As Much as I Love the Civ Switch Mechanic I Really Hope they Fix how Clunky and Abrupt the System is.

sTAPler27

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I was rewatching the Exploration age live stream and it reminded me just how despite there being a whole transitionary phase between ages that the actual change happens instantaneously. Like wars just abruptly end which feels odd and while I get that with a regieme change current wars might end but since EVERY regieme ends on the exact same turn in this game it feels like naratively the game is trying to have the civ switch mechanic represent the gradual evolution of culture and not a sudden takeover which the abruptness of the change the gameplay more closely represents. I hope that in thismini essay I can point out some of the ages in the system and provide tweaks to make them feel a lot more seemless while fitting into the narrative of evolution the game seems to want to tell.


----- Differentiating the Crises Between Continents -----


It feels quite odd that both continents face the same crisis at the same time despite the game trying to portray them as being completley isolated up to this point. Why separate these two continents if they're going to be treated as more or less carbon copies of one another with exception of shape, resources and civs when their. It feels less like a representation of the differences in evolution between Afro-Eurasia and the Americas in our workd and more like you played two games of tick tack toe and then just combined them after a couple of terms. The crises must occur in both continents to utilize the civ switch mechanic but ultimately they should also reflect the differences in circumstances in the continent. In our own world for instance Rome collapsed due to its expansion and militarism coming back to haunt them while for the Mayans it happened 400 years later, likely due to enviornmental decay due to unsustainable living methods.

This will make the "crisis into a switch" mechanic feel less like a mechanic and more like a proper narrative elements. Along with that the potential for differences in crises to add yet another layer of uniqueness between the two worlds. Maybe once you discover the other continent you can take advantage of the instability caused by their crises while your continent faired well against theres. Maybe your continent was more militarized so it put up nicely with a barbarian invasion while the arid landscape of the other made it difficult for them to remain healthy during a plague.


----- A Transition WIndow Instead of an Abrupt End ------


If the game must have a mandatory switch point it should still have it so the palyers that are ready to move on early can do so within a window while others can stay in it until the very end of the crises. Make it so those that overstay their time in the age, when forced into the next one, recieve some kind of temporary penalty with a mini crises ontop of the one they came from. It would represent how while others transitioned over time to evolve with the challenges they faced this nation by comparison tried to cling to a dying way of life and had to be thrust into the new age by something like a Revolt or Coup. Potential downsides would be a settlement or two breaks away, angry citizens pop up as military units to be put down, or you temporarily lose access to certain traditions as the new regieme tries to distance itself from the old one.

Meanwhile those that embrace the change earlier will be met with a more smoothe transition while still having to deal with the crises like everyone else, with their civ swap representing a less abrupt evolution of their culture.


----- Soften the Caps for what is and Isn't Allowed in an Age -----


While I comend the devs in using the age system to prevent snowballing I do think that there are too many hard caps on what a player can and can't do, as well as what abruptly stops as the age switches completely.

Tech and Civics should not be capped by age. This is an issue I had with Humankind's system where you couldn't research techs from the next era unless you were a scientific civ. If Civs simply represent a culture there should be no reason why the Mayans couldn't research Astronomy, I mean they did it in our real world. I think the mastery system was a good way to work around feeling capped but ultimately it should still be possible, even if at a penalty to research techs beyond your age. I mean whats the point of gatekeeping these later techs if you're just going to give away all the last era techs and civics in a single turn when the age transitions anyways?


Another hard cap comes in the way of navigation. One of the ways I keep my naval units busy in the early ages of Civ 6 is by looking for a hidden costal route to the other side of the world. I'm less mad about this change because the ability isn't granted to you it requires a tech, and with the addition of seafaring vessels taking damage in rough waters there is still a need to find costal tiles when traversing the world. I feel like if they unlocked the techs from their ages and made it so each naval tech lessened the damage taken they could account for the unique explorers in our own universe that made the contiental voyages prior to the 15th century such as the Polynesians and Norsemen.


And when it comes to the battles I opened this with I feel like they should end for those that sluggishly remain in an era but for all other cases they should continue. While underperforming nations' militaries collapse as their regiemes do ones that are more gracefully transitioning could maybe take combat strength penalties to represent the fact they're restructuring but otherwise remain in the conflicts they're in.


----- Conclusion / TLDR -----


Overall the civ switch mechanic might be one of the greatest additions to the series so far but i'm worried that it might be smothered in its infancy if not executed right. Without alterations to how universal the crises feel, how abruptly the ages end, and how disjointed the ages of the game feel from one another I worry this game will feel too heavily scripted and like a series of disconnected games similar to Paradox's rather than a gradual transition of changes.
 
