Civ Switching - Will it prevent you from buying Civ 7?

[lt22677]

You can have civs without leaders
I heard ~40–50 civs with ~20-25 leaders at launch

Source?

 

[queenpea]

You can have civs without leaders
I heard ~40–50 civs with ~20-25 leaders at launch

How would this work? So half of the civs wouldn’t have the “historical choice” leader and would miss out on the leader ability/civ ability synergy they have been discussing?

 

[ColtSeavers]

Not really? For starters, the uniques of Rome wouldn't apply to the Exploration age? That's what this system is mechanically - a way of picking a new set of bonuses for a new age, slightly constrained by what you did the previous age. The rest is window dressing that doesn't affect the mechanics. Important window dressing, because restarting with a (partially) blank state as Rome in the exploration era feels less like a fresh restart than doing the same with the aesthetics of a different civilization. Crises are a way of linking this mechanic to this narrative, while also adding a new mechanic of rubber-banding that ties in thematically with it.

So now it is you, who seems to worry a lot about the immersion aspect... I mean, what's the problem with having Rome facie a crisis during the Ancient Age, and then resurface with new game mechanics in the Exploartion Age? Why is it so important, that the Civ has to switch, isn't that the "window dressing" you consider to be not that important? And if you do need a new look to "feel more like a fresh start", why don't you just give Rome a new leader, to emphazise the "frest start" in the new era?

 

[Professor Phobo]

How would this work? So half of the civs wouldn’t have the “historical choice” leader and would miss out on the leader ability/civ ability synergy they have been discussing?

Some leaders might synergize with multiple civs, I think?

 

[TheGrayFox]

So now it is you, who seems to worry a lot about the immersion aspect... I mean, what's the problem with having Rome facie a crisis during the Ancient Age, and then resurface with new game mechanics in the Exploartion Age? Why is it so important, that the Civ has to switch, isn't that the "window dressing" you consider to be not that important? And if you do need a new look to "feel more like a fresh start", why don't you just give Rome a new leader, to emphazise the "frest start" in the new era?

You must have the memory of a goldfish, all your worries about Civ swapping should've been assauged!

If historical leaders and civilizations are all window dressing than most of the advocates for civ swappig should be in favor of having antiquity era civilizations replaced by an alien civilizations and removing historical leaders and replacing them with fictional anime characters like Goku and Mickey Mouse. After all, the game isn't historical anyway and none of that matters.

 

[Civinator]

removing historical leaders and replacing them with fictional anime characters like Goku and Mickey Mouse.

... and Goofy

 

[Professor Phobo]

The Humankind argument seems like a mistake to me. I didn't play it but the mere existence of a similar mechanic that wasn't well received isn't a veto point - execution is everything. It's entirely possible Firaxis will do a worse job than whoever made Humankind at implementing the mechanic, or a better job, or it turns out to be executed so differently the analogy isn't useful, and so forth.

So eager to see more gameplay of this, particularly the later ages.

 

[lt22677]

The Humankind argument seems like a mistake to me. I didn't play it but the mere existence of a similar mechanic that wasn't well received isn't a veto point - execution is everything. It's entirely possible Firaxis will do a worse job than whoever made Humankind at implementing the mechanic, or a better job, or it turns out to be executed so differently the analogy isn't useful, and so forth.

So eager to see more gameplay of this, particularly the later ages.

I have HK and I can guarantee you that the majority of players consider the part where you change the civilization to be the worst part of the game, Firaxis manages to do this part better, perhaps, but there is the risk that it remains poorly made and after being disappointed by HK I have no intention of trusting Firaxis without seeing how it works in detail, I think I'll wait a long time before buying the game, after all there's also Ara: History Untold which is about to come out and there they are the new Millenia DLCs which incidentally I liked much more than HK even without being a masterpiece

 

[TheGrayFox]

You not liking something doesn't mean it's bad. There's a difference between the subjective and the objective, but you're weaving between the two as if they were synonymous. Just because a similar system didn't work in Humankind doesn't mean that it won't work in Civ7. After all, Humankind had cities and tiles, but it doesn't mean those are bad mechanics. I'm not handwaving valid critique away. I offered an alternative perceptive which many accepted, but a few rejected for purely subjective reasons, and reasons that are logically inconsistent with how they feel about the rest of Civilization. You didn't say "change bad", but you and others said (paraphrasing) "this change leads to a slightly different kind of absurdity than before - the old absurdity was fine but the new absurdity is the worse thing ever". Which, yeah, is a subjective thing that I'm happy to believe you feel, but I don't accept as a valid criticism of the game.

