Civ 7 is a step away from the casual fanbase

[kotpeter]

Civ 6 did many things right for casual players.

• It had a cartoonish and easy-going style with bright and distinct colors. It made the game feel more light-hearted and calming.
• The color scheme of the game (complemented by other UI elements) made the game very readable and understandable one piece at a time. Each building, technology, wonder - all of them were thoroughly described.
• Charming leaders akin to cartoon characters, some of them even got their own memes (Victoria, Gilgamesh).
• A lot of low-hanging fruits for casual players: adjacency yields from districts (remember how satisfying it is to place a +5/+6 campus near a mountain range?), game-breaking abilities of certain leaders and civs (Scythia), crazy yields of certain relatively easy setups
• Sandbox-friendly gameplay (victory conditions never were intrusive to the game flow and never explicitly dictated how to play, they were in a separate window only for those curious how to win)
• Non-disruptive game flow (while this does not necessarily concern only casual players, I suspect they are even more pissed about it, because they are even more sensitive when it comes to playing on your own pace and rules. I can imagine how the player just started having fun during the age, and the age suddenly ends).

While I do not consider myself a casual player, I can see how points listed above (amplified by bugs and UI issues) could lead to a huge negative backlash. Civ 6 attracted a lot of new player cohorts, who wouldn't have enjoyed Civ 5 or past Civ titles, and these players bring their own expectations from the new entry to the franchise.

I think Civ 7 brought many great things and is a decent entry with a great potential. Commanders, unique civic trees for civs, rewarding colonization, improved combat system, new approach to city development, influence as diplomacy currency, navigable rivers and unpassable terrain aka cliffs, and even these bold (and dividing) mechanics of age transition or civ switching - there are many significant and ambitious changes, and the development team embraced those and delivered a game that is NEW, not a remaster or a re-iteration of the previous product. I enjoy playing it, but I completely understand why many other people don't.

Regarding potential fixes to the game to fix this backlash, I don't think getting rid of age system or civ switching is the way, because it'll be an entirely different game then, and it's not what you do to a released product. However, the game needs to align with the playerbase much more than it does now, and let some contraints and UX elements go or behave differently.

In my view, in addition to fixing bugs and UI issues, the following things needs to change:

