Civilization VII - coming February 11th

[whydoibother]

They said so during the game promotion. A significant chunk of the Civ6 player base never finished a game even among players who play quite a bit.

Possibly misleading statistic, as even achievements as basic as "declare a war" are at 60%.
Most owners clearly don't play, or don't get achievements for some other reason.

But the reason I don't finish games, is if the outcome is obvious. This is for Civ 4, 5, 6. If you can already tell you've won, and you are so far ahead that you'd just need to do busywork to see the end screen, you quit the game.
The constant restarting of eras is probably seeking to address this too, a bit of a leveler with the crisis and end of the era? Again, I'll see how it is on 11th and write a review after I beat a few games.

 

[The Nameless One]

"But how do you KNOW it's shit??? "

Its not shit. Its a video game. And you haven't played it, to judge it.

Pretty sure there's something called youtube since almost 20 years, I can't wait to try it.

 

[FreeKaner]

the only explanation I can think of as why anyone would think that these Age transitions are a good idea is that the penpushers at Firaxis looked at playtime stats and came up with the conclution that the player base REALLY loves those first 100 turns after which they switch off

This is very obviously the reason. Also why half the world is locked as "new land" in the age of exploration.
The goal is to give you the first 100 turns, 3 times in a row, because apperantly most people only play that.

That's an impressively poor reading of statistics, people play the first 100 turns (or first 100 years in EU or CK etc.) because after that there is little challenge left and it just becomes the tedium of seeing through an already won (or sometimes lost) game with none of the decision-making of early few turns. Making it happen three times with civ flip won't change that. If anything CIV6 was especially bad with that because its AI was unable to handle any of its mechanics and fell behind immensely and neither the player nor the AI needed to utilize all the mid-to-late game stuff, including in warfare like airplanes etc. (that's at least something in CIV5).

I was hopeful about CIV6 as it was coming out, but firaxis just stopped developing their game right and started doing featurecreep and powercreep as usual. Solution to that isn't a "Soft-reset" every 100 turns (because it won't solve the problem). Everything else they added as mechanic seems like a pile of bad decisions moreover. I am sure people will play it because civ formula at its fundamentals is quite fun and addictive, but this is definitely a simple minded way to design a game to have it have its initial phase three times. It is also probably height of survivorship bias.

I am also a person who prefers CIV5 over 4 because I think eliminating deathstacks and moving to hexagon map made the game more interesting in terms of warfare, and even kept it relevant for later because warfare plays different between eras as things like indirect fire, paratroopers and aircraft change the nature of it which was something I would look forward to in late game that could make things possible late game which wasn't early on.

 

[Fedora Master]

The game doesn't even have basic features like sleep and auto explore. What the fuck were they doing during development?

 

[FreeKaner]

I'm just pointing out its getting shit on via the steam reviews, its sitting on Mixed right now. Even the positive reviews are stating the game has issues.

Problem is that most of the reviews are focusing on UI. All firaxis has to do is issue a update called "FIXED UI" and the criticisms will magically disappear.
Nobody is really talking about how:
- badly designed the ages are (need to build x amount of cities to get nukes? and the stupid teleporting armies out of enemy territory)
- civ switching being stupid
- Annoying meta progression that has no place in a 4x game
- lack of game/map options (standard is the max and the map always generates weird square like continents and islands)
- AI being worse than 6 (declare war, loose a unit and offer free cities)
- audio issues (there is a guy coughing during the audio for age transition and specific sounds have lower quality than 90's garage studios)
- Performance being dogshit regardless of hardware (late game lag is insane)
- No proper future mod support because of Denuvo
Everybody hyperfocusing on the UI plays right into firaxis plan.

That's just insane, especially the coughs and keyboard clicks on the audio. All civ games have problems, bugs and questionable design decisions but production value always felt high especially with voice overs. I guess this is what happens when your product has Bulgaria in it.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

That's just insane, especially the coughs and keyboard clicks on the audio. All civ games have problems, bugs and questionable design decisions but production value always felt high especially with voice overs. I guess this is what happens when your product has Bulgaria in it.

It all started in 668, when Asparukh...

