Civilization VII - Features at launch: speculation and discussion

[Vandlys]

Personally, I think new releases in existing franchises should have basic features, which turned out to be big improvements in previous iterations, at launch. Things like a production queue, map tacks, and future tech (to name a few), have no excuse to be absent in my opinion. Religious units not being able to block combat units would also be nice, and I'm sure I'm still missing out on many features that Civ VI implemented after launch.

So, I would like to ask my fellow Civfanatics 3 questions:

1) Which features existing in Civ VI should be present at launch in Civ VII, in your opinion?

2) Which features existing in Civ VI do you realistically see happening in Civ VII at launch?

3) Should game companies introduce a new iteration without basic features (up to you to argue what those features entail) present in previous iterations?

 

[blackbutterfly]

Card based combat.

(Like Marvel's Midnight Suns. Not Hexarchy).

 

[Haig]

What I expect, based on firaxis job applications:

- Game done on Unreal engine
- Launches also on consoles

Other things I speculate:
- More straightforward but powerful Civ Abilities, based on Ed Beach's comment about how Civ 6's abilities became too sprawlinh and long

 

[Ordnael]

I read Ed Boon (instead of Ed Beach) and then I imagined Gilgamesh doing a "Come over here" to a civ leader and instantly befriending him in a bear hug.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I based my answers based off of what was new to Civ 6 since I fully expect to see other things like great works, tourism, religion, trade and espionage to return.

1. What should be featured:
Barbarian clans returning but mix them in with tribal villages and have peaceful, neutral, and hostile tribes to interact with. Also bring back corporations but let each resource have their own special unique bonus. For example, owning an Elephant corporation would give you access to a unique War Elephant unit, Jade would buff culture and tourism of archaeological museums etc. Also bring back the timeline, but not necessarily the era score/ages system.

2.Which features do I expect:
Named features such as rivers, mountains, deserts etc. (but make them more customizable).

 

[blackbutterfly]

- Game done on Unreal engine

Unreal Engine is moving more into the realm of photorealism and CGI-level graphics (with support for ray tracing. e.g. NVIDIA DLSS 3.5).
Not in the whole world/God-game direction.

So that's a dead end.
Though Firaxis are carving out a new niche in Tactical Strategy using Unreal with XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns with a cult following (incl. myself, A 4X convert!)

 

[Nikolai II]

Card based combat.

(Like Marvel's Midnight Suns. Not Hexarchy).

In Civ? It's a pretty different game genre to Marvel's Midnight Suns?

 

[blackbutterfly]

In Civ? It's a pretty different game genre to Marvel's Midnight Suns?

Yeah, but imagine a Civ game with combat like:

You play "Grapeshot" card to make a catapult attack a unit.

Hexarchy (which has a free demo RN) has a few cards that play like that. E.g: Charge. But units move without card play. It seems everything but unit movement is a card play.

I envisage the opposite for Civ VII. Everything else is NOT a card play. Just unit movements and attacks, etc. Like in MMS.

 

[Vandlys]

Card based combat.

(Like Marvel's Midnight Suns. Not Hexarchy).

What I expect, based on firaxis job applications:

- Game done on Unreal engine
- Launches also on consoles

Other things I speculate:
- More straightforward but powerful Civ Abilities, based on Ed Beach's comment about how Civ 6's abilities became too sprawlinh and long

I might have been unclear in my opening post, but this topic is not about discussing desired content that doesn't exist in the game. It's about existing features in the previous iterations and their inclusion at launch of the new iteration.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

3) Should game companies introduce a new iteration without basic features (up to you to argue what those features entail) present in previous iterations?

Civ 7 on release should leave out the "modern" era. It should begin in XXXX BCE and end at roughly 1750. I've picked the ending date on its roughly the time gunpowder is in used widely and end of the renascence period and the being of nationalism and democracy.
Benefits:
More development time can be spent on features used in the early eras.
The modern era will not be a second thought that's has a few improvements thown in later. There should be modern era expansion that is full developed the comes out later on.
Modern era plays differently than early era. Playing and making decisions for small number of cities with limited number of choices should be handled differently then large number of cities with large number of choices.

(I'll try and address your other question in a different post)

 

[acluewithout]

My guess is Civ 7 will be fairly similar to Civ 6, but built to be more modular / compatible with ‘Game Modes’ than Civ 6 was (which sort of had modes etc just tacked on at the end).

I expect, in particular, that districts and governors are here to stay. Probably Ages as well. Certainly the ‘board game’ focus will continue. I think all the other usual features that have carried over from game to game will be there too (at the start or later).

I suspect mechanics will get simplified more, and further trend away from genuine hard choices and towards ‘play how you want’. But maybe not, particularly of Ed is still involved.

I think Religion may get a big rework, but hope not because I quite like how Civ 6 did Religion. Governors also likely get expanded or reworked. Maybe Great People get reworked a bit too, moving away from having them be units on the map, but maybe not.

Guess we’ll see.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Governors also likely get expanded or reworked.

If they do return, I hope they act more like "ministers" and have civilization wide bonuses, rather than bonuses just for the city they are placed in, like the ones from Secret Societies.

Maybe Great People get reworked a bit too, moving away from having them be units on the map, but maybe not.

I don't think they'd get rid of Great Prophets considering each yield usually gets at least one type of Great Person. I hope they do much more next iteration than just found a religion. My hope is that each one gets their own special ability as well.