Your emotional reaction to how news about the game compares to your expectations about the game is not the same thing as the game itself.

You seem to be the one who is emotional here buddy. Insulting the intelligence of people and handwaving away valid concerns into dismissive "paraphrases" of their arguments because you don't seem to like that over half the forum isn't particularly supportive of this change that goes against the very foundations of the series which is several decades old.

Am I worrying about the immersion aspect a lot? I didn't realise lol.

You didn't realize because you don't see the obvious flaw in your own argument and thought your justifications for civ swapping ala humankind was supposed to just make us all go "wow he's so right"

You could keep the civ and change leaders, with the uniques attached to the leaders. Of course, to keep the element of choice, you'd 3 leaders for the exploration era for every civ, and 9 for the Modern age. Or allow civilizations to pick leaders from different civilizations but from the right era. In fact, the latter would be better, because picking an ancient leader for the USA or a modern leader for the Babylonians would be tough. The civs would provide "vertical" consistency across eras while the leaders would provide "horizontal" consistency by giving you uniques (and a feel) that matches the era.

I'd have nothing against such a system. Sounds like it could be pretty fun. But let's be real, people would complain about it just as much as they do about civ-swapping, and be up in arms about how unrealistic it is for Napoleon to lead England in a war against France (while having had no qualms about Napoleon leading French war elephants against Mao in 500 BC).

Yeah of course they would complain about stripping civilizations of their historical leaders and play min/max switch and swap with leaders. that's the same exact issue as civilization swapping but from the other angle

I actually sincerly doubt a system of changing historical leaders every era for new bonuses would cause people to complain. Expecting us to accept Napoleon leading the Shawnee would though . I don't understand, why some of you seem so obssessed with adding more complete nonsense with no historical justification to civilization.

 

[Professor Phobo]

Well, we're in the pre-order stage, you should never pre-order, so definitely wait to see how it shakes out.

And lets be honest, Firaxis has done a "okay launch, expansion refinement" pattern since Civilization IV so I imagine Civilization VII will not hit its design peak until after the second expansion drops in 2027 with Gods & Kings II: Electric Boogaloo.

 

[TheGrayFox]

I'll hold out until Beyond the Sword III: Tokyo Drift personally.

Hopefully by then they'll add back the ability we had in Civ2: Test of Time to play as dinosaurs with every leader being a unique dinosaur and every military unit renamed and reskinned to also be a dinosaur. Would love to see how the purists who would only a very specific kind of historical absurdity in their civilizations game react to that. I'm pretty sure that was a real game mode, but I'm now worried I just had a particularly vivid fever dream a couple of decades ago...

Again another argument propped up entirely by strawman

Playing as dinosaurs was a completely optional scenario and funny easter egg . I'm sure if the entire game was designed around playing dinosaurs than the the civilization series would've died a long time ago

 

[Professor Phobo]

Oh my god I would absolutely play Dinovilization.

EDIT: especially if everything is completely unchanged except all the leaders are replaced by dinosaur versions of themselves.

 

[TheGrayFox]

It's not an argument lol, it's a joke and a throwaway to obscure 90s civ nostalgia. Chill out and/or gain some emotional maturity: I'm sure you're glad to learn that I'll be ignoring your posts until then. If it makes you happy to think you "win" then I'll throw you a bone: you won the argument, my sincere congratulations.

Even the way you frame people who don't support or like the change as "purist who only support some types of historical absurdity" is insulting. Why do I need to "chill out" when its obvious you're blatantly insulting and belittling people because you don't agree with their opinion? and then you have the nerve to talk about someone else's "emotional maturity"

We're not the ones who created this gimmick mechanic and then tried to justify it and sell it to the fanbase on some flimsy notion of historical accuracy and authencity. That was the devs and yes they've opened themselves up to that criticism about historical absurdity by trying to pass off purely gamey mechanics in such a manner

 

[Professor Phobo]

Personally I kind of get the dissatisfaction, I am going to miss taking Babylon to the stars, it was part of the charm of the series.

