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

[marius_kaparius]

Chaining civilizations together and stacking the bonuses from legacy paths to set myself up for a victory type is something I believe in and I do feel like I have agency over that, even if something doesn't go to plan. I was playing for a culture victory yesterday and ended up pivoting to Economic. I wasn't forced down any path, in fact I'd say the age resets achieve the opposite.

 

[Maiq]

I just want my American chariots back

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I never saw the leaders as literal leaders in-game but as the zeitgeist of their civilizations. They have shifted away from that somewhat, becoming more avatars for the AI, but in neither case did I ever see them as relevant to the historicity of the experience. I think leaders fit conceptually better into previous Civ games, but they're also much more essential now as they've become the unchanging face of the civilization. Civ7 couldn't function without them.

I can understand all of this. But yeah, to me it's sort of off-putting and way more of a fantasy when I see someone like Isabella being the personification of Egypt in a game, where before it made sense for her being the leader of only Spain.
This game definitely took it more to where the leaders as opponents are more pronounced and the civs that they lead are just in the background.

 

[MutilationWave]

I think in my next game I'm going to turn all victory types off. I hate getting railroaded into playing a certain way. Right now in Exploration my best choice would be to go raze half of Napoleon's civ in a giant epic war because he's running away completely on science and culture. But because of the penalty for razing I can't do that. Instead I'm settling distant lands.

 

[Maiq]

I think in my next game I'm going to turn all victory types off. I hate getting railroaded into playing a certain way. Right now in Exploration my best choice would be to go raze half of Napoleon's civ in a giant epic war because he's running away completely on science and culture. But because of the penalty for razing I can't do that. Instead I'm settling distant lands.

Can't change victory types yet

 

[MutilationWave]

Can't change victory types yet

Damn it.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

General answer to everyone, because I'm not going to use up my time in specific replies:

Of Course the game is not historical. I've been roped into 'historical simulations' and whatever else they are - learning scenarios, teaching tools, Voyages of the D****d - they are Not Fun, Not Games, and not worth repeating except at gunpoint.

The only question left is what amount, type, and manner of Reckless Disregard for Historical Truth is each gamer willing to accept?

For me, well, I am aware that history is a constant chronical of continuous change - frequently unexpected and unwanted and unreasonable - so the changing of Civs is easier to accept than a false continuum from game start to game end.

Does that mean I accept everything about the way Civ VII does it: emphatically No, but, like every other game I have ever played, I can put up with some things because the overall experience is Positive.

Personal Opinion/Feeling only: your results may vary.

 

[Black Gate]

This touches on one of my gripes with the current civ-switching: the line between “civilization” and “state/political entity” is being blurred to an uncomfortable level for some.

I would argue the franchise has gone in that direction ever since the HRE was included in Civ4. "Civilisation" has always been an intentionally blurry state to allow both blobs like "Celts" or "Polynesia" and more obvious representations of certain periods like Persia (there's certainly never been any Sassanian or Islamic influence in those). The combination of ages splitting up larger civilisation entities (and the fans clamouring for "paths"), plus the general dislike of the blobs, has lead Firaxis down this road.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Civ IV had a better approach to outdated buildings - they may become obsolete and stop providing their main bonus,

Isn't that exactly what 7 is doing? I get people don't like the game but there's no reason to make up things.

 

[Siptah]

I think in my next game I'm going to turn all victory types off. I hate getting railroaded into playing a certain way. Right now in Exploration my best choice would be to go raze half of Napoleon's civ in a giant epic war because he's running away completely on science and culture. But because of the penalty for razing I can't do that. Instead I'm settling distant lands.

There are no victories in exploration age and you are not forced to complete/pursue legacy paths at all. Just attack Napoleon if you feel it is the right thing to do. If you don't settle distant lands, you should have no problem to take over 5+ settlements without getting in trouble with the settlement cap (and if you play a happiness focused civ even more), and razing 2-3 isn't that hefty a penalty. If you finish him off, you'll also generate a lot of age progress. And you could still complete cultural and science legacy goals on the way if you want to...

