Massive scout visibility ruins the early game

[Toadman]

So I was wondering why I am bored after 30 turns after restarting probably 20 games in the ancient era to get a feel of the early game. I could not figure out why after 40+ turns I was already bored. What was different from other civs? It was not until I realized by turn 40 I have already uncovered the continent and can not leave it.

My entire exploration phase was done and the game was down to micromanaging cities. I am a HUGE fan othe exploration phase and I wish all civ games could figure out a way to make each era a new type of exploitation. They tried with new resources to secure but made them globally visible. Bad decision, prospecting regions on an economic scale would have been great. They tried with the artifact and relics. Also interesting, but so so.

But NEVER in all previous civ games were you done exploring by turn 40. The excitement of exploring and uncovering the world was a thill of "what's over there", is there a goody hut, a resource, maybe another empire to work with or conquer.

The slow exploration of the world was also a HUG factor of your decisions empire wide.
1) do i leave my first worker with one charge to go tot he ocean to scout since for some reason your scouts could not.
2) I need another scout to look other directions to see if I have expansion room or empires as threats. Crap I have to build it when I really want a monument or another worker.
3) Not sure were you are taking the game yet as for disctricts in 6 until you get a good 20-40 hex view all around.
4) what's my pantheon going to be based on terrain? Swamps, appeal, resources, tundra?
5) can I find a good spot for a harbor city?

These are just a few things always rolling through my mind in the first age in civ6. Lot's of decisions based on the partial and limited exposed map.

HOWEVER, in this game I have usually exposed the whole continent or at least enough o know the bulk of it by about turn 20-30. There is no what it, guessing, hoping, or mystery. It's all there and now by turn 40 I fell like the industrial era in civ6.

I dont know who thought this massive scout ability was good. What focus group told them people just want to expose the map at an early stage.

Think about it. Early man spread across the world over thousand of years. But it took just that 1,000's of years. Most people never left more than 10 mile from their home. Even merchants and armies in early civs did not go more than a short region away at best. Usually, it was within their own lands or maybe a neighboring tribe/country etc.

So what if scouting was reduced to 1 hex visibility, 2 with the reveal ability. All other units don't see more than what they are next too. Ah that may make the map more interesting. Scouts posted and units posted around your country would be more strategic and critical.
All the early what if's would make your decisions real important.

Certainly by era 2 and beyond the visibility ranges could be expanded in each era to match technological abilities.

Even with scouting changes their is still the slightly boring aspects to this game witch is a whole different discussion. But I do believe this would be an easy change with dramatic impacts.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Use other map types... if you leave it on Continents Plus, then yeah, you can get across your continent quick and do much of the exploration already.

Pick something with more islands and water on the map, perhaps, to limit it more.

Also, keep in mind that the map size that is the biggest is just 'standard' right now. If the Large and Huge maps are big enough, maybe it will be less of a problem once you can play on those instead?

[Toadman]

That may be rue, but for one large maps take forever to play. I used to play standard maps on civ6 and then even those got to be too long esp. in end game. So I went to small and that was just fine.

Realistically though I think it should be very limited in the ancient era for obvious reasons. History is full of people discovering people that were really quite close for hundreds of years. Rumors and stories told of people far away but that did not drive people to get up from safe and established lives to go look unless there was something to gain.

You must admit, this speedy exposure is ridiculous. Even on island with with more water you can put a scout in the ocean and expose just as much after researching sailing. One of the first techs.

[martinolund]

Originally posted by Toadman:

So I was wondering why I am bored after 30 turns after restarting probably 20 games in the ancient era to get a feel of the early game. I could not figure out why after 40+ turns I was already bored. What was different from other civs? It was not until I realized by turn 40 I have already uncovered the continent and can not leave it.

Yeah well, your civs were not smart enough to figure out how cross the ocean... but you can always play on bigger maps and that will take a bit longer to explore probably.
Can find the mod(s) here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/categories/civ7-maps-and-map-scripts.184/

[Usana]

Yeah I do think the map size is part of the issue here. That and it depends on how aggressive you scout and if you use that memento. Don't use the scouting Memento if you think they see to far. Without it it can still take a good while to explore. Though it does depend on how many hostile independents there are. But I usually run into whole gauntlets worth of them that prevent me from easily exploring large sections until they are befriended or people expand into and disperse them.

I usually go 3 scouts at start and scout pretty aggressively, but my scouts are also often forced back and made to wait or try and circle around due to hostile independents. So in 3 games only 1 of them was fully explored by turn 40. Second game was more like turn 50 and this last game had some fog as late as turn 100 something. Three. Three hostile independents all forming a triangle blocking me from going south. Actually if you count the one I befriended to my south east there were 4 of them. And they had boats so I couldn't even embark all the way around to dodge them. Turns out Pachy was hidden behind them. And I didn't get nearly as many goodie huts as I like that game, because the south wasn't the only problem direction. Actually at the start of the exploration age I still have fog on my homeland. Which annoys me.