In answer to the caps…I think the caps are very important…and they addressed your concern…there is always a repeatable “Future Tech” and one of benefits is research for a tech in the new age.
 
In answer to the caps…I think the caps are very important…and they addressed your concern…there is always a repeatable “Future Tech” and one of benefits is research for a tech in the new age.
My whole point is that ultimately it is still a block in the natural flow of gameplay. Instead of the ages feeling like actual periods of time they feel like locked gates. It feels frustrating gameplay wise to come across caps that aren't based on player ability and more just because the game says so. Instead of the ages feeling more like a limiter they feel more a dam, with transitions feeling less like natural progressions and more like the opening of a floodgate.


It doesn't help that narratively it makes less sense as well, a game that centers around rewriting history should allow you to create an alternate history not governed solely by the developers interpretations of our modern classifications of chunks of time.
 
It doesn't help that narratively it makes less sense as well, a game that centers around rewriting history should allow you to create an alternate history not governed solely by the developers interpretations of our modern classifications of chunks of time.
Except for the modern age, none of the in-game ages really matches traditional historiographical dating. Antiquity is generally considered roughly the period from 500 BCE to 500 AD, but the game starts a few thousand years before that. The Age of Exploration is generally the period from when Western Europeans started developing more advanced sailing techniques in the 15th century to a nebulous ending usually segueing into the Enlightenment, but, again, the game's age starts about a thousand years before that. Modern historiography, on the other hand, has tended to emphasize that all classification systems are arbitrary and that there's more in common between periods than there are differences. I think it's fair to call Civ7's ages more of a gameplay feature than a historical one, and making them gradual would be both more historical and more natural...but would defeat the gameplay feature of preventing runaway tech and helping the lagging (chiefly AI) catch up.
 
My whole point is that ultimately it is still a block in the natural flow of gameplay. Instead of the ages feeling like actual periods of time they feel like locked gates. It feels frustrating gameplay wise to come across caps that aren't based on player ability and more just because the game says so. Instead of the ages feeling more like a limiter they feel more a dam, with transitions feeling less like natural progressions and more like the opening of a floodgate.


It doesn't help that narratively it makes less sense as well, a game that centers around rewriting history should allow you to create an alternate history not governed solely by the developers interpretations of our modern classifications of chunks of time.
They are designed to be blocks in game play, because they separate out certain mechanics from each other.

I agree that can be frustrating, but some of it is the necessary simplification to avoid mechanics interacting that aren’t set up to be able to interact in a sensible way.

I think the hope is by making the mechanics of one age work for better on their own, the 3 part game will feel more like a sweep of history….although you are right that it won’t work for some people.

And while it is alternative history, it’s not 100% alternate …
The devs impose a tech tree, yields for different terrains and improvements , etc.

Fortunately, you can accelerate your entry into the next age (gameplay determines when the age ends)





I do agree that having varied crises would be good but some like plague rely on spreading mechanics so they should be for a whole “Land” in Ancient or the world later

Barbs / Revolutions could be regional up to global (since there can be spread)
 
Except for the modern age, none of the in-game ages really matches traditional historiographical dating. Antiquity is generally considered roughly the period from 500 BCE to 500 AD, but the game starts a few thousand years before that. The Age of Exploration is generally the period from when Western Europeans started developing more advanced sailing techniques in the 15th century to a nebulous ending usually segueing into the Enlightenment, but, again, the game's age starts about a thousand years before that. Modern historiography, on the other hand, has tended to emphasize that all classification systems are arbitrary and that there's more in common between periods than there are differences. I think it's fair to call Civ7's ages more of a gameplay feature than a historical one, and making them gradual would be both more historical and more natural...but would defeat the gameplay feature of preventing runaway tech and helping the lagging (chiefly AI) catch up.
I know it's not 1:1 historical, that's why I label it as an alternate history game. I don't care if the ages match up with reality perfectly because by antiquity they clearly mean everything prior to the general medieval age where exploration picks up. If you want to split a game into thirds some ages are going to be lumped in like that.

I don't think its designed the best if the catchup mechanic completely upends the narrative and gameplay. It's like a roller coaster. Imagine every third of the ride your vehicle stopped for a 15 seconds before resuming. The goal should be a cohesive experience. It'd be better to lay on the breaks here and there once the momentum built up makes things a bit too uncomfortable.
 
I know it's not 1:1 historical, that's why I label it as an alternate history game. I don't care if the ages match up with reality perfectly because by antiquity they clearly mean everything prior to the general medieval age where exploration picks up. If you want to split a game into thirds some ages are going to be lumped in like that.

