Civilization VII - coming February 11th

[Malakal]

It could be done if there were civ trees like with tech but exclusive. So you start as fertile crescent civ then pick either Babylon or Assyria or whatever and then become Rashudin Caliphate or Persia or something and finally modern state like Iraq.

I understand their thinking, seeing Babylon in modern era is jarring too. Those ancient states in no way resemble modern, tie civ changes to techs like nationalism, feudalism and it works.

And for purists you can have keeping the same civ but modernizing it.

 

[ArchAngel]

Endless Legend is still best Civ game.

 

[Hellraiser]

Endless Legend is still best Civ game.

Why?

Also Alpha Centauri exists.

 

[spectre]

Biggest problem I have with the civ-swap mechanic is the confusion. So, your neighbors were Holy Roman Empire and England, but now it's suddenly Australia and USSR? Which one was which again?
I agree, some sort of development trees would make more sense, but this already overlaps with civics and forms of government so I don't really see the point here.
Sure, it's maybe jarring to have Washington in 5000 BCE or Babylon in the modern age, but the original narrative in Civ1 was to see which civilizations would stand the test of time.
Some would, some wouldn't, it's pretty much a one big "what if," with no pretense to failthfully recreate the course of our history.

I think it the expected behavior should be to stay as one civ for most of the game and the mechanics should encourage it.

There are better things they could have copied from HUJMANKIND(tm), the battlefield mechanic had a really good depth to it, sieges were actually fun with battering
rams acting as battering rams and not some "negate wall bonus" nonsense.
There was interesting synergy with tech to simulate advancements made in logistics letting you field and reinforce with more units.
It looks like it could also solve a bunch of problems inherent to 1UPT, letting them have this cake and eat it.

I also quite liked how it handled the prehistoric era - you get to do some early exploration and combat experience as a bunch of unsettled tribals, with an opportunity to
gain an early trait for your civ, before you settle for the right spot of land. Comes with a trade-off as someone else might pick the culture you wanted.

 

[ferratilis]

I completely skipped on Civ 6 because of the dogshit mobile-game artstyle, now the artstyle is just slightly more tolerable, but mechanics will be shit. I love the Art Deco style of Civ 5 and gameplay of 4, but those two being combined is just a pipe dream, it seems.

 

[whydoibother]

Biggest problem I have with the civ-swap mechanic is the confusion. So, your neighbors were Holy Roman Empire and England, but now it's suddenly Australia and USSR? Which one was which again?

Your neighbour was Cleopatra. Cleopatra previously had the traits of England, and now has the traits of USSR. But its still Cleopatra.
So basically the AI oponents are players, who pick civs, rather than being civs. I don't think it will be confusing. It will just be immersion breaking, and you'd be playing a board game moreso than telling an alternative history story.

But they could've also just had you "level up" at the end of every era and pick from a list of appropriate traits: 3 cities on the coast, you can pick some coastal bonus; 3 improved horses, you can pick some cavalry bonus... They have to attach it to civs, to be on brand, but it would've been better off on its own.

I completely skipped on Civ 6 because of the dogshit mobile-game artstyle

This used to be an insult we hurled at casuals, now people are willingly admitting to skipping games because muh graphix.

 

[spectre]

I completely skipped on Civ 6 because of the dogshit mobile-game artstyle

This used to be an insult we hurled at casuals, now people are willingly admitting to skipping games because muh graphix.

A fine point that may or may not have eluded you: it was a jab at someone who skipped an actually good game.

Biggest problem I have with the civ-swap mechanic is the confusion. So, your neighbors were Holy Roman Empire and England, but now it's suddenly Australia and USSR? Which one was which again?

Your neighbour was Cleopatra. Cleopatra previously had the traits of England, and now has the traits of USSR. But its still Cleopatra.