1. End of an age. One thing Humankind did right is that the player could choose when to make age transition. Civ 7 needs this as well, maybe only for single-player, but it's a must. One shouldn't be forced to leave the current age if he/she is having fun! "Just One More Turn" is not a saving grace, as it applies only to the modern age and getting to this button is disruptive to the gameplay. Multi-player obviously needs these restrictions to prevent mechanic abuse, but it's not a majority of players. This might be an optional setting, but for single-player it should be enabled by default, because initial impression is everything, and Civ's primary audience is single-player.
2. Obviously, the UI/UX. But I'm not only talking about readability, bugs or completeness of information. The UI/UX needs to show players their low-hanging fruits and reward for their accomplishments. If there's a good place for science/production building, show a hint about it. If there's a great warehouse bonus potential, communicate it to the player. If the player has great adjacency setup, reward the player with some UX confirmation. Create an empire lens like in Civ 6 or smth where one can view all adjacencies, all warehouse bonuses, etc. Currently the only rewarding UX experience is wonder building and (to a lesser extent) goody huts, commander promotions and civ unlocks. Civ 6 was PACKED with rewards for players (eurekas and inspirations player a part in it as well, and the lineage screen too where you could see all your deeds that provided you with era score).
3. Outdated buildings and overbuilding. Actually, I think overbuilding is OK. What I think is not OK is not counting buildings from previous age as buildings, or cities conquered in the previous age as conquered cities. In order to maintain immersion, consistency is important. If the player conquered a settlement, he/she will treat this settlement as conquered till the end of the game, not till the end of the age. The game needs to do the same, and the policies that buff conquered cities need to work. Similarly, if there's a policy that buffs science buildings, it needs to take outdated science buildings into account as well. These penalities may be important for balance (obviously Ideology legacy path will need to be calculated differently), but they hurt immersion and casual impression of the game much more.
4. Leader and civ abilities. Actually, a few issues with them:
   • The game does not promote enough how unique civs actually are. Some of their most impactful and unique bonuses are in the civic tree, like Songhai's economic victory path on the home continent, Prussia's trading with enemies, Mughal's buying wonders for money (sick! imagine buying a cultural victory wonder the turn you unlocked it). Some unique things are hidden behind narrative events as well (I remember one unique improvement got a permanent culture per turn from a narrative event). Please let the player at least get a glimpse over these bonuses on a civ selection screen! Also, if a civilization has a unique wonder, please make it always available in one of earlier civic tree nodes, so that the player gets this wonder earlier and feels the difference of playing this civ vs the rest. Currently one civ that does this well is Incas, because usually Machu-Picchu is available very late, but Inca get it very early and it provides them with an entirely new way to complete Scientific Legacy Path (Machu-Picchu bonuses count as adjacency).
   • With that being said, we need more civs with unique abilities and more civs to complete historic paths for already existing civs. I think more historic paths will help players be more connected to what's happening with their civilization.
   • While civilizations have many unique things about them, leaders do not. Each leader has a few passive bonuses, unique attribute nodes (which need to be unlocked by leveling up leaders), 2 diplomatic endeavors, some civs available by default, and a unique progression tree (which is outside of the main gameplay loop). That's it. Their bonuses are impactful and they fuel meaningful gameplay decisions, but it's mostly noticeable to minmaxers and people who like to play the game of numbers. Leaders need to be more unique gameplay-wise. Remember Mwemba from Civ 6, who couldn't found a religion? He was added on release. Remember Kupe, Alienore? There are many reasons why Gathering Storm expansion made Civ 6 an even better game, and leaders are one of them. I think Civ 7 leaders can be made unique by spicing up their initial abilities and introducing interesting unique attribute nodes and making them available in-game immediately, not after leveling up a leader. Also, the game needs to explain that different leaders can use different diplomatic endeavors.

I hope we'll see adjustments to points listed above in the upcoming patches, as well as a lot of bugfixes.

 

[protocol7]

I think it's going to be hard for them to fix because people disagree on what's not working. They've managed to make a new version of civ that's polarising in multiple different ways simultaneously. For me, for example, I don't mind the civ changes (I can treat it as something like Pokemon evolutions or whatever and it doesn't bother me as much) compared to the offscreen collapse and reset of my civ no matter how well I'm doing.

 

[fantsu]

I think there are good ideas here to fix.
Flexible age transition would be so sweet indeed.

Not so sure about alienating casual players, I think its on par with V and VI on that matter. All of these were released on more casual platforms to begin with (Steam for example). All of these took things from Civ: Rev and added those in.
Old DOS/PC purists like me are yelling to clouds shaking their fists.

 

[Siptah]

Re: choosing when an age ends. I think it would be great if the crises would amount to something really hard and eventually impossible to overcome (I.e., at some point all yields decrease towards zero). You could then choose individually how long you want to continue in the face of that crisis to reach more goals/make important advances that transition into the next era, such as cities or wonders. I wouldn‘t even mind if it would be as in board games that players that left the age cannot be interacted with any longer.

Re: showing full civ uniques at selection screen. This is a must have.

Re: buildings. I would be fine with buildings not going obsolete at all. Just give more yields to newer buildings (e.g., +3 per adjacency in exploration). And allow warehouse buildings to improve with tech to stay relevant.

I like your post, and it has many good thoughts in it. What I’m missing from civ 7 in case of attraction to non-casual players (whatever that is) is difficulty.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

From my personal experience, I had about 20 people I know who regularly played Civ V, most of which are casuals and first timers to the franchise.

A good chunk of these, probably 15+ bought Civ VI, but only a couple really continuously played it beyond the first month.

Noone has bought or is interested in 7.

