Civ 7 - why doesn't it look or feel like Civ?

[UWHabs]

They won't bite the hand that feeds them. Take what they say with a mountain of salt.

I enjoyed Marbozir's take. He didn't pull any punches. Probably why we wasn't invited to come play it.

Although on the flipside, if he wasn't invited to play, he doesn't get that extra knowledge and feel. (I haven't seen his full reaction videos yet, to be clear, so I'm not sure his exact takes, or what exactly he's basing his opinions on).

From the various youtuber reviews that were invited to the preview, they gave a LOT more details than what we've seen in the public releases. If you only base your reactions on what you've seen in the gameplay preview, then I can definitely see being very hesitant about things. But seeing the other reaction videos, seeing them talk about the other systems and changes and setups, it sounds a lot more interesting on the whole, IMO.

Of course, obviously those guys got a trip out to visit with the devs, so they're not going to come back with a "this whole release is terrible", at least not until everything is fully out in the open. As mentioned, just the nature to not bite the hand that feeds you. Biffa was very pro-cities skylines 2 in all his preview stuff and leading up to it, but when it came out and flopped on a lot of pieces, then his mentality definitely came a lot more in the "this game needs some serious changes" camp. Sometimes that's an aspect of "it's still early in development - I don't like XXX feature now, but maybe they will clean it up a bit more". And then they don't, or they change it even worse, so now that's another bad aspect.

The good news is that there's still a lot of time before release for them to continue to fix things up. And they have years of future balance patches to continue working. It's definitely not looking like it's just going to be civ 6.5. Arguably this looks like a bigger change in play than we had between civ 4 and civ 5. Hopefully they can stick the landing on it.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

My favorite Civ franchises are II, IV and VI because I believe those 3 kept to Civ familiarity and gameplay.

Probably best to wait for Civ VIII if even number iterations are your favorite.
Unfortunately, the more I find out about the game, the less that I am liking the changes too.

 

[thecrazyscot]

They won't bite the hand that feeds them. Take what they say with a mountain of salt.

I enjoyed Marbozir's take. He didn't pull any punches. Probably why we wasn't invited to come play it.

Oh, have we already reached the "positive feedback is automatically suspect while negative feedback is intrinsically valid" stage?

 

[nzcamel]

What do you mean they're fixing something that's not broken? They added the age division/culture swap feature to solve literally some of the biggest problems that plagued Civ 6. Firaxis even told us during yesterday's presentation. As Carl said in the video, the previous paradigm made it very difficult for Firaxis to design civs whose abilities would stay relevant throughout the game. Look at France with Eleanor. Unless you get lucky, you're basically playing with a civ that has no ability until mid-game. Sweden is similar. There aren't many other examples as egregious as these two only because many of the other civs were deliberately designed to be anachronistic. Teddy Roosevelt, a modern-age leader for a modern-age civ, is one of the most overpowered leaders in the entire game on turn 1. There was no way for Firaxis to introduce as many Renaissance or later-era civs to Civ 6, have them actually behave like late-game civs, and make the game not boring.

Many classical and earlier-era civs had a similar problem. You're incredibly strong as Caesar when you're buying Legions with gold you get from conquering cities and barbarian camps and using those Legions to conquer more cities. But then what happens when those Legions are no longer strong enough, or if you're just bored of conquest? All you have that's relevant at that stage of the game is a half-priced Aqueduct. That's when you're ready to move on to a new chapter, which exactly what Civ 7's age division will allow you to do.

That is the challenge of Civ. Your empire will only be automatically stronger than others for part of the game. If it's early you've gotta exploit it early and hang on after. If it's late you've gotta hold on with your fingertips till you finally reach your glorious moment. Sure, weak AI lets it down in SP for players at higher levels; but none of that changes what it means to take a civilization and make it stand the test of time.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

IMO, all I can say is thank goodness FXS are brave enough to make the game they want and don't pay too much attention to the so called "fanatics".

 

[nzcamel]

Unless you lose what you build up in previous ages or the map is reset, you'll still have continuity.

the ages being a reset seem to imply that there will be a leveling at the end of each one, and not just from the consequences of the crises.

 

[ombak]

They won't bite the hand that feeds them. Take what they say with a mountain of salt.

I enjoyed Marbozir's take. He didn't pull any punches. Probably why we wasn't invited to come play it.

I agree with the "take it with a grain of salt" approach as a general rule and I do so for anyone who gets the perks of being flown out and wined and dined to play a new game, but that's a general rule. In the context of the specific statement you're replying to though, you have their whole video to judge them on. They have plenty of criticisms of some things and they are sceptical of how some things are going to work.

