Am I the only one feeling like the Civ count is getting in the way of replayability?

[Smegger213]

This is all caused by the stupid age system in Civ 7. They have made a ton of Civ's now age specific. EG, you can only play Britain in the Modern Age. This restricts the number of Civ's that can be placed as AI opponents when you start in the Antiquity Age etc. This is all a cause of the pathetic Civ changing mechanic at the end of each age. I cannot stand this leader can play any Civ crap either. Hatshepsut should be playing Egypt through the whole game and no other Civ.

 

[Siptah]

Ignoring persona's there are 220 different Leader/Civ combos you could theoretically meet in Antiquity but because of the way it's set up I bet e.g. Hatshepsut of Egypt shows up more often than by random chance.

And I think this the latter is partly important: the way the randomization works is that it picks one of the leaders, and then assigns a historic/geographic civ choice, except if all were already taken. So, Hatshepsut will always get Egypt unless someone else took it first, e.g., Tubman. Then Hatshepsut will revert to one of her alternatives, which is probably Carthage or Aksum. Hypothetically, if these are already taken by the leaders that "chose" first, she goes random. But you only see this for the European leaders currently, e.g., in a game with Machiavelli, Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Lafayette. And for the combinations, I'm not sure how important it even is for the feeling of repetitiveness whether you meet Augustus or Rome, Augustus of Egypt, or Augustus of the Han.

But that would still mean that you have 22 leaders to meet and play against. More than in civ V and VI at release - and with less in each game than in these versions likely as well (as you cannot have more than 8). The question remains why it feels more repetitive than in these games? I think it's important that no one is able to compare it directly, because you now come from V and VI with much more leaders after many years to VII with much less. So, it might be much worse if anyone started civ VI now with only the base game and having 10 civs+leaders in each game. But still, as @Verified_Confection_Being states, the problem is there and recognized. A good explanation isn't there yet. And it cannot be civ switching, because this has nothing to do with the fact that 22/26 leaders feel repetitive, which is a problem even in Antiquity.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I like how pre-release we've seen a lot of posts that leaders should always play their historical civs and now the situation where leaders often play their historical civs is named as a source of a problem.

I think the best solution would be to add "AI don't follow historical paths" option at game start.

 

[Gedemon]

I don't care about leaders (and if I was paying attention, then I wouldn't want modern leaders in Antiquity, nor leaders leading other civs than their own), so for me the low number of civilizations per age is the main issue here.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't care about leaders (and if I was paying attention, then I wouldn't want modern leaders in Antiquity, nor leaders leading other civs than their own), so for me the low number of civilizations per age is the main issue here.

I understand that different people play the game differently, but I'd say not caring about leaders is the main issue here. They span through all 3 ages and actually define how your opponent plays more than their civs.

 

[Smegger213]

I like how pre-release we've seen a lot of posts that leaders should always play their historical civs and now the situation where leaders often play their historical civs is named as a source of a problem.

I think the best solution would be to add "AI don't follow historical paths" option at game start.

There definitely needs to be a lot more starting options like in previous Civ games.
We should be able to choose what victory conditions to have.
What Civs the AI leaders can have etc.
How many independent states to have in a game.
Be able to turn off disasters, or severely limit the disasters. (I have it set at the lowest setting, yet still see disasters nearly every turn.)
Be able to turn off espionage.

EG in Civ 5 as well as the 5 victory conditions, there are 15 other options to choose from. Plus the map options.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

the low number of civilizations per age is the main issue here

I think this is probably it, 10 civs with 5 or 7 opponents each game means you'll see lots of repeats.

 

[Wabnosa]

Not having a separate England and France in exploration is a mistake. Bring in the Franks or Burgandy.

 

[Smegger213]

Not having a separate England and France in exploration is a mistake. Bring in the Franks or Burgandy.

Its blindingly obvious that they will sell more and more Civs and leaders in paid for DLC. No doubt we will get Britain, France etc etc in the exploration age, with multiple leaders. But we will be forced to pay for it.

 

[Siptah]

But we will be forced to pay for it.

Pretty sure that won't be the case. Who could force you to pay for it and by what means? You mean you'll force yourself to buy it?

 

[Smegger213]

Pretty sure that won't be the case. Who could force you to pay for it and by what means? You mean you'll force yourself to buy it?

Perhaps saying forced to pay for it was too strong.
But on the other hand, we can be sure that they will come out with leader and civ packs as paid dlc. The player will have to weigh up whether its worth it or not.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Perhaps saying forced to pay for it was too strong.
But on the other hand, we can be sure that they will come out with leader and civ packs as paid dlc. The player will have to weigh up whether its worth it or not.

Releasing civs and leaders as part of paid extensions is a practice since Civ3 (or SMAC if you count it a civ game). On the other hand, practice of releasing them for free never happened.

So, why expect things which never happened and complain about standard content practice?

