"Build something that you believe in."... oh wait, let me play for you...

[TheBlueKing]

Civ VII is sold with phrase "BUILD SOMETHING YOU BELIEVE IN." but then in the game at the end of each age they start playing for you and change everything that you created.

They remove buildings that are not ageless, they remove and upgrade your units, they remove your settler/colonists just before they reached that distant destination to settle a new town etc.

I find this extremely annoying, as at the start of each age you get a everything reorganized and you need to redeploy units and move them to distant places etc.

I have read comments by other users, where they get a feeling of playing three different games etc. People are not happy about this.

Game is unfinished, it has bugs etc. But this reorganizing of units, upgrading and removing them I find to be very extreme. It goes against that phrase "BUILD SOMETHING YOU BELIEVE IN.".

There are many reasons why would they do this e.g. it solves issue from Civ VI where AI keep using old units, helps AI catch up, makes AI competitive in each age etc. But it seems like a big laziness from developers to improve AI and instead they decided that this is a quick and simple way to ensure that AI remains competitive in each age.

I am completely against this type of approach and this is something that I would really like to be changed asap. I would like to see a vote about this.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I am completely against this type of approach and this is something that I would really like to be changed asap. I would like to see a vote about this.

Lots of people don't like it but given this is fundamental to how they designed Civ 7 not sure a vote achieves anything.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I fundamentally disagree with everything you wrote aside from "game is unfinished, it has bugs etc".

 

[awpioreubhnfgvv346260]

The game is a mess, even at the conceptual level. Removing buildings and units is just heavy-handed interference from the game designers for no good reason. Neglecting to maintain your military was punishment in itself, because more advanced foreign armies would stomp all over your outdated troops. Civ IV had a better approach to outdated buildings - they may become obsolete and stop providing their main bonus, but still provide a culture bonus (that grows over time), in effect acting as a kind of memorial or cultural icon for your people. I don't understand how good ideas from previous game don't get developed on, but instead just thrown into the trash bin and replaced with interfering, overly gamey and frustrating mechanics.

 

[Zaarin]

Removing buildings

Buildings are never removed; they just lose their adjacency bonuses. Unless your city is highly developed, it's possible for Antiquity buildings to persist into the Modern Age just because you develop outward instead of overbuilding.

 

[fantsu]

The resets make no sense and where many domination games, troop upkeep and such, plays a role maintaining an army get reset partially too "just to keep it simple" is just bad.

The game has many other better values still than that. Its a mixed bag for most, loved things, hated things. Separation of the fanatics is usually less enjoyable to follow here.

 

[kaspergm]

The game is a mess, even at the conceptual level. Removing buildings and units is just heavy-handed interference from the game designers for no good reason. Neglecting to maintain your military was punishment in itself, because more advanced foreign armies would stomp all over your outdated troops. Civ IV had a better approach to outdated buildings - they may become obsolete and stop providing their main bonus, but still provide a culture bonus (that grows over time), in effect acting as a kind of memorial or cultural icon for your people. I don't understand how good ideas from previous game don't get developed on, but instead just thrown into the trash bin and replaced with interfering, overly gamey and frustrating mechanics.

I agree, there are some very obvious and easily implemented features that would have made sense both from a realism and gameplay perspective that's not included. If they had made it so that a building from previous era gave a small culture bonus but lost all other yields in subsequent era, and then gave a big culture (and tourism) boost in the era after that, you would have had some interesting game choices to make as whether to keep or overbuild an existing building - and it would perfectly reflect how ancient buildings act as cultural and tourism centers here in modern era.

 

[Kwami]

I am completely against this type of approach and this is something that I would really like to be changed asap. I would like to see a vote about this.

Why?

They're not going to redesign the core concept of the game.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I agree, there are some very obvious and easily implemented features that would have made sense both from a realism and gameplay perspective that's not included. If they had made it so that a building from previous era gave a small culture bonus but lost all other yields in subsequent era, and then gave a big culture (and tourism) boost in the era after that, you would have had some interesting game choices to make as whether to keep or overbuild an existing building - and it would perfectly reflect how ancient buildings act as cultural and tourism centers here in modern era.

Let's see where they take it. Maybe nowhere, but there is a system in place for obsolete buildings; currently they only provide a base yield, but this could easily be tweaked and adapted.

 

[aelf]

I've seen the age transition reset do what it's supposed to do, so I think it works.

I play on Immortal and Deity difficulty levels, and IMO, at those levels there are clearly superior approaches to playing. One game I decided to do something else. I picked Charlemagne and played to his strength, aiming for an Exploration Age completion of the military legacy path. That meant teching to cavalry as quickly as possible to start accumulating them with his bonus. Then I picked Normans in Exploration Age so that I started with a lot of Chevalers.