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I always considered the civilizations in Civ as abstract groups of descendants people. The Celts in Civ V were a really good example of this for me because they had uniques that crossed multiple political entities from people through history and geography that could trace their ancestry and cultural evolution back down that route.

That's not to say that's the only route, but its recognisable and fun.

That held with the idea of starting in 4000bc as a fairly generic tribe usually without the unique elements that elevated your Civ through it's golden ages.

None of this is to say it's the only or correct way of seeing cultural heritage and defining civilization as a historian, but Civ is a pop culture game, and that's a pop culture way to interpret history. I've always been fine with that, barring America being this weird special case rather than being a descendant of the Celtic / Germanic civilizations.

For a future Civ game, I'd be game for a compromise between the classic approach and the Civ VII approach where you have an overarching "civilization" you pick at the start eg. Germanic, then from there you have options each age eg. Do you go Anglo Saxon, or Frank, or Teutonic, something like that. Reflecting more organic transitions with uniqueness to them that allows change and choice but not at the expense of pop history immersion fun which is what a lot of casuals come for.

Could always have the option to switch off the branching restrictions for people who really want Maya into Australia

 

[Noble Zarkon]

For a future Civ game, I'd be game for a compromise between the classic approach and the Civ VII approach where you have an overarching "civilization" you pick at the start eg. Germanic, then from there you have options each age eg. Do you go Anglo Saxon, or Frank, or Teutonic, something like that. Reflecting more organic transitions with uniqueness to them that allows change and choice but not at the expense of pop history immersion fun which is what a lot of casuals come for.

I think that's a really good idea.

 

[AriochIV]

I don't mind the crises, nor the civilization-switching. I do mind the Age reset.

What I mainly don't like is the stage you reach where you're just hitting the END TURN button repeatedly because nothing else you do will have any impact on the rest of the game because it will all reset. This is inevitable to some extent at the end of the game, but now you have to get through this most boring part of the game THREE TIMES. Soon to be four times.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Regarding crises, I'm reminded of a board game called Shogun. It similarly forces all players to deal with an "event" with each seasonal progression, plus a sort of upkeep/culling phase during the "winter" season. It's a bit randomized, but overall players are given some degree of foresight of which events may happen over the upcoming year. Something which I think is very fair from a gameplay/strategy perspective, but also for most depictions of historical empires who likely had enough historical, collective and clandestine knowledge to make short term projections.

I don't think there is anything wrong with "all players" dealing with "the same crisis(es)" to some extent, but I think the biggest problems with how crises work now is that they are not causally tied to the board state, and otherwise are randomized to a point of not being able to really anticipate/prepare for them. I would propose a few changes:

1. Make crises predictable by tying them logically to the ways player gameplay is skewing. Too much urbanization = plague; poor IP relations = invasion, etc. etc. It's not going to be a perfect system out the door, but I think a solid effort could be made to encourage players to understand what crises are coming and learning how to use mechanics to either balance and minimize crises, or otherwise use mechanics to overcompensate for them. And then it's just a matter of refining/tweaking how those crises interact with each other and adding new crises to fill in any mechanical gaps/exploits.

2. Tailor most crises to universally apply to all civs/IPs within regions instead of making them apply globally. Dividing the effects of crises by geographic barriers (or lack of barriers) would be a very fair method of expanding consequences beyond the player character(s) without resorting to something as dumb as universal events, particularly in antiquity/exploration era. This would likely also have the effect of encouraging certain metas surrounding settling unoccupied regions versus forward-settling/shared borders, additional layers to IPs and resources, among other crisis-specific strategies.

In general, approaching crises less as "story events" and more as "logical stressors on complex systems" would just make the game a lot more dynamic and less rail-roaded. I think it is totally okay for the game to force players into essentially planned "dark ages;" it's that those dark ages are so overly scripted as to negate meaningful player interactivity that they kind of suck.