However I think the gameplay benefits* will outweigh that loss; I really need Civ to have a more engaging middle and endgame, I like the idea of having a soft reset twice in a campaign, and picking three civilizations to play for one game is kind of a cool increase in variation.

*I should note that we're dealing with an unreleased game, so it's basically impossible to make formal declarations of failure or success, just our personal vibe checks. The vibe check for me is good, but there's every chance I'll be slamming my head against the wall on release day. For all we know the modern era will begin with the game automatically deleting your hard drive and selling your personal information to perfidious Australia. That'll lower my review score by at least one star!

 

[lobosan]

Culture switching or more like "morphing" is very common IRL (check out the Visigoths and Spain's history) and could be very cool in a Civ game - if implemented well.
I'll have to see how Civ7 and the other new Civ-likes are doing it. Sadly, Humankind's culture switching appears to be too abrupt to make a cohesive story.

 

[lt22677]

I'll hold out until Beyond the Sword III: Tokyo Drift personally.

Hopefully by then they'll add back the ability we had in Civ2: Test of Time to play as dinosaurs with every leader being a unique dinosaur and every military unit renamed and reskinned to also be a dinosaur. Would love to see how the purists who would only a very specific kind of historical absurdity in their civilizations game react to that. I'm pretty sure that was a real game mode, but I'm now worried I just had a particularly vivid fever dream a couple of decades ago...

Excuse me, but what are you saying? Civ Test of the Time didn't have any mode with dinosaurs, but a mode that allowed you to continue after the space ship had arrived at its destination (I'll put the link to the Wikipedia page of the game), there was one in an expansion of Civilization 2, a scenario that allowed you to play with the Dinosaurs, but it was a game scenario and it was certainly not included in the basic mode (in short, it's not like you commanded the T-Rexes and then your civilization became the Egyptians)

Civilization II: Test of Time - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Age of Reptiles (Civ2)

The Age of Reptiles is a scenario in Civ II: Fantastic Worlds. Much of the information here comes from AlaskaFox's FAQ on IGN.[1] 'The Age of Reptiles' Long ago, when giant reptiles ruled the Earth, It was nothing like this! City size for first unhappiness at Chieftain level changed from 7 to...

civilization.fandom.com

 

[TheGrayFox]

Culture switching or more like "morphing" is very common IRL (check out the Visigoths and Spain's history) and could be very cool in a Civ game - if implemented well.
I'll have to see how Civ7 and the other new Civ-likes are doing it. Sadly, Humankind's culture switching appears to be too abrupt to make a cohesive story.

The Visigoths did not morph into Spain. That's such a gross simplification of history

The Visigothic kingdom was literally conquered by Muslims and and the monarchies of Iberia were founded by Frankish Crusaders first establishing the Hispanic March and then conquering parts of the north back from Muslims.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Culture switching or more like "morphing" is very common IRL (check out the Visigoths and Spain's history) and could be very cool in a Civ game - if implemented well.
I'll have to see how Civ7 and the other new Civ-likes are doing it. Sadly, Humankind's culture switching appears to be too abrupt to make a cohesive story.

I have heard this argument before, however I have a hard time comprehending why you guys are in any way confident, that Firaxis will come up with something as remotely as immersive as your Visigoth Example. I mean they literally presented the idea, that Rome collects some horses and then turns into Mongolia!? Does that give you the impression, that they have a sensible plan to implement this in an immersive way?

 

[Professor Phobo]

I have heard this argument before, however I have a hard time comprehending why you guys are in any way confident, that Firaxis will come up with something as remotely as immersive as your Visigoth Example. I mean they literally presented the idea, that Rome collects some horses and then turns into Monogolia!? Does that give you the impression, that they have a sensible plan to implement this in a immersive way?

I think that immersive element is abandoned in favor of the design goals. I'm fine with it since so much of Civilization is just a thin patina of historicity on gameplay anyway, you know? But I get not liking the idea of Romangolia.

 

[Zaarin]

But thanks for looking it up, it's reassuring that it wasn't all just a weird lucid dream I had lol.

My response when I discovered the Rikki Tikki Tavi movie was a really thing and not a childhood fever dream.