That doesn't invalidate their sentiment that it plays like Civ (offered in contrast to their feedback that the pitch they were given before they started playing sounded like Humankind).

And I know the OP gave their own disclaimer that they haven't played the game yet (a disclaimer you don't even need to make, that's the default at this point. If you were someone who got to play, that would be worth specifying), but when your complaint is "too much change" there really isn't anything there to engage with and it says nothing about how it feels to play the game, no matter how much you watched so far.

 

[TheGrayFox]

The whole point of Civilization is “what if India built the Pyramids.” And we have retained that. Sure we have to call it Maurya for a few hours, but the soul is retained.

And you can tell I’m right because I’m stating it as fact, not opinion,

You're literally not right

The whole point about Civilization is taking a civilization and "making it stand the test of time" which is why that has been the tagline and philosphy of the series since it began. A mantra literally written under the title since the first game's release. .

"Hey look India can build the Pyramids" was a result of that guiding philopshy and design translated into the game, not the other way around and yes the philopshy is underminded by a gamey system that seperates rulers from their civilizations and requires you to smash together three seperate civilization (regardless of any relations between the three) like Frankenstein to survive the test of time.

 

[Wardog]

Previous games of the series (even II, with the moving spy on the map) had so many good aspects/ideas/elements they could bring back to VII. A globe zoom until space (IV) was something that most people loved. They should have taken inspiration in the Civ series itself, not in another franchise (that is very far from being popular).

 

[ehecatzin]

Why not stick to a winning formula?

They are sticking to the winning formula, literally. Firaxis has always been very transparent with their aproach to new civ games, 1/3 same 1/3 reworked 1/3 new.

All parts of the game at some point have had a It's whole "traditional" approach thrown away for something new at some point, and what works stays and if it needs fixing it gets reworked. squares into hexagons, multiple leaders, unique units, districts, 1upt, and well as much as a "civilization that stands the test of time" is a tagline, the formula finally came for it, I for one am happy to see it evolve in this way, it just opens up so much options for potential civ and leader additions without the restrictions of: "we can't have X we have Y already" "there's a civ in that region already" well now they can.

We'll still have the goofines civ always enables tho, I'm sure Ghandi will be in as leader, but at least this time we could have Maurya, Mughal, Chola, Vijayanagara and modern India.

 

[Willie5000]

Whoever at the Firaxis team decided to try "culture swapping gimmick" that is the complete antithesis to the series founding mantra of taking a civilization and standing the test of time needs to be fired. The fact that they doubled down on it and continued devolopment for years too after the complete failure of the gimmick in Humankind is astounding.

The “gimmick” didn’t fail with Humankind so much as the game just had a lot of half baked gameplay. And when it didn’t turn out to be the Civ killer they wanted Amplitude pivoted to Endless Dungeon.

But the culture switching was easily the best part of Humankind.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I'm glad they're mixing things up (even if some of the changes are still tbd if i'll like them). If they were going to just revamp older games it'd feel like a shortcut or something.

 

[Luddify]

I thought going in that the one thing CivVII would not do would be to go anywhere near Humankind's civ-switching mechanic because, as anyone who played Humankind knows, it utterly destroys the immersion to the point where nothing else the game does right matters. I wonder whether people who are not bothered.by this have actually tried Humankind to see firsthand what a disaster it is.

Cue the gameplay trailer and I could not be more excited. Great looking graphics, other improvements as expected, it's pressing all the right buttons. I'm ready to put down the downpayment on the deluxest edition they are offering. Then I notice the civ-switching thing. Now I'm worried, conflicted and trying to figure out what will be my next go-to time-waster.

Why oh why Firaxis? Did you guys actually play Humankind? I could live with this if was a special benefit for a handful of Civs that mirrored history (Rome - Italy, for example), but I'm pretty sure the one clear lesson from Humankind was that this mechanic is just not fun. At all.

 

[moondog385]

I don’t know what you mean by “doesn’t look like Civ.” It looks exactly like I hoped a follow-up to Civ VI would look.

As for “doesn’t feel like Civ,” none of us have played it so we can’t say that yet.

 

[ehecatzin]

anyone who played Humankind knows, it utterly destroys the immersion to the point where nothing else the game does right matters

that's opinion, played it, a lot.

in my opinion it never was the culture switching itself, it was the pacing of the game that made it unbearable (coupled with a lot of factors that compounded on it) besides you could continue playing as a certain culture if you'd liked. sometimes you picked a new culture, started to build a few unique units, (or tried to upgrade it if you saved a ton of gold before) and by the time you marched them to war you were already being prompted to switch to a new era. Same thing with the expensive districts. and a big etc. it was execution not the idea that was the problem.

