Civilization VII - Features at launch: speculation and discussion

[GIO888]

Exactly what Kaan says above.

Hopefully CivVII will simply be an amalgam of all before it on a new engine with vastly improved scalability, player choice...........

because VI (for me) is more or less right, apart from those last 50 turns.

 

[Vandlys]

3) Should companies introduce games missing some "basic" features?

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.

I agree that those features made the game a lot better, but I meant features that were more or less present in previous iterations. Like how Civ VI didn't have the production queue. Personally, I didn't find that at all acceptable.

I would also include the map tacks for Civ VII. It's such an essential and basic feature in my opinion, for which there is no reason to leave it out.

 

[Xur]

civ6 had more features at launch than any other civ game. These features turned out to be half-baked and tedious. I’d rather that they go back to the roots of civ and make the core gameplay fun again - without making it tedious late game. Make sure the AI can take over the world and surprise you.

 

[Ordnael]

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

There could be a on/off setting for auto resolve game x turns before end (or something like that) when it's clear the player is steam rolling the AI on a certain "passive" victory type like culture.

 

[pokiehl]

There could be a on/off setting for auto resolve game x turns before end (or something like that) when it's clear the player is steam rolling the AI on a certain "passive" victory type like culture.

That wouldn't really be a fix at all. It'd just be a bandaid and tantamount to the devs throwing in the towel.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

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

Those were ridiculous. Probably my biggest turn-off.
Just give me one "powerup" per civ. How hard is that?

 

[pokiehl]

Those were ridiculous. Probably my biggest turn-off.
Just give me one "powerup" per civ. How hard is that?

The most elegant unique abilities of Civ 6 are the most simple: stuff like Greece and Japan.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

With so many different civ why do they all have to have one ability? If some of the civs have many useful abilities and some a few that's my preference.

 

[dagriggstar]

I'm on the one ability per faction train, mostly because UU, UB,UI and leader abilities (although I wish leader abilities didn't exist in favour of favourite civics/policies) exist. You can (and have) easily end up with 10 different abilities otherwise.

Take Norway (as a package)
1) Build naval melee units double speed
2) Naval Melee units can perform naval raids
3) Can gain science and culture from raids/pillaging
4) Earlier ocean travel
5) No extra embark/disembark movement cost
6) Naval melee units can heal in neutral land

You know what would have basically achieved the same thing ? If the longboat UU was a stand alone naval raider unit class instead of naval melee. With that one change, you no longer need abilities 1 (Longboats can be made cheaper to mimic this), 2 (Inherent class ability) and 6 (Pillage healing + can disappear by not being adjacent to other units). Abilities 3 and 4 could easily be given specifically to longboats or be used as the actual civilization ability by itself. The longboat also gets access to the much more useful naval raider promotion tree for its role. One of the few instances I can think of a 'standalone' unit being better, since no other faction can build naval raiders until privateers.

It's just messy.

 

[UWHabs]

I'm on the one ability per faction train, mostly because UU, UB,UI and leader abilities (although I wish leader abilities didn't exist in favour of favourite civics/policies) exist. You can (and have) easily end up with 10 different abilities otherwise.

Take Norway (as a package)
1) Build naval melee units double speed
2) Naval Melee units can perform naval raids
3) Can gain science and culture from raids/pillaging
4) Earlier ocean travel
5) No extra embark/disembark movement cost
6) Naval melee units can heal in neutral land

You know what would have basically achieved the same thing ? If the longboat UU was a stand alone naval raider unit class instead of naval melee. With that one change, you no longer need abilities 1 (Longboats can be made cheaper to mimic this), 2 (Inherent class ability) and 6 (Pillage healing + can disappear by not being adjacent to other units). Abilities 3 and 4 could easily be given specifically to longboats or be used as the actual civilization ability by itself. The longboat also gets access to the much more useful naval raider promotion tree for its role. One of the few instances I can think of a 'standalone' unit being better, since no other faction can build naval raiders until privateers.

It's just messy.

Good point. You can simplify a lot of civs if you basically move all the complicated abilities into a more standalone setup. Sure, the specific unit or building has a more complicated text description, but I think that's a little easier to follow along with. Similar with the Khmer, for example. The civ ability really could be simplified into a unique Baray district, and I'm sure you could re-work their leader ability into simply being all bonuses for the Prasat (eg have the Prasat give bonuses based on the holy site adjacency, etc...). It's not always going to be possible, I'm sure, but the more you can handle it, the cleaner it is.

Of course, with everything, once you get down the balance route, you always start needling on. You give Arabia the extra +1 science per city following the religion because they need just a little more, or you give Japan the coastal combat bonus, because it's easy and interesting, and suddenly things just get more complicated on the whole.