I know what it's supposed to represent. I'm telling you how it worked out in HUJMANKIND(tm). Suddenly all the familiar names and color schemes get all reshuffled because a bunch of civs entered a new era.
Because the main strategic view doesn't show leader name, but works with culture names, you get this totally unnecessary moment of confusion - did I miss something? Were they annexed or did they just flip their culture.
All the rulers looked like androgenous trannies, so telling them apart at a glance wasn't exactly easy.

 

[flyingjohn]

Oh for fuck's sake, it time to retire the play one civ through all ages.It does nothing and every civ practically plays the same until you hit a specific era.
Chop the game into multiple eras with different rules, victory conditions and civs and problem solved.America can win the modern era and Babylon can win in the ancient era.

 

[whydoibother]

Oh for fuck's sake, it time to retire the play one civ through all ages.It does nothing and every civ practically plays the same until you hit a specific era.
Chop the game into multiple eras with different rules, victory conditions and civs and problem solved.America can win the modern era and Babylon can win in the ancient era.

I play Civilization games to tell an alternative history story. I do actually roleplay as my civ, and will do suboptimal plays if it feels right to do them given what I'm going for in that game. This is why irrational AI diplomacy annoys me greatly, and this is why I dislike the cultura hopping on era change.
If we will pick new era appropriate bonuses with every era.... do just that! Welcome to the industrial era, how does your civilization approach this? Steamboats? Trains? Worker's Unions? Children yearn for the mines? Or maybe Congo's children instead, since they are an era behind? Pick a bonus, rather than picking a civilization. Maybe you have to meet some prerequisites, so its not a very sharp turn. Maybe you pick one of 3-5, out of 10 possible, some RNG elements to make you adapt. Maybe only England can pick this specific one, as part of their cultural flavour.

I want the continuity, and I think most people do. Most games are played from Ancient era onwards, despite every civ game letting you start in later eras. Most people play a full campaign, and not just one era. These new options are looking for an audience that doesn't currently exist. Civ isn't a puzzle game for most of us, its a roleplaying game.

 

[ArchAngel]

Endless Legend is still best Civ game.

Why?

Also Alpha Centauri exists.

For one each faction being very different than others.
Combat is way better.
Art style is good.
Quest and story system well done.

 

[Malakal]

Endless Legend is still best Civ game.

Why?

Also Alpha Centauri exists.

For one each faction being very different than others.
Combat is way better.
Art style is good.
Quest and story system well done.

Each faction plays its own game, even many resources are unique, hard to compare it to a civ game especially balance wise.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Aaaand it's another game that completely drops worker (or equivalent) unit. Wtf. Planning and executing the infrastructural development of your faction was always such a staple 4X feature for me.

Having the eras end simultaneously for everyone to force a leader swap (lololol, if they wanted to copy that from humankind, there were far better ways to do it, like picking new/additional traits similar to how religion in CiV worked or whatever) is another board game-inspired mechanic that has no place in a 4X on a computer. We went from Gollop's "I can have more complex rules in games than in tabletop, since computers handle all the math and number bookkeeping" to "we have simpler rules like board games, because our designers are too retarded to use computers properly".

Par for the course with nu-firaxis. At some point they've became completely obsessed with stuffing their games with as much arbitrary, abstract and gameboard-like "rules" as possible. And they're "borrowing" most of them as well.

I can't take you people seriously when you write shit like that. Either you never gave it any thought, or you are completely clueless.

Whoah, the lack of self-awareness You're really not in a position for such statements.

 

[spectre]

I dislike the cultura hopping on era change.

To me the most obnoxious bit about it is that it's like flipping a swich, okay fellow Babylonians, the Age of Aquarious is upon us and new times call us to become different peoples.
How do you feel like being industrialist warmongers in the coming century?
Sure, it's a game, but it really takes a crap on any sense of identity.

