Civ 7 is not a Civ type of game.

[evonannoredars]

Plus Civ switching will defo be removed at some point

Considering how fundamental it is to the core gameplay, I highly doubt that

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Ever since (arguably Civilization IV*, but definitely) Civilization V, this has been gradually weakened. The highlight of this is Civilization V actively making it worse to expand your empire (three cities being the optimal amount, from memory)

This is a gross over-simplification of how Civ5 really played. It was easy and strong enough to beat the, unfortunately pathetic, AI but the most powerful games (those where players would beat deity in a minimum of turns) had more cities than that. Not to the silly ICS style of Alpha Centaury but 3 definitely wasn't optimal, not even 4 (the limit for the free monuments with Traditions tree). I'd say that 6-7 tall tradition was approaching optimal, or much more than that if you went for the stronger, but harder, alternative (can't remember the name, as i too went for the easy Traditions game most of the time).

but look at the shrinking map sizes, one unit per tile (further making the map feel smaller, combined with necessarily increasing production costs further decreasing the feeling of having a massive empire with many things going on)

Not sure what you mean by shrinking map sizes, i've never compared the amount of tiles per map so you might be right. As for Standard being the max size in 7, i think it's probably due the engine not being fully optimized yet, and the amount of civs being too low.They keep boasting about Civ7 having the most civs at launch for the series, if you devide those civs by 3 ages we are sitting at approximately 10 playable civs, not enough for a huge map, not to mention the low replayability if you always face the same civilizations. Larger maps will likely be added in the future when those 2 concerns have been alleviated.

Combined with the AI not even being able to fulfill the fourth X anymore ('eXterminate'). Civilization has become much more like a boardgame, much less like a Civilization game.

It's not just the AI. The 4th "X" is mostly gone from Civ now that even military victory is "built" as a large project in your cities. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing thought, in fact it will probably make me consider military victory more often. I think exterminating opponents is very 20th century. You're talking about boardgames, few boardgames nowadays requires you to gradually eliminate every other player like good old Monopoly (well, not that good in my eyes, but definitely old). Civilization has evolved, that's true. It's very different now from the older titles but unless you move from Civ1 to 7 without playing any other title, you can still recognize it as a Civ game from what i've seen.
Maybe there will be some "last man standing" mode or mod at some point in the future for those who really want their 4th X back. I hope there is for you guys but i won't miss it as for me the most intersting part of the game was always to manage my empire, not crush the other civs.

 

[Fummy]

The gameplay loop much more closely resembles Humankind than it does previous Civ games, even VI. The diplomatic interactions costing influence points, urban districts with adjacency bonuses, civ changing, checklist of mini-goals each era, narrative events, decoupled leaders. Its a 4X game, but its not a civilization game unfortunately.

 

[Masquerouge]

the greatest strength of the Civ series in my opinion is that each iteration never felt stale. If I wanted more of the same with each new release I'd either play FIFA or Madden, or, less tongue in cheek, I would stay with my favorite entry, whatever that is. It's a perfectly valid choice.

But I respect the risks and the huge amount of work Firaxis puts into each new entry, while always keeping it bound within the 4X genre. Civ 7, from everything I've seen so far, will still have exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination, there's no arguing about that. We could argue whether or not each of those fulfil your idea of the kind of X you like, sure, but it's there.

So to say Civ7 is not a civ-type of game smells to me a bit too much like ragebait.

 

[Lord Shadow]

This kind of "not Civ" arguments always boils down to the current game just not meeting an arbitrary, personal definition.

I see the point of divergence and/or beginning of the "downfall" varies from person to person. That's fine, people are different, tastes are different. But considering the makers of the saga (and the chief ideologue) have never changed, one can never credibly claim a given incarnation isn't a Civilization game. Not as long as the core tenets, as defined by the author(s), remain.

It's probably painful to some extent, but the appropriate thing to concede instead is, perhaps, "Civilization is no longer for me". At least its current iteration(s).

Civilization is (or, was) a 4X game.

Ever since (arguably Civilization IV*, but definitely) Civilization V, this has been gradually weakened. The highlight of this is Civilization V actively making it worse to expand your empire (three cities being the optimal amount, from memory), but look at the shrinking map sizes, one unit per tile (further making the map feel smaller, combined with necessarily increasing production costs further decreasing the feeling of having a massive empire with many things going on), districts (again, further making the map feel smaller), minimum amount of tiles between cities, and so on. Combined with the AI not even being able to fulfill the fourth X anymore ('eXterminate'). Civilization has become much more like a boardgame, much less like a Civilization game.

*As much as I love Civilization IV, it did decrease the maximum map size compared to Civilization III, increased the minimum amount of tiles between cities (from one to two), and also introduced city maintenance mechanisms (which is the best solution Civilization has ever seen to countering ICS - short-term loss, long-term profit - so I wouldn't count it as going against the spirit of a 4X-game, hence my use of 'arguably').

