Next Civilization game and it's competition

[OzzyKP]

None of those new games will be a true competitor to Civ7. But they absolutely can target a niche and develop from there. There are so many arguments on this forum about various design decisions Civ has made over the years, plenty of civ fans left the franchise after Civ5, or Civ6, they are available to be catered to by some new game.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Yeah I’m not arguing that agendas are good, but they definitely represent a personal aspect of the leader. That was my only point. I hope they don’t return in Civ 7.

I hope they do - but I hope they have a bigger influence on their AI behaviour, as well as more dynamic reaction.

The fact that most of them don't scale based on the offset of you away from the target (say Qin, grants +2 for each Wonder he has over you and you lose -2 for each Wonder you have over him or the difference, is silly really).

 

[reddishrecue]

I'm thinking when it comes out, it will either be a huge upset or a good game. It's hard to tell I mean there's so many games out there to play but there's always that few games that are the favorites in someone's collection. People might be upset and complain about things I mean I could see that coming and there can also be good things that the game might have that won't be recognized such as when civ 6 had its new animated graphic system.

 

[KayAU]

This "leader craze" has been going on in Civ series for quite a while now, but, for me, these characters always felt like caricatures and fakes. We don't really get to know them, nor how they or their followers think. A good example on how to "do leaders" is SMAC. Voiceovers and quotes from tech and project datalinks do help a lot, but also the diplomacy angle which is more flexible and changing than in any other "Civ" game by Firaxis.

SMAC had memorable leaders, and the voiceovers and quotes did a great job of making them come alive. I do think they were 1-dimensional to the point of caricature though, as they usually had 1 defining character trait each. Lal was the diplomatic peacekeeper, Morgan was the profit-obsessed CEO, Deirdre was the environmentalist, Miriam was the religious fanatic, and so on. Still...many years later, I remember them all without looking them up. I remember the names, personalities, and several of their quotes.

Civ has the benefit of using existing historical figures, and therefore, they get a lot for free in terms of factions being immediately distinct and recognizable. While this is a good thing, I do agree that they are rather shallow, and I wish that they would focus more on depth and quality, over just quantity. This is a general problem with Civ 6 in particular, I think.

Beyond Earth (which I rather like) tried to do some of what SMAC did, but based their leaders on national origins rather than character traits, and it wasn't quite as successful. Don't get me wrong, the characters do have personality traits, and you will get to know them as you play, but they are just not as memorable as those in SMAC.

Another interesting example of a way to handle leaders is Humankind. They chose to go with "personas", but I don't think it works well at all. They are not particularly recognizable neither visually nor in terms of personality. Add to that the way that civs abruptly morph into entirely different civs, and you end up with a rather schizophrenic experience. I'm not a Humankind hater, it's a game I enjoy playing from time to time, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

 

[Bibor]

SMAC had memorable leaders, and the voiceovers and quotes did a great job of making them come alive. I do think they were 1-dimensional to the point of caricature though, as they usually had 1 defining character trait each. Lal was the diplomatic peacekeeper, Morgan was the profit-obsessed CEO, Deirdre was the environmentalist, Miriam was the religious fanatic, and so on. Still...many years later, I remember them all without looking them up. I remember the names, personalities, and several of their quotes.

Agreed. There's a more depth to them, though. I've been playing SMACX again recently and the one-dimensional traits from the start of the game do transform into a sort of a multiplier for mid- and late-game diplomacy. At least on highest difficulty levels.

 

[Krajzen]

Sid Meier's Civilization has really nailed one thing which no other 4X competitor did, namely the Soul.

It is damn easy to create a 4X game which feels to play like an Excel spreadsheet, or a board game, or "just" an OK game for a few evenings. It is much harder with this genre to evoke the warm feelings in the heart of a player, the feelings of familiarity, belonging, of participating in something bigger than mere yield optimization.

Yet Civ has managed to do this since 1991, and the longer it has been doing it, the more this feeling of transcending the game has increased.
The leader personalities and voice and animations, giving the strategy game some characters and faces; the monumental music and stellar presentation; the gravitas, present for example in the tech quotes; the commitment to such ideas as world wonders, where the act of building them is more than mere collection of a +1 bonus. The meta-culture and the community built around the games and their amazing replayability; the old traditions, continued after decades, the references. The ability of Civ games to tell stories and immerse, to not be just races to finish.

 

[Goodenuf]

Sid Meier's Civilization has really nailed one thing which no other 4X competitor did, namely the Soul.

It is damn easy to create a 4X game which feels to play like an Excel spreadsheet, or a board game, or "just" an OK game for a few evenings. It is much harder with this genre to evoke the warm feelings in the heart of a player, the feelings of familiarity, belonging, of participating in something bigger than mere yield optimization.

Yet Civ has managed to do this since 1991, and the longer it has been doing it, the more this feeling of transcending the game has increased.
The leader personalities and voice and animations, giving the strategy game some characters and faces; the monumental music and stellar presentation; the gravitas, present for example in the tech quotes; the commitment to such ideas as world wonders, where the act of building them is more than mere collection of a +1 bonus. The meta-culture and the community built around the games and their amazing replayability; the old traditions, continued after decades, the references. The ability of Civ games to tell stories and immerse, to not be just races to finish.

And the voice of Sean Bean!

“You can’t go around arresting the Thieves’ Guild. I mean, we’d be at it all day!”

 

[blackbutterfly]

Sid Meier's Civilization has really nailed one thing which no other 4X competitor did, namely the Soul.

Yes, Firaxis has pixie dust magic.

Actually there may be a science here: the "game loop" (or what we call "One More Turn") as presented by Joe at IDGC23:

(Great watch BTW!)

 

[aieeegrunt]

To me the 'charisma' that Civ has is not just presentation. It's the uniqueness and variety on the mechanics: ie the UAs/LUAs, the city states, great works. A lot of competitors tend to be a lot more generic plus/minus modifiers (this civ gets +1 from rivers, and this civ +1 from deserts, and this civ +1 to culture, and this civ +1 to science), etc. That's also civ's core, but Civ dresses it up better, makes mechanics that feel more exciting/unique to me. Humankind imho massively had this problem imho, which was surprising since Endless Legend has some fairly distinct factions.

Civ also does peaceful victories much better. Most competitors are basically domination games with some token bucketfill peaceful victory on the side. Civ has a lot more thought into things like the culture victory and the science victory.

I also think there's generally space for multile good 4x games - that just expands the market, since people can buy multiple games. It's not a direct competition. Civs competition is really just itself - if 7 is good, people will buy it, if it's not good, people won't, regardless of what other games are out. I.e. even if Cities Skylines hadn't come out, no one would've been playing SimCity.

Speaking of SimCity, biggest danger with 7, imho, is some sort of 2K directed 'monetization' mechanics that end up ruining the game. Fingers-crossed.

Uh, generic bonuses and bucketfulling is literally all Civ6 does

Yeah I’m not arguing that agendas are good, but they definitely represent a personal aspect of the leader. That was my only point. I hope they don’t return in Civ 7.

I think the concept has potential, but the execution was pretty bad. Harald hating you for having an inland spawn is the poster boy for why

Yes, Firaxis has pixie dust magic.

Actually there may be a science here: the "game loop" (or what we call "One More Turn") as presented by Joe at IDGC23:

(Great watch BTW!)

Every game genre has this concept

Halo era Bungie called it the “thirty seconds of fun”