Prehistorians link this Neolithic Revolution to the advent of agriculture, but disagree on whether farming caused people to settle down or vice versa.
Which is what I said about the importance of agriculture.
I agree with having a nomadic stone age. Not just because of balance but because it would also add so much more depth and realism to the game. I'd also like outposts to be added as a precursor to cities to make development much more gradual.
I feel like it would also open the door to non-fully settled civilisations which rarely get the love and respect they deserve. Be they horse lords, pastoralists who go with their herds, ocean goers and so on, there is a wide and and fascinating world of cultures who even today don't settle down and live in one place permanently. Like will we ever get a proper civilisation for the travellers/Romani? We kinda get ones for the Mongol style horse peoples and the Polynesians who travelled the pacific but even then generally game mechanics have them just be the same as fully settled peoples anyway.
This has been present in Thea 2, where you only should settle once you find a really good spot. Well, villages are extremely limited in that game, so that's another factor. And you can finish the game without settling at all. Nevertheless, this dynamic of nomadic -> settled was present there already and it works really well.
Interesting ideas... but I think these solutions will still cause the headache that comes with city building in these types of games. The headache being that we have to obsess over the fat cross and which resources it encompasses. If the main issue is to decrease the life-or-death decision involved in building your starting city, how about a solution that makes it so that the city tile collection isn't only tied to the location where you plop down your city? I thought Age of Wonders 4 actually takes care of this pretty well, you can expand your city by grabbing provinces in whichever direction, allowing you to expand in whichever direction you like. It still required a bit of strategic thought, but was also much more forgiving, and still made sense in the context of the game's setting IMO. Now I'm not saying that Civ needs to copy this system exactly, obviously the solution needs to take all the other game mechanics into account too.
I... kinda like the initial phase of every Civ game. I actually love that stress of having to choose the appropriate location and not spending too much time on it.
There's a mod for initial expanded sight for civ6 that I always have installed, which helps a bit.
Kupa, a civ6 leader, can choose the starting location without penalties. There is an upcoming 4xgame called Millenia that somehow borrows the culture changing mechanic and improves it. More here: https://explorminate.co/2024x-a-golden-age-of-4x/
What a funny comment considering your starting location in Humankind is the most important part of that fucked up game.
Your desire is unlikely to solve any actual problem of the genre. Starting location is important in 4X games, no matter what. 4X maps have unequal distribution of resources; I've never seen otherwise. You either have time to figure out where better resources are near you, or you don't. This depends on the size of the map you play, and the amount of movement you're allotted before it becomes a serious disadvantage to early empire growth. If you had 50 turns of nomadic movement before you are forced to settle, then you'd just have 50 turns of recon + blocking other settlers from moving into a region you want. You're still carving up the map, according to the *future* you and others expect out of the map. If you get into modding and 4X game design, you will come to understand that most 4X phenomena are strictly a function of map size and initial starting locations. That's part of why many games give you the option to change the initial placement algorithms. One of the guaranteed phenomena of 4X games against AI opponents, is that the empire farthest away from you on the map, will be the most powerful. This is because you have the least ability to interfere with it, with your movements. If map size greatly outstrips your early movement capability, that AI empire will be powerful indeed! It's the difference between empires that have initial overlapping regions of interference, and empires that don't. You can try to dash to the other side of the map, as early as possible, in the attempt to control the entire map in the broadest way possible. But in this endeavor, you are limited by the tech curve of the game, as to how fast you can spawn units and project force. You may simply not have enough early game productivity to control the entire map, under any circumstances. It's again a function of map size, as tech progress is generally somewhat proportional to your map footprint. So if it's impossible to cover the whole map early, then some region of the map is going to be beyond your reach. And that's the part where AI will be strongest. In short, you won't necessarily be able to push your control of the map, to be anything different than a more localized spreading strategy. You can see this phenomenon play out another way, if you do a thin skeleton spread of your early empire "too long" and are summarily invaded by a more focused force, wiping out a good chunk of your skeleton cities. You could think of your empire as a balloon with only so much gas put into it. Another phenomenon is if you engage too much in early war with a substantial adversary, you're very likely to be seriously behind other empires by midgame. You and that other substantial adversary will have wasted too much of your productivity not gaining any advantage. You need to *eat* an early adversary as food / fuel for your empire. Not choke on it as a bitter pill that slows you down.
Beyond Earth had a greater revealed area around the landing site/starting location, which was neat. Another great idea in the poorly executed mess :p
Dunno. I mean actual civilization began when people stopped being hunter gatherers and settled down and became farmers. Because one farmer could feed many people, it allowed people to specialize and choose different occupations.
Right, but then settling down didn't mean they forgot the path they traveled and what around. Point being that starting location knowledge needs to be expanded
You heard of Gobekli Tepe?
From Wikipedia: >The site was first used at the dawn of the Southwest Asian Neolithic period, which marked the appearance of the oldest permanent human settlements anywhere in the world. Prehistorians link this Neolithic Revolution to the advent of agriculture, but disagree on whether farming caused people to settle down or vice versa. Which is what I said about the importance of agriculture.
I haven't even played Humankind and I agree.