Civ4 was definitely the one that broke the continental city carpeting paradigm, and it was a terrific change, as others have mentioned. Cities became more unique, meaningful, customizable, and overall more interesting to manage. There was nothing strategic nor particularly fun about rushing to lay out a planet-spanning grid of equidistant cities (and bury the map in endless railroads) faster then your opponents. Settlers, settlers, settlers, defenses and practically the same build across every city.

Civ4's Achilles' Heel which prevents me from reliably going back to it is the poor aging of its 3D graphics. For Civ3, whose quality 2D graphics better stood the test of time, it's inevitably that old carpeting paradigm.

The gradual expansion of land improvements to what eventually became districts was another welcome change, in my book. Made the map look less generic and samey, while continuing to pile on tactical choices and geographic interaction on city management.

Has this made Civ more of a city builder over time? Yeah, probably. But what was it before that if not a far more basic, exponential city-plopping boardgame? Because yeah, it always was a boardgame: remember we're talking about the same saga whose progenitor literally had plastic-like square counters for units and cities, and didn't have any significant animation until its third mainline installment. Past Civ2 and its pseudo-siblings, and Colonization and even Alpha Centauri (plus expansion), whose dynamism is highly debatable.

So, in the end, what are these claims beyond yearning for the "good ol' days" that, most crucially, never were?

 

[GoneFishingX]

It's funny to me how Firaxis keeps making changes to add interaction and decision making to the 4 x's with each game. They keep trying to expand your decisions to make them more interesting and every time someone complains how the lower depth version was better.

1upt was done to make military victories more engaging. Positioning matters; your pool of units is less so each choice is more important; and much more of the map is used.

Having limiters on number of cities makes expanding more interesting. Now you need to choose the best places to expand to and not just blanket the map.

Unpacking cities was designed to make exploiting more intricate. Now you need to examine the map for strong spots to put your districts.

Finally the distant lands in civ 7 seems be a choice to add new depth to exploring. The new world is always in the game (terra by default) and it has massively valuable resources for you to seek out.

 

[Lord Shadow]

1upt was done to make military victories more engaging. Positioning matters; your pool of units is less so each choice is more important; and much more of the map is used.

While 1UPT looks great on paper, in practice it led to the crippling of the AI in its warfighting capacity. From my perspective, it is the one blunder and regret I have about the course of the Civ saga.

An intermediate solution between stacks of doom and AI-unmanageable formations would've been better for the overall gameplay and challenge experience. They could've implemented concentrated armies with a twist of some kind many years ago (the CTP games introduced the concept 25 years ago), but instead of tackling the issue head on, designers instead chose to focus on the peaceful side of gameplay systems. They stuck to that for an overly long while, in my opinion, and the warfare aspect of the game slowly withered.

That was their prerogative. I suppose I'm a wargamer at heart, and pursuing a military victory historically tended to be more engaging than the mechanical, puzzle-like approaches of the other victory types. Even though all could benefit from judicious use of military force.

Anyway, just saying not even I, a lifelong Firaxis fan, consider the history of Civilization an uninterrupted string of victories as far as my preferences are concerned.

I'm just hoping Civ7's reintroduction of armies, better thought out this time, helps the AI compete in that arena once more.

 

[TheGrayFox]

I do am generally dissatisfied with Civ7 (and never enjoyed Civ6), but this particular complaint seems like shouting at clouds for me.

It doesn't need to be a city-spam-fest for it to be a 4X game. Infinity city spamming is boring, having to make proper decisions and planning about your expansion is way more interesting.

I agree with this. I also think the very heavy handed design against expansion cities making 4 cities optimal like V was bad design but I don't think those limitations made the game "not a 4x" and this is coming from someone who has very little interest in VII currently

 

[FORRREST]

Civilization is (or, was) a 4X game.

Ever since (arguably Civilization IV*, but definitely) Civilization V, this has been gradually weakened. The highlight of this is Civilization V actively making it worse to expand your empire (three cities being the optimal amount, from memory), but look at the shrinking map sizes, one unit per tile (further making the map feel smaller, combined with necessarily increasing production costs further decreasing the feeling of having a massive empire with many things going on), districts (again, further making the map feel smaller), minimum amount of tiles between cities, and so on. Combined with the AI not even being able to fulfill the fourth X anymore ('eXterminate'). Civilization has become much more like a boardgame, much less like a Civilization game.

*As much as I love Civilization IV, it did decrease the maximum map size compared to Civilization III, increased the minimum amount of tiles between cities (from one to two), and also introduced city maintenance mechanisms (which is the best solution Civilization has ever seen to countering ICS - short-term loss, long-term profit - so I wouldn't count it as going against the spirit of a 4X-game, hence my use of 'arguably').

in civ 1 you could build cities right next to each other, much more options for "canal zones"

 

[FORRREST]

The series is predicated on a design philosophy of roughly 1/3 of each titled (after the first) being essentially brand new design. Given that Civ 7 is the sixth time it has gone through this process it shouldn't surprise anyone that is has grown in directions far away from it's roots. It's going to be a pretty individualized experience as to how many and which of these changes appeal to each of us.