(If you complain about DLC model as a general practice, we had a topic of "greedy" corporations in another threads with some calculations showing that the DLC model is more a necessity for Firaxis survival than a source of some additional profit)

 

[Gedemon]

Pretty sure that won't be the case. Who could force you to pay for it and by what means? You mean you'll force yourself to buy it?

The number of civs being too low in the standard edition of the game with it's main feature (ie X civs per age), then it's not a stretch to say you'll have to pay more for an experience similar to previous standard versions of the game.

for example, who cares that you can have a million of culture combination in HK if you always meet the same one each age ?

I've no issue with the age mechanism by itself, but the day they announced the number of civs at launch was a very big disappointment.

 

[Siptah]

The number of civs being too low in the standard edition of the game with it's main feature (ie X civs per age), then it's not a stretch to say you'll have to pay more for an experience similar to previous standard versions of the game.

Yet, no one forces you to buy more civs. Or demands that you buy more civs. Or you have to buy more civs in order to enjoy the game. You can have some hours of fun with the base game and then move on, and come back a year later (if at all) when meeting the same civs feels less old again. That's perfectly fine behavior. If you want more, you pay more. I think the price for 4 civs + 2 leaders is outrageous (although not at all unexpected), but hardly the practice per se, that's just normal consumerism.

I've no issue with the age mechanism by itself, but the day they announced the number of civs at launch was a very big disappointment.

Yes, it was. Although, I found the speculation that there would be 45 suspiciously high. But as that speculation had taken over, expectations were also along these lines. I think that may have been the reason to announce the number of civs relatively early and in a rather surprising event.

 

[Siptah]

Moderator Action: {snip} Please report the trolls and let us deal with them rather than responding --NZ

I wonder if someone is willing to play 5 games of vanilla civ 5 or 6 and report how repetitive it feels there to play on 8 player maps. Any volunteers?
Or: people that use the leader pool feature of 6. How many do you have in your pool? All but 1-2 that you don't like? Or more restrictions?

 

[Xandinho]

And I think this the latter is partly important: the way the randomization works is that it picks one of the leaders, and then assigns a historic/geographic civ choice, except if all were already taken. So, Hatshepsut will always get Egypt unless someone else took it first, e.g., Tubman. Then Hatshepsut will revert to one of her alternatives, which is probably Carthage or Aksum.

Interestingly, I have seen Himiko leading Khmer quite often. It seems that they prioritized relating Himiko to Southeast Asia rather than China.

 

[Siptah]

Interestingly, I have seen Himiko leading Khmer quite often. It seems that they prioritized relating Himiko to Southeast Asia rather than China.

Himiko is a bit weird in that regard: I think her main choices are Mississippians and indeed Khmer.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Interestingly, I have seen Himiko leading Khmer quite often. It seems that they prioritized relating Himiko to Southeast Asia rather than China.

Himiko is a bit weird in that regard: I think her main choices are Mississippians and indeed Khmer.

Probably because Khmer and Mississippians are the main paths toward Meiji Japan right now. Khmer lead to Majapahit and Mississippians to Hawaii which both unlock Meiji Japan.

 

[AriochIV]

We knew that civ diversity was going to be very thin on release as soon as we found out the number of 10 civs per age, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. It's a problem inherent to the civ-switching mechanic: after you've played 10 games you're going to have to replay the same civs, and playing Greece-Normans and Rome-Normans or Rome-Normans and Rome-Spain doesn't feel terribly different, nor does playing the same civs with different leaders feel very different, so playing the combinatorics game of claiming there's great diversity in combinations doesn't really work. And yes, it's a problem both for what you're playing as and who you're playing against. It's going to take years for them to build up enough civs so that it even feels like a 20 civ vanilla release, and they will never have enough to feel like 50+ civ mature Civ6.

 

[stealth_nsk]

We knew that civ diversity was going to be very thin on release as soon as we found out the number of 10 civs per age, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. It's a problem inherent to the civ-switching mechanic: after you've played 10 games you're going to have to replay the same civs, and playing Greece-Normans and Rome-Normans or Rome-Normans and Rome-Spain doesn't feel terribly different, nor does playing the same civs with different leaders feel very different, so playing the combinatorics game of claiming there's great diversity in combinations doesn't really work. And yes, it's a problem both for what you're playing as and who you're playing against. It's going to take years for them to build up enough civs so that it even feels like a 20 civ vanilla release, and they will never have enough to feel like 50+ civ mature Civ6.

If we take two numbers - number of civs per age and number of civ/leader combinations, tha actual feeling of diversity will be somewhere in between. And exact position will depend on the perception of particular player.

To me, Civ7 already feels more diverse than fully equipped Civ6, because in Civ6 most civilizations feel more or less the same, with their unique bonuses only slightly modifying gameplay. Yes, there's Babylon and some other interesting cases, but it's more an exception than a rule. In Civ7 I feel leader choice having almost the same weight as Civ6 civilization choice, while Civ7 civilization choice brings additional heavy customization.