Maybe due to the map as well (e.g. there were no surviving Scientific IPs), I found myself trailing badly in tech by the middle of Exploration Age. I had no problems militarily, but in earlier Civs, this would've been a lost game with the AI's snowballing. Thankfully, the Modern Age rolled around and the soft reset happened. I was still behind at first, but by middle of Modern Age, with the empire I had acquired, I was able to catch up and win.

I didn't need to abandon the game just because I didn't prioritise certain techs/civics, heavily invest in specialists, or choose a leader or civ with bonuses that I could leverage to keep up with the AI's science throughout the game. I could play a different way and still manage.

So, yeah, I think the reset does its job.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The hoary old Civ concept of leading and building the same Civilization for 6000 years was and is a complete and utter Fantasy concept. It made everybody feel like they were some kind of Petty God, but it bore no relation whatsoever to any historical group, culture or civ. Whenever people blat about Civ 'never being a historical game', somehow they never seem to note this Whopping Big Fantasy that was the centerpiece of the entire game franchise

I'm glad it's gone: I would cheerfully bury it deep with a fork stuck through its shriveled little fantasy heart because it is Done, Finished, and I'm glad to see the tail of it vanish in the wind.

Which I think is all the cliches I can jam into a single sentence without hurting myself.

On the other hand, I completely agree that there are things that could be better done to affect the transitions, their advents, causes, and consequences. I especially want to see more flexibility in when and how they start and end, so that the gamer has more agency in 'writing his/her own history' - that it is not the fake history of a single unitary Civ from 4000 BCE to near or past present day shouldn't make it any less the history that we, the gamers, write in the game, and right now, IMHO, too much of that is Mandated too strictly by the game's structure.

For example, more extreme Crisis Events and Progressions could lead to the transition to a new aspect of your Civilization (let's us Romans call them Normans, shall we?) being far more flexible in time: one game you go into Crisis fat and happy and can muddle through for 50 turns, still building to the end. Another game you go into it having just won a major war but with depleted treasury and lots of unhappy people, and the Crisis crushes you in 20 turns. The current system of carrying over various mechanics to the new Age based on how well you did in the previous Age is a great touch, but (again, all Personal Opinion here) needs to be more extreme: in one game I should transition to Exploration as Charlemagne the Great and Glorious, Leader of the Empire of Rome and its All-Conquering Legions in another I transition as Charles the Mangy, mayor of what's left of Rome and some mercenary bandits.

This kind of extremism in game design is very, very difficult: both to allow the extremes without letting the gamer slide past the worst of it while the AI flounders, which problem has bedeviled almost everything any Civ game has tried, and to make extremely negative consequences palatable to the majority of gamers, who despite all the honking about 'Better AI' and 'Diety is too Easy" really, really don't like to get their collective butts kicked by a game.

But I think it's worth exploring as a possible path to more flexibility and gamer agency in the Transition/Progression process that is the core of Civ VII's game design.

 

[awpioreubhnfgvv346260]

The hoary old Civ concept of leading and building the same Civilization for 6000 years was and is a complete and utter Fantasy concept.

So is the concept of the world facing a common crisis at the same time and then every civilisation on the planet undergoing radical changes following it. It's simply ludicrous and has no basis in reality. There's actually more basis for civilisations lasting for millennia - China has existed in one form or another for thousands of years. Rome existed, in one form or another, for over 2,000 years.

 

[Zaarin]

There's actually more basis for civilisations lasting for millennia

As they can in Civ7. The Antiquity lasts for millennia; Exploration is also about a millennium long. Add to that that some transitions are clear cultural descendants of their forebears (Han > Ming > Qing, Rome > Normans/Spain > France/Mexico, Carthage > Spain, etc.), and what you suggest is already well-represented in Civ7. I think Civ7's system needs smoothing out, but it is a step in the right direction. No civilization that exists today existed 6,000 years ago.

 

[Wardog]

I don't understand how good ideas from previous game don't get developed on, but instead just thrown into the trash bin and replaced with interfering, overly gamey and frustrating mechanics.

Yes, so many good ideas, features and mechanics from older Civ games that have been left behind through the years... They could have brought those ideias back, improved them and made the definite Civ game, reinforced by the roots of the series, which would an absolute sales success. Instead, apparently they preferred to take inspiration from a game of another franchise that has less daily players on Steam than Civ III...