However, comparing it to Clash of Clans seems....untethered from the actual design & gameplay.

Depending on which streams you watched and how dialed in you are on the underlying mechanics some degree of confusion makes a lot of sense. Since I have voraciously gobbled up every morsel of info that has become available it is pretty easy for me to contextualize what is being shown in the streams. Absent that context. and especially if it is one of the streams that for the sake of brevity was editing aggressively for the sake of time, it may have looked like a glorified slot machine or some other negative analogy.

Now if you are up to speed on all of those subtilties, understood exactly what you were looking at and it didn't appeal? Then this one may not be for you.

All that said, to your original question - no I don't think Civ 7 is going to be a failure of any kind. Will it appeal to the entirety of the existing civ fan base? No, especially not to the group who wrote it off 6 months ago and has opted not to update their priors. But it seems pretty clear that a portion of that fan base is very excited, and that some of the changes could grow the fan base in new directions.

imo, civ is supposed to be a history simulator, with the option for extreme variation from match to match. dividing each match into three sub-games with predictable endings removes an entire dimension of variation.

and it sounds like 100% of maps are "terra" maps, so there's another dimension gone

 

[Trengilly]

While 1UPT looks great on paper, in practice it led to the crippling of the AI in its warfighting capacity. From my perspective, it is the one blunder and regret I have about the course of the Civ saga.

There is nothing inherently wrong with 1UPT. The failures of Civ 1UPT lie with the poor implementation and lack of development time/desire to build a solid AI.

Mods like Vox Populi and games like Old World show that 1 UPT can work just fine and be effectually handled by AI.

 

[Graethyenne]

The gameplay loop much more closely resembles Humankind than it does previous Civ games, even VI. The diplomatic interactions costing influence points, urban districts with adjacency bonuses, civ changing, checklist of mini-goals each era, narrative events, decoupled leaders. Its a 4X game, but its not a civilization game unfortunately.

I'd like to introduce you to Beyond Earth: Rising Tide a Firaxis that had the diplomatic currency Endeavor system six years before Humankind released.

 

[ombak]

I'd like to introduce you to Beyond Earth: Rising Tide a Firaxis that had the diplomatic currency Endeavor system six years before Humankind released.

In fact, isn't the influence icon here basically the same as in Beyond Earth?

 

[penvzila]

Pretty much every other civilization game hewed to Sid Meier's original concept - of taking a civilization from 4000BC to the end of the game and telling your own story. That's not what Civ 7 seems to be, and if you take that away, I mean I guess it's the best new 4X game. But the old 4X games play just fine.

 

[penvzila]

+1 or wait several years dont buy into the con and see if any improvements can be made by the "beta" tester's and modder's

Plus Civ switching will defo be removed at some point

I doubt it will be changed. It is fundamental to the design of the game. The game launched pretty successfully. They can't just completely rework the game to appeal to grognards at the expense of all of the people who bought and enjoyed it.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Civ 7 is definitely minesweeper

 

[Pistol90]

It will take 2 expansions and tons and tons of mods to make this acceptable civ for me.

Civ changing can be smother-out if every civ would just have its age-implementation somehow (with mods i guess).
Many other thing are basicly wrong-turn in Civ7 ... religion, culture, narative events etc etc

 

[Marla_Singer]

I disagree with the title of this thread. Only Firaxis decides what is Civ and Firaxis decided that Civ is now Civ7.

Yet, there's no doubt that Civilization has changed in scale to the point that it's no longer the same game as what it was initially. We can rejoice it as many of you do (and that's great!), or regret it as some can express it (and they are free to do so), however we cannot deny it.

Yes, in previous civ games (let's say up to Civ4), we could manage up to 50 cities by the end of the game, but that was possible because cities required a lot less attention than they do now. In Civ4, towns grew on their own from a simple improvement (cottage). Now towns have their own radius and need their own work. City radius used to represent the rural region surrounding a city, now it represents the space of expansion of the city. Things aren't managed any longer at the same scope and I'm only surprized some of you cannot see it.

 

[Bridog7]

Its not a bad game. It is that we waited 9 years and this is it?

I saw Civ 7 on the cover of PC Gamer magazine and read through the section and when I saw Ed Beach quoted as saying this is most definitely a complete game. I thought well that wasn't true

 

[Yzman]

+1 or wait several years dont buy into the con and see if any improvements can be made by the "beta" tester's and modder's

Plus Civ switching will defo be removed at some point

Huh? The whole game is based around it and it's incredibly fun. It isn't getting removed. That would be a whole new game.