 

[pokiehl]

If they do return, I hope they act more like "ministers" and have civilization wide bonuses, rather than bonuses just for the city they are placed in, like the ones from Secret Societies.

Then I'd rather that we just dispense with the "governor" characters and return to a tree format of decisions like in Civ 5. The only gameplay reason to have the Governor mechanic represented by discrete individual personalities was so that they could interface with individual cities.

 

[Vandlys]

Civ 7 on release should leave out the "modern" era. It should begin in XXXX BCE and end at roughly 1750. I've picked the ending date on its roughly the time gunpowder is in used widely and end of the renascence period and the being of nationalism and democracy.
Benefits:
More development time can be spent on features used in the early eras.
The modern era will not be a second thought that's has a few improvements thown in later. There should be modern era expansion that is full developed the comes out later on.
Modern era plays differently than early era. Playing and making decisions for small number of cities with limited number of choices should be handled differently then large number of cities with large number of choices.

(I'll try and address your other question in a different post)

I think that's actually not at all a bad idea. I have long hoped for a Civ where you can, after winning a Science victory, play a shorter game in the vein of Beyond Earth with new victory conditions. That would be a cool expansion that would suit this idea well.

 

[kaspergm]

Then I'd rather that we just dispense with the "governor" characters and return to a tree format of decisions like in Civ 5. The only gameplay reason to have the Governor mechanic represented by discrete individual personalities was so that they could interface with individual cities.

I agree with this point.

To throw in another (unpopular) opinion, I do like the local aspects of Governors, but not the moving-around, which I think both is bad for immersion and adds a lot of tedious micromanagement. So if Governors return as discrete individuals, I'd prefer for them to be permanently allocated, as a sort of city specialization. But then, if one wants to go that way, I guess the "National Wonders" from Civ5 is a more appropriate representation.

 

[Vandal Thorne]

+1 for this. I honestly wouldn't mind if every "era" was it's own discrete minigame. I have found the anachronisms introduced by the cultural and science trees progressing out of sync ruins much of the experience for me.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

1) Which features existing in Civ VI should be present at launch in Civ VII, in your opinion?

2) Which features existing in Civ VI do you realistically see happening in Civ VII at launch?

1) "Existing in Civ 6" should include features that exist in mod form as well. Specifically improved Map tacks (integrate with the build queue as well), leader head stats (which was integrated in to the game), observer mode, yield previews before you make a modifier change to your civ.

2) I think we can expect features that are common to most civ games, along with customized civ and leader bonuses as well as custom units.

 

[vorlon_mi]

1) Features existing which should be present -- in my opinion, the ones I *want* to see
2) Features existing which realistically would be present -- in my opinion, what they are likely to do
3) Should companies introduce games missing some "basic" features?

Addressing the second question, I expect them to ship a game with cities, each with a build queue, and units (civilian and military), each with abilities and promotions. I expect them to ship with some form of diplomacy between leaders/civs, with at least 4 yields (science, gold, production, culture), and the ability to improve tiles/hexes in one's empire. They will have a way to found cities, wage war / seek peace, and build wonders. I think that it's very likely that Civ7 will have districts and something similar to 1UPT or 3UPT.

Features I want to see / should be present: The game should initially ship with a minimum of 16 leaders, with more coming as DLC or a "season pass" model. The game should have a new spin on victory conditions, including science, cultural, and diplomatic. I expect at least 4 VC's (score, military, science, diplomatic) at launch with other VC's added through expansions or DLC. Civ4 had VC's added for espionage in an expansion, as well as two military VC's. If they want to add a cultural victory, religious victory, or economic victory after launch that's acceptable. If they want to add corporations later (as they did for Civ4) that's acceptable. If they want to tweak one of the VC's, like Civ5 did with cultural or Civ6 did with science, that's OK.
Each civ will have options for defining their government: a minimum set at launch, with more options added later. I want them to be selectable and changeable, more like Civ4 civics and Civ6 cards and less like Civ5 social policies which stay *forever* once adopted.

Should companies ship games missing some features? Yes. I look at some dramatic changes, such as aquatic cities introduced in the Rising Tide expansion for Beyond Earth, the espionage slider in Beyond the Sword for Civ4, and the role of governors and loyalty in Gathering Storm. Valuable features, improved the game, but weren't present at launch. One can view it as a negative -- they left out feature X, Y, Z at launch -- or view it as a positive -- they added this amazing capability in a later expansion.

 

[UWHabs]

I agree with this point.

To throw in another (unpopular) opinion, I do like the local aspects of Governors, but not the moving-around, which I think both is bad for immersion and adds a lot of tedious micromanagement. So if Governors return as discrete individuals, I'd prefer for them to be permanently allocated, as a sort of city specialization. But then, if one wants to go that way, I guess the "National Wonders" from Civ5 is a more appropriate representation.

Yeah, the tedious movement of them IMO to me makes me just ignore them after the first half of the game. If you don't have them permanent, them maybe they can find some way so that you can like split up your civ into separate "states", and assign governors to those states. Like if I'm settling on a new continent, I'd love to just group together 4 or 5 close cities and assign my infrastructure governor to them, rather than assign them to one city, do stuff there, move them to the next one, etc...

But that sort of goes to an over-arching way to handle the game. How can they design things so that you get all the fun of micro and playing when you only have 4-5 cities on the map and can remember all of them, but also not have that just bog down the game in the later eras.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

if firaxis cannot solve the unnecessary end game hit the end turn button 50 times so the game is over without doing anything then for me it really doesnt matter what they add or remove mechanic wise