I don't think its designed the best if the catchup mechanic completely upends the narrative and gameplay. It's like a roller coaster. Imagine every third of the ride your vehicle stopped for a 15 seconds before resuming. The goal should be a cohesive experience. It'd be better to lay on the breaks here and there once the momentum built up makes things a bit too uncomfortable.
I think the Crises are what is supposed to provide that Transition
They do have some of their own unique mechanics
 
I think the hope is by making the mechanics of one age work for better on their own, the 3 part game will feel more like a sweep of history….although you are right that it won’t work for some people.
I see your point but I feel like that ultimately comes down to an issue with making the ages feel like separate games rather than chapters in a singular story. Like why can't India for example found a religion in antiquity, afterall they did in our world. In that way they doubled down on alternative history by locking cultures out of their historical abilities instead of simply giving civs paths to diverge from their history in bennefial ways.

And while it is alternative history, it’s not 100% alternate …
The devs impose a tech tree, yields for different terrains and improvements , etc.
You're 100% correct, if it wasn't it'd be something like Spore where you create everything from scratch more or less. But I think it's important that while Civ gives you historical blocks to build with that it should be left to the players and their AI opponents to build with them based on the needs for any given condition. The history in the game would bennefit from not being a retelling of real world history but would bennefit from at the very least being a realistic set of events that could have happened. Like a fantasy or sci-fi novel with good worldbuilding.
 
I think the Crises are what is supposed to provide that Transition
They do have some of their own unique mechanics
I'll give you that, in a sense they function as their own mini ages. But the fact is though that every civ transitions on the exact same turn.


The website above shows a mad of the world over time. While there's periods where a lot of things change at once there's no one year where the map becomes unrecognizable. Crises should feel substantial but the issue is they shake things up in an instant instead of being overarching periods of change.

That's why I think crises should open up the window of time in which you must switch civs instead of building up to the decision of a single turn at the very end of a crisis.
 
Like why can't India for example found a religion in antiquity, afterall they did in our world.
The handling of religion in Civ7 is my biggest disappointment with the game. I hope it gets overhauled top-to-bottom in an expansion.
 
I see your point but I feel like that ultimately comes down to an issue with making the ages feel like separate games rather than chapters in a singular story. Like why can't India for example found a religion in antiquity, afterall they did in our world. In that way they doubled down on alternative history by locking cultures out of their historical abilities instead of simply giving civs paths to diverge from their history in bennefial ways.
From what we've seen, the pantheons are treated in-game as if they are, at some level, precursors to your Exploration Age Religion, with excavating a Shrine (gives you your Pantheon bonuses) possibly giving you "a remnant from the origins of [chosen religion.]" The "founding" of a Religion in Exploration could thus be interpreted as a state adoption of or state-related authority created for a faith that had already seen practice in your nation's Shrines in Antiquity. It's not ideal, but it's something.
 
I think this is a tough one to reason out since a lot of the question is around how things will feel, not around numbers we can crunch. Will age transitions feel abrupt? Will switching feel like a loss more than a gain? We just don't know yet, and this probably won't be the same from age to age or from person to person, or maybe even from game to game.

Maybe a bigger concern about how things will feel is that to me the ages don't look equally fun. Exploration mechanics are my biggest bugbear - micromanaging religion and treasure fleets... Thanks, I hate it! Especially when firaxis seem to have done such a good job of reducing micromanagement elsewhere. I wasn't especially wowed by the modern age either, just neutral about it so far... I think that's gonna affect my desire to play a whole game of Civ7 much more than snowballing did in 6...
 
The handling of religion in Civ7 is my biggest disappointment with the game. I hope it gets overhauled top-to-bottom in an expansion.
You and me both. I don't often play games where I'm actively spreading my religion abroad but I'd appreciate a more nuanced religion system because it feels like the series treats all religions as prostheletyzing monotheistic ones. I think more philisopical or polytheistic aspects could make founding a religion more strategic and add more flavor.

I don't mind them lumping together culture and religion because they're very similar but i'd prefer it if they made the victory condition for culture in the exploration age to not solely be religion focused.


A bit unrelated to the main topic but also my main religious feature I was hoping for was schisms. I think it would be interesting if multiple religions could share a tenent but only if they form from another. I mean its kind of silly that in the past 3 games we'll have Protestantism, Catholocism and Eastern Orthodoxy as completely separate religions that can be founded independently from one another.
 
