Are we trapped by design decisions into very limited gameplay, with an illusion of choice?

[Australopithecine]

Theoretically, we will have more choice than ever before in terms of the civs and leaders we would like to play.
In reality, that choice is less than ever, if you want to play somewhat thematically.

If I wanted to play a game with an African flavor, for example, there is no real choice at all, and it is a poor one at that.

I will have to play as Hatshepsut, with Egypt, then transition into the Songhai, and then culminate with Buganda.
To me this feels unnatural, and tenuous, at best.

This is a result of the combination three specific design choices:
We have to switch civs in each age.
We cannot switch the leader.
There are only 30 civs at release.

This would have felt much better to me if I am able to stay as Egypt or pick a more appropriate leader with the new civ or, at least have more civ to select from.

Or perhaps create a custom leader / avatar that is less coupled to a historic civ.

I do think this will be much better once we have more civs to work with.

I understand that Civ games typically have limited options and systems in their first release and only really expand in terms of options after the first or second expansion.
It still has to offer enough that players don't lose interest to the extent of feeling disenfranchised and give up on future content.

Modding normally helps to fill gaps and enrich the selections.
I fear that modding will be more difficult this time around, since additional civs require more assets than in the past.
I really hope that the modding kit is extensive and unrestricted enough to breach the most egregious gaps soon after launch.

I love this franchise more than any other, and it (visually) looks better than ever from what I have seen.

I truly hope the design restrictions does not derail the initial reception as a whole.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I think the answer is yes, if you want to stick to historical or regional paths but no, if you're happy to embrace the full flexibility of switching.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I will have to play as Hatshepsut, with Egypt, then transition into the Songhai, and then culminate with Buganda.
To me this feels unnatural, and tenuous, at best.

This is just me guessing, but I don't think most people know enough history to understand why it's unnatural.

 

[Evolena]

If I wanted to play a game with an African flavor, for example, there is no real choice at all, and it is a poor one at that.

I will have to play as Hatshepsut, with Egypt, then transition into the Songhai, and then culminate with Buganda.
To me this feels unnatural, and tenuous, at best.

If you wanted to play African flavor, why wouldn't you pick Amina and Aksum instead of Hatshepsut and Egypt?

 

[The Fanatical]

Or perhaps create a custom leader / avatar that is less coupled to a historic civ.

I mainly agree with your post. The game will need time in order to feel rich gameplaywise as more civilizations and leaders are going to be added, and a more friendly modding system is definitely needed, but one thing that puts me at odds is your suggestion of custom leaders, an option Humankind provided. I prefer to choose a real historical leader with an interesting character and equally interesting achievements whose skills I will evolve across eras, instead of playing with a bland and generic one with a lack of personality.

 

[Australopithecine]

If you wanted to play African flavor, why wouldn't you pick Amina and Aksum instead of Hatshepsut and Egypt?

I could, yes, and probably would. It is the one alternative, that I am aware of.

I was just using Egypt as an example, since it is one of civs iconic entries, and illustrates the disconnect going through the eras a little better.

The same reasoning holds for many different regions and themes.

 

[Australopithecine]

I prefer to choose a real historical leader with an interesting character and equally interesting achievements whose skills I will evolve across eras, instead of playing with a bland and generic one with a lack of personality.

Fair enough, now that I think of it, I would probably also prefer leaders with strong historical flavour.

I guess in my mind I was thinking of the 'leader' representing 'myself' as some kind of immortal avatar, leading the civs through the ages.

 

[Leyrann]

Which is very different indeed from Civ VI release, where you could choose between Kongo and... uhm... Kongo. Oh, right, and Greek-ruled Egypt, I guess, if you're including the African Mediterranean for Africa?

 

[AriochIV]

In Civ6 on release, if you wanted to "wanted to play a game with an African flavor," you could play as Egypt or Kongo. Period. In Civ7 you can play as Egypt or Aksum.