 

[Lacrymas]

RE: Nobody plays Civ after 100 turns - yeap, that sounds about right. It's just a quirk in this genre that the snowballing becomes unmanageable at one point and the goal of a designer is to slow that down as much as possible. If someone figures out how to prolong the early game gameplay until the end, it will revolutionize the genre. Old World and Gladius kinda dodge this problem by having most games (especially when point victory is enabled in OW) end before or around turn 100ish. Civ 7 attempting to soft reset the game every "age" is contingent on having ages in the first place.

 

[Dickie]

Civ 7 is Civ 4
Been playing Civ 7 most of the day and I'm getting strong Civ 4 vibes. Anyone else feelin that?

Guys, it's just like Civ 4.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1295660/discussions/0/591762563949145492/

 

[FreeKaner]

RE: Nobody plays Civ after 100 turns - yeap, that sounds about right. It's just a quirk in this genre that the snowballing becomes unmanageable at one point and the goal of a designer is to slow that down as much as possible. If someone figures out how to prolong the early game gameplay until the end, it will revolutionize the genre. Old World and Gladius kinda dodge this problem by having most games (especially when point victory is enabled in OW) end before or around turn 100ish. Civ 7 attempting to soft reset the game every "age" is contingent on having ages in the first place.

I think instead of trying to prevent snowballing which will never happen in a 4x like that (even GSGs of Paradox hesitate to load the player with too much of the burden of governance) adding things that can happen in late game which can't happen in early game and making sure AI can at least utilize the tools it has available to it is the best way. I frankly never wanted to play CIV6 past mid-game because AI straight up doesn't engage with half of game's systems and the warfare is same from turn one because nothing changes in how it plays and you never have to use late game only warfare elements. I legitimate often looked forward to CIV5 late game, despite disliking the mid-game which was just tedious consolidation where AI didn't offer any challenge because late game had things like nukes, paratroopers, planes, aircraft carriers and what not that not only made certain types of conquest possible and faster and less tedious but also because it played different than early game due to one unit per tile hexagon system.

 

[Beastro]

They said so during the game promotion. A significant chunk of the Civ6 player base never finished a game even among players who play quite a bit.

Once you play enough you reach the end point where you know you've won and it becomes a tedious mop up.

Yes, I know there are other victory conditions other than world conquest, but world conquest is all that matters.

I never played with any of the other conditions. Why does a fucking cultural victory matter when I'm taking over the world?

 

[Beastro]

Civ 7 is Civ 4
Been playing Civ 7 most of the day and I'm getting strong Civ 4 vibes. Anyone else feelin that?

Guys, it's just like Civ 4.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1295660/discussions/0/591762563949145492/

Guys, guys, it's just like the last good Civ, guys.

Guys, trust me, guys.

 

[whydoibother]

They said so during the game promotion. A significant chunk of the Civ6 player base never finished a game even among players who play quite a bit.

Once you play enough you reach the end point where you know you've won and it becomes a tedious mop up.
Yes, I know there are other victory conditions other than world conquest, but world conquest is all that matters.
I never played with any of the other conditions. Why does a fucking cultural victory matter when I'm taking over the world?

Ironically, in Civ5 you'd sometimes unintentionally win a cultural victory while trying to take over the world, because of how tourism worked.

 

[Hellraiser]

They said so during the game promotion. A significant chunk of the Civ6 player base never finished a game even among players who play quite a bit.

A good example of why giving data to managers is a bad idea, then you get morons interpreting it in some asinine way leading them into bright ideas like "let's remove the start menu from windows" or in this case that there's something special about the first 100 turns.

It could be because they got a crappy start, some AI snowballed or they're locked with no room to expand between some asshole AI civs that just declared war on them, while they wanted to build in peace. Or they got beaten to a wonder they wanted etc. all of which lead to a restart - you end up with an unfinished game in your statistics.

Granted, I barely remember just how much you can do in 100 turns in Civ VI or what the pace was (besides remembering that ancient era was even shorter than in CiV), but by the standards of previous games the tedium kicks in somewhere in the 200 to 300 turn range when there's too much crap to manage and/or the player snowballs.