 

[Xur]

I dont understand the love for unique abilities chosen before the game even starts. It would be more interesting, balanced and fair if everyone started the same. Add the unique abilities as rewards you earn ingame.

But I guess you can’t sell new pointless civs as DLC then…

 

[pokiehl]

I dont understand the love for unique abilities chosen before the game even starts. It would be more interesting, balanced and fair if everyone started the same. Add the unique abilities as rewards you earn ingame.

But I guess you can’t sell new pointless civs as DLC then…

Putting aside your needless cynicism at the end there, I don't think everyone starting the same would be at all interesting. Your gameplay experience would quickly become homogenized.

By the way, you already get additional unique abilities as rewards you earn while playing: pantheons, religious beliefs, governments, wonders, natural wonders, eurekas, inspirations, policies, great people, city-state suzerain bonuses, governors...

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

With so many different civ why do they all have to have one ability? If some of the civs have many useful abilities and some a few that's my preference.

I agree. I think the only civ where they went a little too overboard on the number of abilities was the Māori. But I won't mind if they scale back on one powerful ability either, as long as each civ and leader are able to get one.

I dont understand the love for unique abilities chosen before the game even starts. It would be more interesting, balanced and fair if everyone started the same. Add the unique abilities as rewards you earn ingame.

Because some people like roleplaying as a wonder building, living along the river, Egypt etc.

 

[Xur]

Because some people like roleplaying as a wonder building, living along the river, Egypt etc.

And you could not do that in civ 1 and 2?

 

[vorlon_mi]

And you could not do that in civ 1 and 2?

Not as easily. More to the point, I have spent a *lot* more time playing Civ3/4/5/6 and BERT where I enjoy, even lean into, the characteristics the game presents. These parts of the game definitely improved my enjoyment of those games.

The civ-specific traits were relatively coarse-grained in Civ3 and Civ4, like "Spiritual" or "Seafaring." The unique unit could definitely affect my strategy. As more traits and unique items (building, unit, ability) were added, yes, I played the civ differently. Winning a military victory with a non-military-leaning civ, or other "swimming against the current" play could be viewed as a challenge.

Yup, put me on the list of folks who love the civ-specific traits.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

And you could not do that in civ 1 and 2?

I'm not sure of how good they were at it considering I've never played Civ 1 and 2. But I do know that's it's easier for Egypt to do it from the start if it's part of their civ ability and I would imagine you would want to do that instead of even waiting until the Classical Era to get good at building wonders.

To go back to the Māori, even with it's mass number of abilities, they at least gave the most unique start in the game. That's something that couldn't be done if all civs were on an equal playing field at the start.

 

[tedhebert]

I'd like to jump in and mention that I completely disagree with the many people who say they want simpler, more standard traits on civs...

The magic of Civilization are twofold, for me... The "Just another turn" feel and more importantly, the replayability of the game.

Replayability, for ME, comes mainly from the different flavors that can be added from one civ to another. I've played and won with every civ and leader, and then have gone on to play at least another 20/30 modded civs. And it's what keeps me playing after over 3500h of play... NOT boring challenges

The problem comes NOT from the many configurable attributes that can be used to define each civ... It comes from not being ingenious enough to make the differences significant, and going for traits that are just plain stupid
like those related to being DOWed for example.

Diminish these options that make each civ flavorful, and what you'll get is yet another nice little game that after 5 or 6 games I wont feel like playing again...

SO... Keep the complexity and flavour in civ creation, FXS, please ;-)

 

[dagriggstar]

I'm definitely a person who likes to go random civ and just go in whatever direction a civilizations ability takes me in. Like it's nice to have an incentive to go in a certain direction at the start of the game. As much as I loved civ II, I played almost exclusively scenarios with workaround uniques (Unresearchable tech given to a faction at the start) since base game you're kind of just playing with a city list and city sprites that are regional.

That said I still prefer one elegant ability. Especially with so many mechanics in the game. I think there's enough scope to rewrite abilities into 2 maybe 3 sentences at most.

The closest I could see to 'no ability' would be if era advancement relied upon building specific national wonders (example - Age of Empires 4) or getting civ specific great people over the course of the game.

 

[aieeegrunt]

A big part of end game fatigue, which was a problem in almost every version of the game, is the “I am inevitable” factor where you know the game is basically won, but you haveto slog througj to the win screen and nobody can stop your march to victory

The biggest issue there is Civ usually lacks any sort of anti-snowball mechanics. Once you start winning, especially militarily, it becomes a runaway feedback loop. Taking cities means you have more power and your opponent has less which means you can take

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

firaxis doesnt want to use "un-fun" catch up or alliance against player type mechanics in civ game.