Iif you restrict yourself to the most historical choice, switching options will be limited on release, but you have a similar number of options as previous iterations, but also the other benefits that the Age system brings. Chief among them (for me at least) is that your current civ is always relevant to the Age, and that there are upgrades to keep your unique units relevant throughout the Age, and that by the end of the game you'll have a whole stack of unique buildings.

I don't worry about the civ-switching mechanic. I'm more concerned about the forced narrative -- the Crisis mechanic and whatever is going on with the New World.

 

[Australopithecine]

Which is very different indeed from Civ VI release, where you could choose between Kongo and... uhm... Kongo. Oh, right, and Greek-ruled Egypt, I guess, if you're including the African Mediterranean for Africa?

I could still play as Kongo from start to end, with a Kongolese leader, or Egypt.

In 7 I have to go Egypt / Aksum ==> Songhai ==> Buganda, with a miss-matched leader.
In my mind that's less choice, with the potential to be more later on.

Still, it is not my intention to compare one edition with another for equivalence.
I am more concerned about how this will feel, to players with a more thematic inclination, out the box, on release.

And I do consider Egypt as an African civ yes.

 

[AriochIV]

Even assuming that there aren't more African civs that we don't know about,

Civ7 Hatshepsut+ Egypt -> Songhai -> Buganda
will be more different gameplay-wise from
Civ7 Amina+ Aksum -> Songhai -> Buganda
than
Civ6 Egypt was from Civ6 Kongo.

 

[The Fanatical]

Fair enough, now that I think of it, I would probably also prefer leaders with strong historical flavour.

I guess in my mind I was thinking of the 'leader' representing 'myself' as some kind of immortal avatar, leading the civs through the ages.

Technically we do something similar, we take the role of a historical leader, but our decisions in the game represent ourselves, not that historical figure's. The historical leaders will always be immortal anyway for gameplay reasons, and despite not being undead in real life (unless of course you want to talk about Dracula) they are a more interesting choice.

Now that I'm thinking about it, does anyone else want a Civilization game where all the leaders will be immortal deities. Mars, Zeus, Cernunnos, Odin, Ra, Baal Hammon, Marduk, Ashur, Ahura Mazda, Shiva, Yudi, Amaterasu, Kukulkan, Huitzilopochtli etc. And this would work really well even if the leaders are separated from civilizations.

 

[Australopithecine]

Technically we do something similar, we take the role of a historical leader, but our decisions in the game represent ourselves, not that historical figure's. The historical leaders will always be immortal anyway for gameplay reasons, and despite not being undead in real life (unless of course you want to talk about Dracula) they are a more interesting choice.

Now that I'm thinking about it, does anyone else want a Civilization game where the all the leaders will be immortal deities. Mars, Zeus, Cernunnos, Odin, Ra, Baal Hammon, Marduk, Ashur, Ahura Mazda, Shiva, Yudi, Amaterasu, Kukulkan, Huitzilopochtli etc. And this would work really well even if the leaders are separated from civilizations.

I would be up for a few turns in that.

A touch of 'Populous' in Civ. If that reference still has relevance.

 

[Atlas627]

It's just differently thematic. Either way, you're representing a single civilization that morphs over time, just now you get 3x the gameplay effects because we're reskinning your civ to match your current gameplay effects.

The Egypt -> Songhai -> Buganda game is
Ancient wonderbuilding on rivers -> Trade on rivers -> ???

In the old games, this was accomplished by calling you Egypt the whole time and giving you different bonuses at different parts of the game. However, because of the thematic limitation of calling you Egypt the whole time, there was only so much they could do to give you any bonuses after Ancient. This is a problem when some civs only have bonuses in Ancient and others only have bonuses in Modern.

So this is more freedom, and if you're willing to adjust to a different way of thinking about the theme, more thematic too.

 

[Glassmage]

It's just differently thematic. Either way, you're representing a single civilization that morphs over time, just now you get 3x the gameplay effects because we're reskinning your civ to match your current gameplay effects.

The Egypt -> Songhai -> Buganda game is
Ancient wonderbuilding on rivers -> Trade on rivers -> ???