 

[civac2]

Yeah, turn 200 to 300 is a good ballpark for Civ4 too. Someone mentioned turn 100 but you are only just out of the expansion phase around turn 100 and Classical, Medieval and Renaissance ages are all quite fun. In Civ4 it starts becoming a slog in early Industrial age and then especially once you unlock factories. I have had game with 500+ combat units.

 

[Raghar]

RE: Nobody plays Civ after 100 turns - yeap, that sounds about right. It's just a quirk in this genre that the snowballing becomes unmanageable at one point and the goal of a designer is to slow that down as much as possible. If someone figures out how to prolong the early game gameplay until the end, it will revolutionize the genre. Old World and Gladius kinda dodge this problem by having most games (especially when point victory is enabled in OW) end before or around turn 100ish. Civ 7 attempting to soft reset the game every "age" is contingent on having ages in the first place.

I think instead of trying to prevent snowballing which will never happen in a 4x like that (even GSGs of Paradox hesitate to load the player with too much of the burden of governance) adding things that can happen in late game which can't happen in early game and making sure AI can at least utilize the tools it has available to it is the best way. I frankly never wanted to play CIV6 past mid-game because AI straight up doesn't engage with half of game's systems and the warfare is same from turn one because nothing changes in how it plays and you never have to use late game only warfare elements. I legitimate often looked forward to CIV5 late game, despite disliking the mid-game which was just tedious consolidation where AI didn't offer any challenge because late game had things like nukes, paratroopers, planes, aircraft carriers and what not that not only made certain types of conquest possible and faster and less tedious but also because it played different than early game due to one unit per tile hexagon system.

When I heard about game AI having problem with a game, I looked into it, and I found that game developers can't play their own game. Well obviously when they can't play their own game, AI don't know what to do, because its programmers don't have a clue.

I saw decent AI in: Battle Isle 2, Imperialism, MAX, (Eador genesis battle AI was decent, but heavily scripted thus it could be abused), Sword of the Stars.

 

[JarlFrank]

I guess this is what happens when your product has Bulgaria in it.

Hey now, Bulgarian-made strategy games are leagues better than this!

 

[Gerrard]

Civ 7 is Civ 4
Been playing Civ 7 most of the day and I'm getting strong Civ 4 vibes. Anyone else feelin that?

Guys, it's just like Civ 4.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1295660/discussions/0/591762563949145492/

What made the realization hit me was how the religion was display on the cities and some of the other visual queues.

Sounds like an AI generated post. Also private profiles.

 

[whydoibother]

I guess this is what happens when your product has Bulgaria in it.

Hey now, Bulgarian-made strategy games are leagues better than this!

Arab is just mad real turkomen are making it in the world.

 

[flyingjohn]

I frankly never wanted to play CIV6 past mid-game because AI straight up doesn't engage with half of game's systems and the warfare is same from turn one because nothing changes in how it plays and you never have to use late game only warfare elements.

Have you tried playing real strategy or roman holiday mods? They are the best civ 6 ai mods and force the ai to use modern stuff.

 

[FreeKaner]

Hey now, Bulgarian-made strategy games are leagues better than this!

I suppose they did make some of those, including latest Total War games and Tropico. It must be then adding Bulgarians as a playable civilization that has cursed the game, since that's the first time that has happened in the franchise.

Hey now, Bulgarian-made strategy games are leagues better than this!

Arab is just mad real turkomen are making it in the world.

That's okay my occidental Turkic friend we will all dance to tri moreta if CIV7 becomes a decent game. Byzantines are one of my favorites in both CIV5 and CIV6 after all.

 

[Fedora Master]

People are now complaining about the lack of NATIVE CONTROLLER SUPPORT IN A CIV GAME

AAAGHHHGHHJHHHHHHHH

 

[Lacrymas]

Just play Old World, guys, Civ 7 isn't worth the brain cells, especially on release. Maybe years down the line with all DLCs at a deep, deep discount.

 

[sebas]

People are now complaining about the lack of NATIVE CONTROLLER SUPPORT IN A CIV GAME

I mean, the only reason Civ VII is as barebones is exactly because it was designed for consoles. So actually, that complaint kinda makes sense.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

 

[Space Satan]

the best civ