IGN: Civilization 6's new game changer features

[Solver]

Civ 5’s Lead Designer John Schafer

Here's one of the biggest gaming sites spelling an important name with two errors.

[giblets]

really? i never saw that.

Maybe it was only in mods... it was like this:


Seems like a much better solution than removing tech trades altogether

[giblets]

Okay, it was originally a mod and was incorporated into BtS

[C0ckney]

i've played 100s of hours of civ IV and never noticed that.

thanks gribbler.

[Ming]

I was never a big fan of tech trading.
In Civ IV at the higher levels, you had to be totally anal and waste tons of time wheeling and dealing. If you didn't, it made for an impossible game.
In most games, I just turned tech trading off.

[C0ckney]

i always turn off tech brokering (i.e. trading in techs that you didn't develop yourself), but i've always enjoyed a bit of trading. it is also handy if you want to help a struggling ally out, or just to make life a little tougher for an enemy.

[Aeson]

I like tech trading, and even brokering, as it gives another dimension to the game. It gives exploration and diplomacy a much more important role. It opens up a much broader range of playstyles and tech paths that can be competitive when played well.

[Lorizael]

I've never been completely comfortable with tech trading because in certain instances it is mighty unrealistic.

"We'll trade you the knowledge of how to question the basic assumptions of the universe (philosophy) if you trade us the knowledge of how to fervently love a country (nationalism)."

[Elok]

That is unrealistic. How did they get nationalism without philosophy in the first place?

[Lorizael]

Via Divine Right.

[pchang]

The important thing for me will be the elimination of critical techs. In the various versions, there was always a critical tech that would allow whoever got it first to basically take over their continent fairly quickly (math, iron for Persians/Romans, gunpowder, etc.). Units need to be balanced to make this not happen.

[Aeson]

I would say that games are essentially made to be fun, and realism usually is discarded to achieve that. (Because real life is often not fun at all ... thus why we play games.)

In regards to tech in Civ, it's not realistic at all. Even in the most extreme instances (The Manhattan Project, the Space Race) a nation focusing all it's science on one tech has never happened. Outside those extreme instances, the vast majority of technological progress hasn't happened because of a national direction either, and often enough breakthroughs happen by chance working on other problems. There certainly isn't a previously known, set amount of time/resources that must be invested into a tech to research it.

Beakers aren't useful towards figuring out Drama.

[rah]

Civ has always been a game about choices. Beakers are just a quantification of the research effort. Abstract research in a game is not as fun imo. Tech is so important that controlling it is one of the most important parts of the game.
I also would be happy to see tech trading nerfed somewhat. It should not be as common as it has been.

[Ming]

The important thing for me will be the elimination of critical techs. In the various versions, there was always a critical tech that would allow whoever got it first to basically take over their continent fairly quickly (math, iron for Persians/Romans, gunpowder, etc.). Units need to be balanced to make this not happen.

I disagree. I have no problem with "critical techs"
They are just the nature of the arms race. If you have better arms, you should win more, even if it does lead to world domination.
I don't see how you make them "balanced"
We certainly don't need to go back to spears beating tanks again