Feedback from two full games

[evansall]

I have several pieces of feedback after playing two full games. Some suggestions and some things I generally think are broken. I played on a Mac laptop using the touchpad. As a note - I have played every version of Civ (since 1) and have thousands of hours across the collection.

General Feedback: I like some of the ideas here and the attempt to stop the classic snowball problem of earlier games. I find the different legacy paths to be an interesting twist and I don't mind the calamities. I do think the same legacy paths for the same ages (and the same calamities) will get redundant after a few more games and would love to see some randomization or variation in the future (yeah big ask).

My number 1 change would be to add many more and randomize the legacy paths so I can't pre-plan my age transitions. For instance, right now I prioritize getting one port on each coast in the first age - which might not make sense if the legacy agendas for the exploration age are different than the fixed 4 that exist now.

Specific Feedback (while trying to not duplicate what others have already said):

1) In the Exploration Age - unit pathfinding is broken. Specifically - deep ocean causes damage (prior to a later discovery) and units don't consider that damage while auto-routing. I have had several units go through "deep ocean" and get fully stopped rather than taking a faster and less damaging shallows route.

2) Some legacy paths are absolutely worse/harder than others and should be balanced out. For instance - treasure fleets come MUCH too late in the exploration age. Also - collecting antiquities for the cultural win in the Modern age is much too easy. You just culture rush the first civic and then use gold to spawn explorers before the computer does. If an explorer only had 1-2 uses (like civ 6) it may stop this strategy from being as effective)

3) In the modern age - the computer will stack explorers on a single dig site. It doesn't convey any advantage and is a huge waste of resources for the AI. This should be fixed (as well as that generally legacy path being adjusted)

4) In the modern age - I had the "couldn't make a railroad" in the capital and it left me out of an economic legacy path. Railroads in general are still a UI problem (they look ugly and randomly tile etc.). I would like to be able to destroy a building or a district as a last resort in the city UI screen to fix this if possible

5) Migrants very often do not show tile yields when I use them to add population to a city. They just show the type of improvement.

6) In the modern age - units should auto-route to use railroads if possible. I find having to manually move them to a rail station to teleport them is a missed opportunity. I would also have the entire rail network be available for teleporting (not just the rail stations) - because they would just get off the rails right? This mechanisms should also impact the timing for (or could behave like) reinforce. It currently doesn't so it is easier to manually move units via rail to the closest point - which defeats the simplification of the reinforce option.

7) In earlier civ games - cities ZoC continued to expand beyond the 3 tile yield radius to convey empire influence. This was very helpful in preventing the annoying surprise late game stupid AI city. Please bring this back.

8) There should be more 0 cost diplomatic transactions. Diplomatic points could be spend instead of "gold" to tip negotiations toward an outcome. Right now - diplomacy - and subsequently peace deals are pretty broken because there is not nuance or details.

9) The age ends "abruptly" when conditions are met. I recommend having a "final # of turns" where people can finish what they are trying to do (wonders / legacies / etc). In one game - I intentionally left an action undone to complete two legacies on one turn knowing it would trigger the end of the age. Some better method is advised.

10) Another legacy option should be the ability to use legacy points to build undiscovered or unbuilt wonders. The current system often has the ages end prior to unlocking everything and some of the ageless wonders could be desirable for the legacy points.

11) Would be great to capture / send back / kill missionaries and explores. They are easy and cheap spies in the Exploration and Modern age in addition to being key to cultural victories.

12) You should be able to counterspy EVERY other player rather than just one. It seems silly that you can only use that diplomatic action against one other player. It might be better if it cost more and you could activate it against every other play (like counterspies in Civ 6).

13) The winning construction video for the world bank and the world's fair are the same. I was disappointed. I have no idea if the other two victory conditions are similar.

I am sure there is more I am forgetting.