 

[Siptah]

Regarding crises, I'm reminded of a board game called Shogun. It similarly forces all players to deal with an "event" with each seasonal progression, plus a sort of upkeep/culling phase during the "winter" season. It's a bit randomized, but overall players are given some degree of foresight of which events may happen over the upcoming year. Something which I think is very fair from a gameplay/strategy perspective, but also for most depictions of historical empires who likely had enough historical, collective and clandestine knowledge to make short term projections.

I don't think there is anything wrong with all players dealing with the same crisis(es) to some extent, but I think the biggest problems with how crises work now is that they are not casually tied to the board state, and otherwise are randomized to a point of not being able to really anticipate/prepare for them. I would propose a few changes:

1. Make crises predictable by tying them logically to the ways player gameplay is skewing. Too much urbanization = plague; poor IP relations = invasion, etc. etc. It's not going to be a perfect system out the door, but I think a solid effort could be made to encourage players to understand what crises are coming and learning how to use mechanics to either balance and minimize crises, or otherwise use mechanics to overcompensate for them. And then it's just a matter of refining/tweaking how those crises interact with each other and adding new crises to fill in any mechanical gaps/exploits.

2. Tailor most crises to universally apply to all civs/IPs within regions instead of making them apply globally. Dividing the effects of crises by geographic barriers (or lack of barriers) would be a very fair method of expanding consequences beyond the player character(s) without resorting to something as dumb as universal events, particularly in antiquity/exploration era. This would likely also have the effect of encouraging certain metas surrounding settling unoccupied regions versus forward-settling/shared borders, additional layers to IPs and resources, among other crisis-specific strategies.

In general, approaching crises less as "story events" and more as "logical stressors on complex systems" would just make the game a lot more dynamic and less rail-roaded. I think it is totally okay for the game to force players into essentially planned "dark ages;" it's that those dark ages are so overly scripted as to negate meaningful player interactivity that they kind of suck.

I think the comparison with board games is somewhat valid, but also difficult:
- as an avid board gamer, I’m much more used to losing stuff and whole games than I would assume from people that play civ mostly in SP
- random bad events in board games that affect all competing players alike are easier to perceive as an obstacle the game throws at everyone at the table (e.g., Everdell‘s weather cards). In contrast, sitting alone at a computer creates more of a feeling that the game is penalizing you (especially if you view the AI as incompetent anyway).
- if you play a cooperative board game, negative events (random or not) are the spice of the game in many cases. You perceive games like Paleo, Andor, or Robinson Crusoe as players vs. game. So, these obstacles are to be expected and you wouldn’t play these games if you don‘t like that.

In other words, despite resembling a board game, I think the audience of civ and more complex board games have different habits and expectations.

I would really like if the crises in 7 would be tied closer to the game state as you suggest though.

 

[marinesciencedude]

1. Make crises predictable by tying them logically to the ways player gameplay is skewing. Too much urbanization = plague; poor IP relations = invasion, etc. etc. It's not going to be a perfect system out the door, but I think a solid effort could be made to encourage players to understand what crises are coming and learning how to use mechanics to either balance and minimize crises, or otherwise use mechanics to overcompensate for them. And then it's just a matter of refining/tweaking how those crises interact with each other and adding new crises to fill in any mechanical gaps/exploits.

I've heard they've already done that for the Plague crisis (however authoritative we think a YouTuber can be on the topic), but I suppose its weighting is simply not enough to still not feel like it's being completely random.

2. Tailor most crises to universally apply to all civs/IPs within regions instead of making them apply globally.

This would be required I think, as otherwise in the instance of that Plague crisis if the meta became 'always highly develop and populate your settlements' then you'd get it every single time which would partially ruin replayability (and obviously their solution to this problem for global crises was weighted randomisation)

 

[KayAU]

Just as a disclaimer, I have not played Civ 7 myself yet, but I find this design choice interesting. These are just my general thoughts about this kind of mechanism. Please correct me if I have misunderstood something.