Sure, cultures were merged, supplanted, migrated... what have you, but what such an implementation conveniently omits is that it was brought about by a whole lot o pillaging, conquering, fleeing,
at least some raping and a sprinkle of genocide.
The devs being a product of current time naturally have issues even talking about any of this, because of the cretinous modern day thought process - it's shown in a game = the game endorses it.
This leads to an infantilized treatment of history if not straight up falsification.

I want the continuity, and I think most people do. Most games are played from Ancient era onwards, despite every civ game letting you start in later eras. Most people play a full campaign, and not just one era. These new options are looking for an audience that doesn't currently exist. Civ isn't a puzzle game for most of us, its a roleplaying game.

Well, the original tagline was "build an empire that will stand the test of time". That resonated with me back then. We already have a term for this type of games and it's 4X, not sure why it's somehow fallen into obscurity.
Though playing a role of a country is just taking that Louis XIV quote (I am the state) a bit too far I believe you can do much better roleplaying in paradox games.

 

[Hellraiser]

Combat is way better.

Granted it's not ES 1/2 card-RPS gimmick level dogshit, but it's one of the least enjoyable/most pointless tactical battle systems I have encountered if not the worst. The hybrid (phase-based? wego? not sure what best describes it, it's been 6 years since I touched EL) system looked like they tried to find a compromise between having tactical battles and multiplayer not taking too long, the end result for me wasn't very appealing. Also I remember the army composition and unit designer being pretty brainless apart from strategic resource usage (make cheap unit to spam/fill in ranks, make stronk unit to use up resources).

In any case they should have either went full real time or turn based for the tactical battles, or just give up trying to make it work with multiplayer and abstract away the combat civ-style on the strategic map. I honestly find CiV 1upt or the Civ IV doomstacks prefferable to what Amplitude did.

 

[kris]

Humankind solution felt like you didn't play a civilization at all. You just played periods with different flavours. I would barely remember what Civ I played even when playing.

 

[Modron]

It also sounds like it will be prone to some cookie cutter strategies, like say playing Egypt during the opening using its medjay unit with 0 maintenance then picking the double maintenance penalty during the crisis, and switching to another civ for it's bonuses during the next era. Short term governments also reinforce that, who wouldn't start off with the military focus one that generates more research and unit production for 10 turns right off the bat then switch to the culture/wonder building one next?

 

[whydoibother]

Sure, cultures were merged, supplanted, migrated... what have you, but what such an implementation conveniently omits is that it was brought about by a whole lot o pillaging, conquering, fleeing,
at least some raping and a sprinkle of genocide.
The devs being a product of current time naturally have issues even talking about any of this, because of the cretinous modern day thought process - it's shown in a game = the game endorses it.
This leads to an infantilized treatment of history if not straight up falsification.

This rant has exactly fuck all to do with the game design, and you should go pray or something.

It also sounds like it will be prone to some cookie cutter strategies

Just like every single Civilization game ever? Each installment in the series got "solved" quickly, and guides were written on what is the obectively optimal way to play various situations you might see. When you are done bullying the Diety AI using such strats, you go back and play for fun instead. Its like that every time.

 

[Modron]

Maybe I should have said more prone to; but even if previously civs had optimal ways to play different nations they still at least offered some early/late game differences here you'll just shed your skin to the best one for the eras and activate some cooldown governments every once in a while. I am not expecting this thing to turn out better than CIV VI and that's a fairly low bar.

 

[Malakal]

Maybe I should have said more prone to; but even if previously civs had optimal ways to play different nations they still at least offered some early/late game differences here you'll just shed your skin to the best one for the eras and activate some cooldown governments every once in a while. I am not expecting this thing to turn out better than CIV VI and that's a fairly low bar.

Legitimate concern, while historically civs changed quite dramatically (HRE era Germany being known for chaos and romanticism compared to Prussian order and militarism that later spread to all of Germany) it should be at least somewhat balanced.

Maybe tied to generating enough culture to adopt a more cultural civ or fighting more for amore militaristic civ? That would be emergent gameplay too.

