Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Picked up Norman Davies' Vanished Kingdoms yesterday - subtitled "The Rise and Fall of States and Nations". Turned out that, although I opened it for entirely different reasons, it speaks directly to many of the 'questions' raised about Civ VII.
Especially to 'switching Civs' and 'Immersion', since it deals directly with Civilizations and States that no longer exist and many which 99.9% of us have never heard of: Tolosa, Sabaudia, Rosenau, Rusyn, etc.
From his Introduction, quoting Thomas Gray:
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power
And all that beauty, all that wealth ever gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
I applaud Civ VII's attempting to model, not the fantasy of 6000-year continuous Empires led by God-like Immortals through a monotonous millenia of upward striving, but the approximation of the historical reality signified by Ozymandias.
Will Civ VII's version be entirely what I would like to see? Hell, no! Every gamer has a different vision, a different set of positive and negative views of any game system, a different set of priorities of what they want or don't want. No game will ever please or satisfy all of us. I already have a list of things I would like to see in the game, that I am not sure are there but will bring up when I know. Whether written out or not, everybody somewhere in their mind has a similar list For Every Game.
But so far, I foresee no problem Immersing myself in an Empire that is not Immortal and Eternal: as a historian, that feels far more Right than Civ's previous model, which attempted to fit a single Leader from a single lifetime with that lifetime's attributes into a 6000 year 100 lifetime time span and a state or civilization that had morphed many times, even those few that kept the same general title.
Civ VII may be far from perfect, but it promises to be Good Enough.
Especially to 'switching Civs' and 'Immersion', since it deals directly with Civilizations and States that no longer exist and many which 99.9% of us have never heard of: Tolosa, Sabaudia, Rosenau, Rusyn, etc.
From his Introduction, quoting Thomas Gray:
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power
And all that beauty, all that wealth ever gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
I applaud Civ VII's attempting to model, not the fantasy of 6000-year continuous Empires led by God-like Immortals through a monotonous millenia of upward striving, but the approximation of the historical reality signified by Ozymandias.
Will Civ VII's version be entirely what I would like to see? Hell, no! Every gamer has a different vision, a different set of positive and negative views of any game system, a different set of priorities of what they want or don't want. No game will ever please or satisfy all of us. I already have a list of things I would like to see in the game, that I am not sure are there but will bring up when I know. Whether written out or not, everybody somewhere in their mind has a similar list For Every Game.
But so far, I foresee no problem Immersing myself in an Empire that is not Immortal and Eternal: as a historian, that feels far more Right than Civ's previous model, which attempted to fit a single Leader from a single lifetime with that lifetime's attributes into a 6000 year 100 lifetime time span and a state or civilization that had morphed many times, even those few that kept the same general title.
Civ VII may be far from perfect, but it promises to be Good Enough.
