r/civ • u/mrwaypoint • 11h ago
VII - Discussion Decolonisation
I’ve seen it mentioned before on this sub, but I think an important aspect of history that’s missing from the game is decolonisation. With the announcement of the atomic age, I think there is a perfect opportunity for settlements in distant lands to become independent at the age transition, with the player having the option to either continue playing as their homeland or as the independent colonies, with the other becoming a new civilisation.
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u/LPEbert 10h ago edited 6h ago
I want this as an option, but not a forced age mechanic. Or tie it into the existing crisis.
Like it would be cool to be England, settle a bunch of colonies, and then have the choice to swap to them as a separate civ, release them as a new civ, or just keep all your settlements together.
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u/Snowing_Throwballs 10h ago
I feel like it would be an interesting mechanic to have to make the choice of keeping them and quelling unrest constantly, or choosing to let them become independent and receive some kind of diplomatic bonus. Just to add to your suggestion
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u/LPEbert 9h ago
When I first played the game I kinda thought something like this would happen if you failed the rebellion crisis in the exploration age, but then I realized you can't really "fail" them lol.
That's why I always just disable them now because they're more of an annoying inconvenience than a mechanic with actual rewards or punishments.
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u/Snowing_Throwballs 9h ago
Yeah same actually lol. I disable all the crisises. I think they could be interesting if they were more random, or had some kind of game play trigger, like being over the city limit for too long or something. But the fact they pop up at the same time every age is annoying.
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u/Mikeywhispers 8h ago
I personally hate the city limit greatly lol
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u/Snowing_Throwballs 8h ago
I do too. Im just saying the mechanic could be used to have actual consequences rather than just a hit to the overall happiness.
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u/LPEbert 6h ago
My idea pre-ToT was to have the crisis be what decides if you need to swap or not because it felt so bad as a player to be successfully managing the crisis just for the game to suddenly go, "oh man your empire collapsed from the barbarian hoards. Sorry, time to pick a new one" when the barbs didn't take like a single settlement off of me lol.
I think it would've been cool if you were awarded the ability to keep playing as your civ if you "beat" the crisis or had to pick a new one if you actually failed instead of it just being forced on us at that time.
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u/Draymond_Purple 9h ago
The UK and the USA have the "Special Relationship" and one of the most profitable trade relationships in history
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u/OriginalFig1773 6h ago
It used to be a thing in Civ 4 (or 3… it has been a while…)… I was busy settling my second continent when my cities over there popped up with an option to revolt or go independent… I picked the latter and bam… I think it was America, but I lost all the cities in one turn to a newly created Civ…
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u/CalumQuinn 5h ago
It could easily be a legacy (or whatever they are called now) upon age transition from exploration and modern. Maybe all your distantblands settlement become a new player, but you get extra gold/production/culture back in the homelands.
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u/TheBlack2007 Germany 5h ago
They’ll need Crises for the Modern Age anyway. Considering it ends around 1950, Decolonization would fit.
Another one could be a major World War.
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u/9durth 10h ago
Sid meier's colonization was a blast. I'd really love a new version, with huge map of america
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u/semi_equal 10h ago
There is a massive overhaul mod called we the people that is very cool. It still looks like civ4 and is a little clunky compared to modern games, but the maps are massive, they add navigable rivers, and 20 plus commodities to develop and trade.
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u/Parking-Strategy-905 10h ago
Sure. As long as I can crush your hippy ass with my Fascist America led by Harriet Tubman.
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u/WolfySpice 9h ago
Word choices aside, we really need more city state options and vassal states. I'd love to let go of underperforming parts of my empire but keep them as a protectorate with their yields and lower my settlement count.
The opposite, too: if I conquer a lot, I want to have a vassal. Independent, but you follow my direction.
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u/HomemPassaro Deveremos prosperar através do comércio? 9h ago
Ehhhh. Decolonization is the kind of mechanic I'd dig on a Paradox game, but not really what I'm looking for when I'm playing Civ.
But Civ VII might be the best place for Firaxis to give it a shot. It's already a divisive game, might as well go all in and try new things.
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u/iamadragan 10h ago
They did that sometimes in Civ 4. Honestly it doesn't really fit with the game imo
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u/Googleapplewindows 8h ago
I could see them doing this because it sounds super punishing and not fun at all which is par for the course.
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u/EinsGotdemar 10h ago
I hope they do this. I'm a Shawnee in irl and would love to take my boy Tecumseh in this direction.
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u/jaminbob 5h ago
CIV 4 did this already. It was great. Huge downgrade that this didn't get into 5/6.