I think Firaxis has had 2 games on the trot now where they've sacrificed a new audience they've grabbed from the previous version to chase yet more casuals, and it's putting people off from the series.

I don't think these people are coming back now if I'm honest, not for Civ VII at least.

 

[UWHabs]

I'd agree with just about all of those points.

1. For Era transitions, it's been mentioned before, but I think the random leaps in era progress really take away from planning. Complete 2 legacies on the same turn, and the counter jumps from 84% to 100%, shocking you. In my last game, I was at 94%, and got a narrative event that a city was flipping to me, and should I accept or not. That was the last city I needed to complete the military path. Accepting the city means the era ends this turn. Refusing the city would give me another 5-10 turns, but I also know I'm not going to complete the legacy otherwise. I mean, interesting choice to make, sure, but when you go from thinking you have 5-10 turns left, to maybe having it stop ASAP, everything is off. Do I have enough money to buy the last building I need? Should I have held off and tried to convert another city, or would I have had time to get another codex for that path? Frankly, I'd be happy with when the age hits 100%, you get your 10 turn counter, so I know when things hit, and I don't have to worry about min-maxing to make sure I cash the last treasure fleet on the same turn that I unlock future tech.
2. Just bring what the mods give you. Map tacks, and some of the other UI mods do a better job at telling you what you get.
3. Agreed 100%. It's so annoying to have a tradition like "+3 happiness on science buildings", but libraries don't count because they're obsolete. It's okay to reset stuff like the war weariness penalty from razing cities on era change, but yeah it's a pain to have those traditions give you nothing early in the new era.
4. I think the leader attribute trees are a way to give you some leader customization game by game, and maybe it's asking too much to give give every leader a full slate of 6 trees. But maybe we could add a 7th attribute tree for "leader attributes", and give each leader their own tree for boosts? Or maybe they need to have a few more of those legacy options in the trees. In so many ways, the leader bonuses are basically back to what they were in civ 3 days, where you have those handful of traits that matter. Frankly, the mementos should be unlocked in the attribute trees for the gameplay run, so everyone can use them, but if you play a leader enough you can slot them early in the era instead of waiting for their unlock.

 

[kotpeter]

I think it would be great if the crises would amount to something really hard and eventually impossible to overcome (I.e., at some point all yields decrease towards zero). You could then choose individually how long you want to continue in the face of that crisis to reach more goals/make important advances that transition into the next era, such as cities or wonders.

Regarding crises, while it may break the narration for some, I think once an age reaches 100 percent, it may be better to disable them. For those who play with forced age transition, it won't matter. For those who would like a few more turns before moving on (or even a lot more turns), it'll make the game less frustrating.

I think reaching 100 era progress can be treated as a player "surviving" through the crisis, and the empire being on verge of transformation as the aftermath.

Also, some crises are meant to be only for a short period of time (like barbarian crisis which spawns hordes of high-tier units or happiness crisis which causes city flipping due to unhappiness). Making them last more turns could cause weird side effects such as constant flipping of cities or raging plagues constantly destroying cities. This may be fun to watch once or twice, but if you just want to keep playing your age normally, it won't be possible. I know crisis can be disabled, but it's hard to agree on a default setting for that.

 

[lander]

The age system and mostly the trade and the lack of custom game creation are a major problem, that made me delete the game after only a few hours of play.

In civ 6 I only played domination victory because I loved building a huge nuclear empire with submarine fleets and aircraft carriers patrolling and sitting off distant shores waiting to decimate and help allies, also building missile silos and anti air to secure my territory and I absolutely loved the power fantasy. I understand that some people want a full economic game and it was never even considered a problem in civ 6 because I could play the way that I enjoyed. On days I had completely free I could start first thing in the morning and still not be finished a game at midnight that day.