One of my main issues with Civ 6, is that the outcome of the game was decided long, long before the actual end of the game, and so the endgame became incredibly tedius to me. I think this is to some degree unavoidable in any game which involves snowballing, and since snowballing is often fun, I'm not saying it should be avoided at any cost. However, I feel it impacts different games differently. I know not everyone agrees with me, but I found it a lot more egregious in Civ 6 than in 5. In Civ 5, you didn't have nearly as much to manage in the late game, things could be automated to a higher degree, and you would also get new things to focus on, in the form of ideologies and cooperative projects. In Civ 6, I feel I was doing the same things in the late game as in the early game, just a lot more of them, for less reward and impact, as the outcome of the game was decided many hours ago.

It looks to me like the age system in Civ 7 is a means to combat this, by changing things up a bit between ages, and introducing more distinct gameplay for each age. The idea is not unique to Civ 7 - Ara: History Untold does something similar by culling the least prestigious nations between acts, opening up their resources and lands for expansion by nearby nations. Civ 7's approach seems a bit more involved, or if you don't like it, heavy handed. For my own part, I have to reserve judgement until I actually play it myself, but I'm not against it in principle. What I have seen of it, I honestly think it looks promising, with some meaningful choices, and points being assigned to "level up" your leader and civ. I'm sure there's a lot of room for tuning and refining the mechanism, but I suspect that this is something I am going to like.

 

[Maiq]

Just as a disclaimer, I have not played Civ 7 myself yet, but I find this design choice interesting. These are just my general thoughts about this kind of mechanism. Please correct me if I have misunderstood something.

One of my main issues with Civ 6, is that the outcome of the game was decided long, long before the actual end of the game, and so the endgame became incredibly tedius to me. I think this is to some degree unavoidable in any game which involves snowballing, and since snowballing is often fun, I'm not saying it should be avoided at any cost. However, I feel it impacts different games differently. I know not everyone agrees with me, but I found it a lot more egregious in Civ 6 than in 5. In Civ 5, you didn't have nearly as much to manage in the late game, things could be automated to a higher degree, and you would also get new things to focus on, in the form of ideologies and cooperative projects. In Civ 6, I feel I was doing the same things in the late game as in the early game, just a lot more of them, for less reward and impact, as the outcome of the game was decided many hours ago.

It looks to me like the age system in Civ 7 is a means to combat this, by changing things up a bit between ages, and introducing more distinct gameplay for each age. The idea is not unique to Civ 7 - Ara: History Untold does something similar by culling the least prestigious nations between acts, opening up their resources and lands for expansion by nearby nations. Civ 7's approach seems a bit more involved, or if you don't like it, heavy handed. For my own part, I have to reserve judgement until I actually play it myself, but I'm not against it in principle. What I have seen of it, I honestly think it looks promising, with some meaningful choices, and points being assigned to "level up" your leader and civ. I'm sure there's a lot of room for tuning and refining the mechanism, but I suspect that this is something I am going to like.

If only the ages system actually stopped snowballing because I am doing it harder than ever lol

 

[KayAU]

If only the ages system actually stopped snowballing because I am doing it harder than ever lol

Well...does it at least have the potential to mix things up a bit? As I mentioned, in Ara you have the culling mechanism, which will generally benefit those nations with easier access to the abandoned territory. That could very well be someone who is already in the lead, but it could also be someone else. I am curious about how it works in Civ 7, is the balance of power affected much by the age transitions?

And for the other aspect of it, do you feel like there are interesting things to do in the mid and late game?

 

[Gori the Grey]

If only the ages system actually stopped snowballing because I am doing it harder than ever lol

Like KayAU, I also haven't played the game, but in the lead-up to its release, I wondered about this very thing.

How well the human and AI players fare is now partly a function of how each of them manage the crises and age resets. If that's something that human players can do more effectively than the AI, then they can come out ahead (relative to the AI, not relative to all they'd built in the previous age). And therefore the supposed "rubber-banding" moments are actually just further occasions for snowballing on the part of the human player.

Discussion since the release of the game suggests to me that is in fact how it has worked out. Human players can anticipate the coming crisis, make various preparatory moves to ensure that it impacts them minimally, divert production from things that won't survive to things that will, etc.

I don't hear anyone complaining the game is too challenging. One dude beat it on deity in is first game!