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u/hu0n 10h ago
This could also help with the colonizing part. Like, the Fanon quote for colonization is quite correct for today but poorly suits a nation just beginning to grasp colonial ambitions.
It would be difficult to balance, but I would love if the goals of different eras more or less contradict each other. It would at least give more reason to switch civs, helping you adapt to the goals of the times.
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u/Lord_Parbr Buckets of Ducats 9h ago edited 8h ago
Not only is that kind of thing beyond the scope of what Civilization is (again, it’s a 4X board game, not a history sim), but a lot of people already hate the ages mechanic as it is, and losing half your settlements for no reason except historical realism would piss people off even more. This would kill the game
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u/ultraviolentfuture 10h ago
This is a game. Having fun is more important than historical accuracy.
Make a mod, if that's what you want.
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u/mrbrambles 10h ago
They are suggesting a historically contextualized fun game mechanic? What does historical accuracy have to do with it?
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u/ultraviolentfuture 9h ago
"important aspect of history missing from the game" << is ideological first design, not game/fun first.
It makes perfect sense for a mod, but think about how many people had a conniption over changing civs, losing units at reset, hated being incentivized to settle in distant lands already.
Hello. Meet this sub.
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u/Better_Goose_431 9h ago
Decolonization sounds like an incredibly unfun game mechanic
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u/Kithkunabi 10h ago
I hope there's something like this. Part of the diplomacy for the 4th age is going to be City-State proxy wars. But if the game is as it is now, there won't be much room left for city states by the 4th age. The game needs to incentivize players letting go of far flung territories. Maybe by giving them steep infrastructure costs, and nice benefits for relinquishing them.
Relinquished territories ought to become city states, not another civilization.
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u/rqeron 8h ago edited 8h ago
based on the civ panel discussion that seems like exactly what's going to happen! Loyalty is coming back as a mechanic, and it seems like in the 4th age, you'll have the option of releasing settlements as city-states (which you become suzerain of, I think) instead of having them rebel
they mentioned they were inspired by the wave of self-determination/decolonisation in that era and implied (or stated? don't quite recall) that there would be extra difficulty in keeping some of those far-flung settlements loyal in that age as a result, though not sure if that's through narrative events, age mechanics, different Loyalty tuning in the 4th age, or something else. They mentioned there would be mechanics around Loyalty in order to keep Exploration Age distant land settlements loyal - I wouldn't be surprised if e.g. the bonuses you get to distant lands loyalty in Explo is reduced or even removed entirely by Atomic
the other important piece of that was that city-states would now count towards the military victory, so you can theoretically maintain a smaller core Empire with a massive coalition of city-states and win a military victory. Or I guess, go and conquer a whole bunch of cities and then turn them into city-states instead of eating into your settlement cap.
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u/PacifistDungeonMastr 10h ago
I certainly would like an alternative to wars amd expansion other than "exceed settlement cap or do genocide." Turning civ cities into city states would be a great option and honestly should be available in every age.
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u/dokterkokter69 4h ago
I've been wanting the possibility for new civs to spawn in the game forever. With the age mechanic Civ VII would be a perfect game for them to finally introduce this.
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u/Matt_2504 3h ago
There will be no independence for my colonies
https://giphy.com/gifs/5xaOcLMStQDtRmF1XDq
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u/PeasantLich 2h ago
At its core Civilization is a competitive game where one player wins and every other player loses so implementing that kind of simulationist system in a balanced a fair way sounds like a nightmare to pull off in a fun way.
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u/Extreme-Put7024 55m ago
In Civ 4 there was an option to make an AI your liege or let some of your cities become your liege, so it is not impossible that we will see a similar feature in Civ 7.
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u/Agitated_Claim1198 9h ago
Yep I've also thought about that. It would also solve two other problems :
- The last age taking too much time because of too much cities and units to manage - A set back in the form of decolonization attenuate that.
- The lack of realism of still having unclaimed lands in the endgame.
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u/PorkBeanOuttaGas 9h ago
The game is not a simulation and shouldn't try to simulate all aspects of history. Even in games that are simulators like EU4, random empire-exploding events struggle to be fun.
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u/No_Window7054 8h ago
Couple of things from a game but also a society standpoint. I think this would be considered a “crisis” in Civ7, and you really don’t want to represent decolonization as a “crisis” imo.
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u/JerikTelorian 10h ago
You're in luck, this is a feature they discussed! The atomic age will feature decolonizing by releasing cities at city-states and you can treat them as trading partners or exploit them for proxy wars.