Civ 7 takes all of that away, I don't want to play short games with cultural victories while my fleet consists of 7 pedal boats, complete garbage for the way I enjoy playing. Civ 7 for me has taken away every single thing that I enjoyed about civ. So im now in the middle of a game of civ 6 and I will continue loving civ but civ 7 is far too basic and lacks the basic features that allow me to have a fun experience my own way.

Also trading and giving my allies was great and very realistic to help them against enemies. They have genuinly taken away every single one of the things that got me hooked to civ 6 and I feel scammed. This doesn't even feel like a new direction, this feels like a min/maxing of profits, over charge for a game that they left half of the features out of the old game. Minimal cost and effort for the most profit possible.

My initial thoughts are that civ 7 is far less complex than civ 6 because they either barely did anything then rushed it last minute or they were trying to make it as cheap as possible

 

[Civinator]

I don't want to play short games with cultural victories while my fleet consists of 7 peddle boat

 

[Gorbles]

I think Firaxis has had 2 games on the trot now where they've sacrificed a new audience they've grabbed from the previous version to chase yet more casuals, and it's putting people off from the series.

Losing some players and gaining a bunch more worked absolutely fine for VI.

Not every game is everyone's cup of tea, but suggesting that V to VI was the result of chasing "casuals" is adorable. Especially when your chosen demographic is people who came on board with V, and not any of the earlier iterations.

 

[lander]

To add to my previous post on this thread.

Considering how I described the way I like to play, I would like to explain a situation that happened in my first age transition as I forgot to mention age in my first post.

I chose a map with multiple islands/ continents as I always did in civ 6 as I like being a naval power and in my first civ 7 run I only had 2 city states on the land mass with me and I invested heavily to make them my allies and control the entire island, I succeeded.

Now I started building my naval power to fully protect my island so no land units were needed at that point, although I may have had a couple but not sure how many, it definitely wasn't many though.

Then the new age came,
My entire fleet was gone and replaced with all modern age/upgraded ground troops, i dont think i had a single ship after the age change. My naval power had 0 ships in it and only land troops on an island with no enemies on it.
Literally WTH is this crap. Are the devs intentionally trying to sabotage our game play and fun. What a stupid way to structure an age change lol. Every single thing i was building towards was deleted and replaced with units useless to me that I had to instantly delete and build my new fleet again from nothing.

 

[disjointaccount]

maybe we could add a 7th attribute tree for "leader attributes", and give each leader their own tree for boosts?

Love this idea. Makes total sense to me - each Civ has their unique Civic Tree, each Leader has their own Attribute Tree. Great way to make them feel more unique. The unique Civics Trees are one of the best additions to 7, it'd be great to see the same concept brought to leaders too.

 

[Siptah]

Love this idea. Makes total sense to me - each Civ has their unique Civic Tree, each Leader has their own Attribute Tree. Great way to make them feel more unique. The unique Civics Trees are one of the best additions to 7, it'd be great to see the same concept brought to leaders too.

And you unlock the attributes with only wild card points? Or it’s own currency?

 

[disjointaccount]

And you unlock the attributes with only wild card points? Or it’s own currency?

Maybe any type of attribute point could be used on the unique tree; it'd be a case of choosing between whatever the relevant normal tree is or getting your uniques. Similar to choosing whether you want to rush things on the regular civics tree or getting your unique stuff online ASAP. That feels like the most balanced solution to me, even if it might be a little weird in practice. Wildcard only feels a bit too limiting. You could have it be its own type of attribute point, but I like the idea of having an element of choice/opportunity cost.

 

[civlateintothenights]

Feels like Civ has always had its secret blend of herbs and spices - and that formula has largely stayed the same. They'd add new side dishes throughout the series - a dash of this, remove a pinch of that, but the main formula stayed the same.

This one tastes different - they threw out the secret formula. Everyone knows what KFC chicken tastes like - now imagine it tastes like (boardgame) cardboard. That's Civ 7.

 

[Leucarum]

It's fair to say Civ7 feels different - both good and bad elements to that - but casual is definitely not the word I'd use to describe it. The casual players I know have been pretty perplexed by the new mechanics. Ages are quite intricate and add a lot of complexity. I'd wager this is the least newbie friendly that civ has been!