 

[chazzycat]

China has existed in one form or another for thousands of years. Rome existed, in one form or another, for over 2,000 years.

"One form or another" sure is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Empires & dynasties rose & fell and reorganized into completely different entities. I think there's a very strong argument that the civ 7 model is much more historically accurate.

Take India for example. What they did makes a ton of sense. The Maurya empire in Northern India was a strong point during their ancient history, but that empire fell. The Cholas were a completely different people from Southern India that had a strong trading empire in exploration age. And lastly the Mughals, were another completely different set of people - Muslim invaders from Persia. But they also created a strong empire in the relevant time period.

So what's wrong with this exactly? It's way more accurate AND FUN to play around with 3 different sets of abilities that are suited to the appropriate age, all while retaining Indian identity.

Once they add more natural evolution paths I think this issue will fade away. Roman fans need the Byzantines to feel like a natural successor state, etc.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

So is the concept of the world facing a common crisis at the same time and then every civilisation on the planet undergoing radical changes following it. It's simply ludicrous and has no basis in reality. There's actually more basis for civilisations lasting for millennia - China has existed in one form or another for thousands of years. Rome existed, in one form or another, for over 2,000 years.

China and Rome neither existed as the same cultural, technological, or political entity for even 1000 years: by no coincidence, in less time than the Antiquity or Exploration Ages cover in Civ VII, they both changed radically.

To say that Rome existed in 'one form or another' is to ignore that those forms were radically different in culture, politics, and even language - The Byzantines famously used Greek as their basic official language instead of Latin (and there was a recent book written entirely on the Greek influence on Imperial Rome in philosophy, education, culture and technology: influence largely absent from Republican Rome and very different in Byzantium).

I'll grant you that a Common Crisis world-wide is a gaming device, but it is not completely ahistorical:

The 'end of the Bronze Age' in the Mediterranean in the 12th century BCE included the collapse of every major political in the Middle East except Egypt, which, however, entered its Third Intermediate Period starting a century later in which for almost 400 years there was no ruling Dynasty over all of Egypt – close enough to a 'Crisis Period', if not world-wide than for a large and important part of the world

Western Rome collapsed in the 5th century CE: China decentralized into the Sixteen Kingdoms in the 4th century CE, and did not come out as a single central state again until the 6th century CE and not really into a strong central state until the Tang of the 7th century. Again, not 'world-wide' but a large and important part of the world in crisis virtually simultaneously.

Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis is a massive 870 page book on the world wide crisis of the 17th century - roughy, 1610 to the 1690s. It affected states from England to Southeast Asia, China and Japan, Russia to Sub-Saharan Africa, North and South America. He argues that it was largely caused by Climate Change (with a lot of paleoclimatological data to back that up) bringing on harsher winters, shorter growing seasons, wide-spread famine and malnutrition and infant and adult mortality rates. Up to 1/3 of the global human population may have died as a direct or indirect result of this, and the instability produced resulted in numerous regicides from England to China and political turmoil expressed as civil and foreign wars, for the most obvious results. Except for the regicides, which Civ has never allowed in-game, it sounds very similar to Civ VII's attempts to model a Global Crisis but with more disparate causes.

In short, a Crisis Period causing periodic massive disruption to all or a major part of the world is far more arguable from the historical record than any 6000 year fantasy of a continuous civ or culture.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Yes, so many good ideas, features and mechanics from older Civ games that have been left behind through the years... They could have brought those ideias back, improved them and made the definite Civ game, reinforced by the roots of the series, which would an absolute sales success. Instead, apparently they preferred to take inspiration from a game of another franchise that has less daily players on Steam than Civ III...

Yes, they took some risks - that's not inherently a bad thing to do though.

 

[CivLuvah]

So is the concept of the world facing a common crisis at the same time and then every civilisation on the planet undergoing radical changes following it. It's simply ludicrous and has no basis in reality.

You're basically forgetting we're currently in the midst of one (climate change), which has an effect on all other "civilizations".

 

[Civinator]

apparently they preferred to take inspiration from a game of another franchise that has less daily players on Steam than Civ III...

... and Civ III has a lot of additional players with the GOG version and even with CD versions (what Civ 5 and 6 never have).

 

[awpioreubhnfgvv346260]

No civilization that exists today existed 6,000 years ago.

Nor was there an event at the end of the "Exploration Age", which every civilisation in the world entered simultaneously, that forced every civilisation to evolve into a new one at exactly the same time.

You're basically forgetting we're currently in the midst of one (climate change), which has an effect on all other "civilizations".

When climate change forces Canada to evolve into Zimbabwe, let me know.