3 eras and 2 crisis seem like a much better pacing, letting you breathe and use your civ in the era it was actually relevant and interesting. I'm hoping the crisis system will actually make you feel like switching civ is an earned evolution and not just a "switch" like in Humankind

To each it's own, I just find it odd how people will harp on the idea without looking at execution, if only the idea was so crucial every 4x civ look alike would be on the same level as Civilization, and most aren't.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I thought going in that the one thing CivVII would not do would be to go anywhere near Humankind's civ-switching mechanic because, as anyone who played Humankind knows, it utterly destroys the immersion to the point where nothing else the game does right matters. I wonder whether people who are not bothered.by this have actually tried Humankind to see firsthand what a disaster it is.

Cue the gameplay trailer and I could not be more excited. Great looking graphics, other improvements as expected, it's pressing all the right buttons. I'm ready to put down the downpayment on the deluxest edition they are offering. Then I notice the civ-switching thing. Now I'm worried, conflicted and trying to figure out what will be my next go-to time-waster.

Why oh why Firaxis? Did you guys actually play Humankind? I could live with this if was a special benefit for a handful of Civs that mirrored history (Rome - Italy, for example), but I'm pretty sure the one clear lesson from Humankind was that this mechanic is just not fun. At all.

I really think it's a mistake to assume that the idea itself is bad, just because HK didn't pull it off. I keep saying this but we should wait for more detail before writing it off.

 

[TheGrayFox]

The “gimmick” didn’t fail with Humankind so much as the game just had a lot of half baked gameplay. And when it didn’t turn out to be the Civ killer they wanted Amplitude pivoted to Endless Dungeon.

But the culture switching was easily the best part of Humankind.

No its not imo and it was easily and by far one of the features that got the most complaints. I say this because I vividly remember the reviews bashing civ swapping and all the forum threads complaining about how immersive breaking it was.

that's opinion, played it, a lot.

There's a reason why Humankind has a 1000 players on a good day. Why is Firaxis trying to improved upon a gimmick we've already seen fail?

 

[ehecatzin]

No its not imo and it was easily and by far one of the features that got the most complaints. I say this because I vividly remember the reviews bashing civ swapping and all the forum threads complaining about how immersive breaking it was.



There's a reason why Humankind has a 1000 players on a good day. Why is Firaxis trying to improved upon a gimmick we've already seen fail?

execution is the key here, I really don't feel like repeating the rest of my post. let's compare how both are aproaching it, and all with a massive grain of salt because we haven't seen specifics from Firaxis

Humankind culture switch:

• many eras
• lightning fast pacing meant little time to play with a culture
• no reason to switch, it was just because star score tells me its time
• they had to be balanced for all ages because you could keep playing as them
• first pick first serve, you were encouraged to advance quickly to get first pick.
• No conductive tissue between cultures beyond stacking bonuses

Civilization civ switch

• only 3 eras
• 1/3 of the game to play a civ, instead of 1/8
• crisis gives you the narrative and mechanic justification to switch (we'll see how well this plays off)
• balanced to play well in only 1 era means easier to balance
• everybody can pick the same civ if they unlock it.
• leaders serve as a "leveling" continuity between civs (we also hears some things about archeology depending on past civs)

I'm just saying Its not the same thing at all, and if Amplitude droped the ball constantly on an interesting concept it's their fault, it doesn't mean it can't be executed better. I just don't get this idea that things can't be improved upon, look at the forums, It's all discussion on how things can be improved, tweaked and innovated, but somehow civ evolving into other civs Its heresy, it was done badly once, hence it can never be improved upon, never ever, civ is dead anyone who suggested it should be fired /s

Maybe civ VII is just not for you, and that's fine. I imagine however it will be better executed that people are giving it credit for, we at least have to wait until we can play it to know for sure.

 

[Gorbles]

There's a reason why Humankind has a 1000 players on a good day. Why is Firaxis trying to improved upon a gimmick we've already seen fail?

Because games are the sum of their parts, and reducing the entirety of a game we can't even play yet to your opinion of a mechanic in another game is still just your opinion, and not something that should necessarily factor into Firaxis' development decisions.

 

[rocksinmypath]

Why is Firaxis trying to improved upon a gimmick we've already seen fail?

Look, I know you're upset with the changes they announced, but let's not trivialize the team's effort. A gimmick is designed to attract business without providing substance to consumers. I'm guessing most of the people who tuned into the presentation were fans of the series or the 4x genre as a whole. Firaxis probably knew this and understood that the culture swap feature would probably receive a very negative response from its audience. If everyone has seen it fail once spectacularly and decided that the underlying project isn't worth a look based on that alone, that would make it the opposite of a gimmick.