In the old games, this was accomplished by calling you Egypt the whole time and giving you different bonuses at different parts of the game. However, because of the thematic limitation of calling you Egypt the whole time, there was only so much they could do to give you any bonuses after Ancient. This is a problem when some civs only have bonuses in Ancient and others only have bonuses in Modern.

So this is more freedom, and if you're willing to adjust to a different way of thinking about the theme, more thematic too.

that's a weird take.... why didn't they just keep the same Egypt civ until modern age and give Egypt more/different bonuses as each Age progress? The #1 reason for this civ switching is to sell more civs through DLC and that is a fact!

 

[AntSou]

that's a weird take.... why didn't they just keep the same Egypt civ until modern age and give Egypt more/different bonuses as each Age progress? The #1 reason for this civ switching is to sell more civs through DLC and that is a fact!

adding "and that is a fact!" to the end of a sentence is a great way to be taken seriously.

As for the OP, I don't think switching leaders AND civs would have been a good idea. It would be very disorienting. I also don't see how civ switching reduces choice. Of the three reasons, I agree that releasing with 30 civs will reduce choice at release and it's a bummer, but it isn't a "design choice".

 

[gdr_willter]

that's a weird take.... why didn't they just keep the same Egypt civ until modern age and give Egypt more/different bonuses as each Age progress?

It because we really don't know about the what-if version of Ancient Egypt which survived till now. I don't want the fictional middle-age Egypt with Cart Knight and Pharaoh emperor.

 

[Glassmage]

It because we really don't know about the what-if version of Ancient Egypt which survived till now. I don't want the fictional middle-age Egypt with Cart Knight and Pharaoh emperor.

and I don't want to be an Egyptian person then magically become a Songhai person.

 

[gdr_willter]

and I don't want to be an Egyptian person then magically become a Songhai person.

They become an Egyptian people who adopted the Songhai way, or a Songhai people who adopted the Egyptian traditions. No magic's here, just context. The Crisis system will provide those proper context to the civ switching.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Theoretically, we will have more choice than ever before in terms of the civs and leaders we would like to play.
In reality, that choice is less than ever, if you want to play somewhat thematically.

If I wanted to play a game with an African flavor, for example, there is no real choice at all, and it is a poor one at that.

I will have to play as Hatshepsut, with Egypt, then transition into the Songhai, and then culminate with Buganda.
To me this feels unnatural, and tenuous, at best.

This is a result of the combination three specific design choices:
We have to switch civs in each age.
We cannot switch the leader.
There are only 30 civs at release.

This would have felt much better to me if I am able to stay as Egypt or pick a more appropriate leader with the new civ or, at least have more civ to select from.

Or perhaps create a custom leader / avatar that is less coupled to a historic civ.

I do think this will be much better once we have more civs to work with.

I understand that Civ games typically have limited options and systems in their first release and only really expand in terms of options after the first or second expansion.
It still has to offer enough that players don't lose interest to the extent of feeling disenfranchised and give up on future content.

Modding normally helps to fill gaps and enrich the selections.
I fear that modding will be more difficult this time around, since additional civs require more assets than in the past.
I really hope that the modding kit is extensive and unrestricted enough to breach the most egregious gaps soon after launch.

I love this franchise more than any other, and it (visually) looks better than ever from what I have seen.

I truly hope the design restrictions does not derail the initial reception as a whole.

This is one of the biggest reasons why I suspect there aren't only 30 games at release. I think Africa had to have gotten better treatment at launch than Amina leading Aksum -> Songhai -> Buganda.

The fact that they went with Songhai and not Mali strongly suggests, to me, that we could be getting three (much more cohesive) African paths at launch:

* Hatshespsut: Egypt -> Abbasids -> Mamluks (North Africa)
* Amina: Wagadu -> Songhai -> Hausa (West Africa)
* ??? (Fumo Liyongo?): Aksum -> Swahili -> Buganda (East Africa)

I think people should be patient and see how this plays out. Everyone is panicking over a very incomplete picture and a single press statement.

And, if it turns out that we don't get better African paths at launch, then just don't buy the game. Wait till DLC fleshes it out to the degree you think it should be.