From what we've seen, the pantheons are treated in-game as if they are, at some level, precursors to your Exploration Age Religion, with excavating a Shrine (gives you your Pantheon bonuses) possibly giving you "a remnant from the origins of [chosen religion.]" The "founding" of a Religion in Exploration could thus be interpreted as a state adoption of or state-related authority created for a faith that had already seen practice in your nation's Shrines in Antiquity. It's not ideal, but it's something.
That's the way I've been choosing to see it, my main issue is you can't really devlop it outside of a certain timeframe. I mean by the end of the period the Antiquity age represents Hinduism had developed its tenents far more than Islam for example. In that way I prefer Civ 6's system where the speed at which you solidified your beliefs correlated to faith output. But If I'm correct at the very least Civ 7 has a religion portion of their culture tree so that points to a system in place where if you want to grow a religions tenets you still need to invest into it in a way thats a bit more solid than faith, which wasn't a bad yield but it felt a bit abstract at times because how is this yield buying missionaries, great engineers and Rock Bands?
 
Exploration mechanics are my biggest bugbear - micromanaging religion and treasure fleets... Thanks, I hate it!

I can get the dislike for those mechanics I just come from that opinion at a different angle. I don't inherently dislike them I just feel like they tie into the age based victory system weird. In Civ 6 there wasn't really a set series of ways to earn a culture victory, you just needed to accumulate tourism by any means whether that be through natrual beauty, hospitality, sports, fine arts, religion, etc.

Treasure Fleets and Missionaries should be optional tools used to achieve victory points but not necessities. If you want Economic points you should be able to get that through your regular trader units just like you should be able to get Cultural points through building Wonders. Having multiple paths to victory has always been part of the fun.
 
Maybe a bigger concern about how things will feel is that to me the ages don't look equally fun. Exploration mechanics are my biggest bugbear - micromanaging religion and treasure fleets... Thanks, I hate it! Especially when firaxis seem to have done such a good job of reducing micromanagement elsewhere. I wasn't especially wowed by the modern age either, just neutral about it so far... I think that's gonna affect my desire to play a whole game of Civ7 much more than snowballing did in 6...
I've always liked the early game best and the late game least, both from a historical and mechanical perspective, and I certainly feel like Civ7 has intensified that.

I don't mind them lumping together culture and religion because they're very similar but i'd prefer it if they made the victory condition for culture in the exploration age to not solely be religion focused.
More than additional victories that some have suggested, I'd like to see new victory paths within existing victories/legacies. The current lineup seems okay for Antiquity but very narrow for Exploration and Modern.
 
Treasure Fleets and Missionaries should be optional tools used to achieve victory points but not necessities. If you want Economic points you should be able to get that through your regular trader units just like you should be able to get Cultural points through building Wonders. Having multiple paths to victory has always been part of the fun.
I really like this thought. Generic paths available to all the ages, plus unique ones to spice them up would have been interesting though maybe tougher to balance since if the generic ones were easy enough, why bother with the unique ones, or vice versa?

I think also comparing the culture/exploration and science tracks in exploration - trying to maximize yields is going to be something you do naturally in gameplay, whereas relics and treasure fleets are a more prescriptive "you have to play your game in a specific way." Millitary is also prescriptive in terms of where you have to conquer but at least you'd still be doing something you want to do if your goal is millitary. For me, it's this prescribed nature of exploration which is turning me off and questioning its replayability.
 
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More than additional victories that some have suggested, I'd like to see new victory paths within existing victories/legacies. The current lineup seems okay for Antiquity but very narrow for Exploration and Modern.
I can justify the Antiquity era victories because there's less you can do in times that were less developed. But I agree that as the ages go one the victories should be more complex. Like I think they said the culture victory was centered around artifacts, which is a mechanic I love but how much of modern cultural dominance is solely centered around historical museums. Even my the time the game is set to end around the 60s things like movies, music, and hospitality were the largest signs of cultural dominance
 
I think also comparing the culture/exploration and science tracks in exploration - trying to maximize yields is going to be something you do naturally in gameplay, whereas relics and treasure fleets are a more prescriptive "you have to play your game in a specific way." Millitary is also prescriptive in terms of where you have to conquer but at least you'd still be doing something you want to do if your goal is millitary. For me, it's this prescribed nature of exploration which is turning me off and questioning its replayability.
Exactly, the victory conditions should be tied to generic success in that area. Like even if you weren't going for a culture victory in Civ 6 it was still handy to build Theatre Squares to help get those policy cards and governments.

In my decade of palying civ games I have never won a military victory but i've appreciated that while the goal is simple to understand the methods to achieving it are complex and dependent on how you want to tackle it. The complexity of the victory is based on the complexity of the military mechanics which every player has to interact with in some way.
 
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