Probably will suck, I don't have high hopes.

 

[whydoibother]

Maybe I should have said more prone to; but even if previously civs had optimal ways to play different nations they still at least offered some early/late game differences here you'll just shed your skin to the best one for the eras and activate some cooldown governments every once in a while. I am not expecting this thing to turn out better than CIV VI and that's a fairly low bar.

All the mainline Civilization games between 3 and 6 were good, including those. Hundreds of hours worth of play good, but only patched up and modded. Even Civ4 was shit on release.
Anyways, in Civ6, you very specifically want to get a slinger, to kill a barbarian, to boost Archery research, etc. You want to do that every game. You always want to find another player, to find another continent, to find a natural wonder, as this shaves turns off research. It is pretty much objectively wrong to not get an early slinger. This eurikas system is the most cookie cutter play thing in the entire series.
But even in the previous games, it was just better to go Tradition, it was just better to get Slavery and sacrifice. It was just better to rush Pyramids or X tech to start a religion. Some unit timings were just objectively better, and you want to push with early crossbowmen, you want to go total war when artillery hits.
These game were never fluid and improvisational if you were trying to play optimal on high difficulty. They are only fun and improvisational on low difficulty, or when the player is roleplaying instead of minmaxing.

 

[Dark Souls II]

Oh for fuck's sake, it time to retire the play one civ through all ages.It does nothing and every civ practically plays the same until you hit a specific era.
Chop the game into multiple eras with different rules, victory conditions and civs and problem solved.America can win the modern era and Babylon can win in the ancient era.

Something like Crusader Kings would fit the Civ formula, where for example you can start as any county in Italy and unite Italy as that county, and later you're playing as the Kingdom of Italy, but later you can create an Empire etc.

In a Civ type game you could pick an ancient culture as your starter (there's an old gem called Chariots of War where you had 58 playable cultures, you could pick anything from Assyrians to Hittites and that was just a game limited to the Fertile Crescent area), and then based on your decisions and achievements (which territory you conquer, which religions and technologies do you discover etc.), you evolve to other cultures in the later eras.

But game devs hate nothing more than historically accurate Bronze Age setting for some reason so something like this will never happen, better let you play as murrica in 2500 BC. Imperator: Rome had a lot of potential but that's a game designed for you to play only as Rome, and all other cultures are placeholders with zero depth.

 

[whydoibother]

Something like Crusader Kings would fit the Civ formula, where for example you can start as any county in Italy and unite Italy as that county, and later you're playing as the Kingdom of Italy, but later you can create an Empire etc.

The whole point of the genre is 4X - Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate. Its player autocracy, where you play as the Being of the civilization, not as a leader. You are the godking. The game also is heavily reliant on randomly generated maps, and on the initial emptiness. I absolutely wouldn't want to see a Civilization game taking place in a Crusader Kings setup, where you play as a guy, among a hundred other guys, each having a premade kingdom you grow.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

just a note: "millennia" so absolutely terribad no one using it even as a bad example.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

All the mainline Civilization games between 1 and 4+expansions were good

ftfy.

 

[spectre]

Something like Crusader Kings would fit the Civ formula, where for example you can start as any county in Italy and unite Italy as that county, and later you're playing as the Kingdom of Italy, but later you can create an Empire etc.
(...)
But game devs hate nothing more than historically accurate Bronze Age setting

Sounds like you want to have more Old World. Understandable, for a lot of people it's the Civ game they actually want to play, fixing a lot of things about the formula.
Personally, I couldn't get into it exactly because of all the CK stuff thrown in and I'd much rather play with all of it switched off... but then again why bother and force the game into something it isn't.

I watched a tiny bit of that neckbeard video who played Civ7. He says early on that Civ sales exploded on the consoles and Firaxis really wants to snag as much of this pie as possible.
Tells you all that you need to know and sets your expectations accordingly as to what Firaxis is going to deliver.