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Civ 6 was a kiddie game, with terrible puzzle minigame moving around units.
civ 7 has even worst mobility, unless commanders, and it's still a kiddie game.

More civs and leaders doesn't translate to "historical path" automatically.
The core mechanics of the game should "regress" to a more "classical" gameplay mode.
The UI... the UI... the UI can be very heavy on CPU resources... maybe on a PS or Xbox or Switch it makes sense... touchscreen Tablet...
UI include things like the civilopedia, interactive links, units and tiles detailed info...
the outcome of a war could be easily interpreted by AI by interpolating Attack/Defence points of a single city by an attacking Army, with stacking...
Now AI is clueless, and so it was in Civ V and VI... a single city with walls on hills surrounded by mountains can annihilate even the stronger army...
The Ai is clueless... in Civ V better mobility and three tiles bombardment with upgraded archery units made the game more fluid, and it barely worked out
the 1Upt, Ai would build tons of archery and bombardment units, and it kinda worked, just kinda.

I prefer advanced keyboard binding, which is a PC, adult, thing...

We have Russia mods in Civ III where They have the T34 and Germany Panzer I, II and Tiger tanks. USA has the Abrahms, Lockheed bombers... Italy and France scrappy WWI tanks... Japan has the Yamato... there's WWII scenarios that are so bloody difficult that even the best hardcore players may never conquer Stalingrad at even the easiest setting... both Europe or Pacific scenarios are worth weeks of gameplay... literally 1000 russian tanks with armies to deal with... every turn Russia could produce like 50 tanks... plus infantry, artillery, and air units... we don't need more civs... we need attitude!


Civ don't need the casual fanbase... Civ needs to get it's back straight and go back taking bold decisions, unpopular decisions.
It created itself a niche for being a brutal, tedious, unbalanced hardcore game, just to become an harmless kitten, so to appease the casual
player...

Old time players watch it like an old friend that has gone mad, and now is dead, and there's a 10 y.o at the helm... or
like a living aquarium but all fishes and plants are plastic toys... basically a screensaver...

There is not even ONE scenario in Civ 7. Not one.
We can't create scenarios even if we wanted.
All the nice unique tanks units in modern Age... useless...

 

[Gorbles]

Civ needs to get it's back straight and go back taking bold decisions, unpopular decisions.

Like . . . Ages?

 

[uppi]

• The color scheme of the game (complemented by other UI elements) made the game very readable and understandable one piece at a time. Each building, technology, wonder - all of them were thoroughly described.

Quite some rose-tinted glasses you have on there. My number one criticism of Civ 6 is that it was very opaque. The UI does not really tell you how things work. And this got worse over the lifecycle of the game. Sadly, Civ 7 has continued that tradition.

Examples:
Tourism: The game does not tell you how tourists are calculated and how much tourism you need to generate to win. The best thing you get is a turn timer which is jumper than a Windows file copy dialog.
Policy cards:
You only get the text, but the game does not tell you what yields an individual policy card generates
Movement, especially embarkment/disembarkment:
The rules for movement are quite unclear and the UI is regularly confused itself and straight out lies to you whether a move is possible or even which path a unit will take

 

[Kyriakos]

Losing some players and gaining a bunch more worked absolutely fine for VI.

Not every game is everyone's cup of tea, but suggesting that V to VI was the result of chasing "casuals" is adorable. Especially when your chosen demographic is people who came on board with V, and not any of the earlier iterations.

It's probably due to the deck (card-game-adjacent) mechanism that CivVI introduced I have only played CivVI for two hours, but already was alienated by that (also hated it at Ara).
A compromise would be something like the EU approach, where you have to slide bars (and only one position at a time) to plan long-term bonuses. Just getting cards is imo not strategic and indeed on the casual side.
But of course in Civ we always just had the tech/other slide bar, which should be enough imo.