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

[TheGrayFox]

Right? I'm skeptical they'll pull it off on a mechanical level until like, expansion 2's final set of revisions, but I don't hate the concept. I've long thought the franchise could have used more "churn" - I like the sense I'm following along a fictional history that rhymes with but does not replicate real world history, and one of the things that real history is full of is the ultimate futility of all human endeavor. No empire lasts forever, but everyone leaves something behind.

The series is literally called Civlization (singular) and the tagline since the first game is literally build an empire that spans the test of time

 

[Professor Phobo]

You could play every Paradox game back to back, that would take you a chunk of the way lol. There used to be a way of converting save files from Crusader Kings II to EU4 I recall. Maybe you can tie Imperator Rome to CK (despite the time gap) and then go from EU to Victoria to Heart of Iron to Stellaris. I mean, this probably wouldn't be fun, each game is meant to have an arc and you'd very quickly snowball to oblivion.

I think what you want isn't possible as a game, unless you have such a huge level of abstraction that the same mechanics can be used to model geo-politics (as well as economics, religion, culture, etc...) across such different societies. Oh, hey, that's exactly what the Civilization franchise does! If you go back to Civ1 or Civ2 you don't even have any unique attributes between civilizations except for leader art.

Right, TBH I've always kinda disliked the trend towards unique Civ traits and powers and units and buildings and the like. I had my favorites in Civ 2 despite none of that stuff being a factor.

I'd love a Civ-style game where you started with a blank or mostly blank slate and purchased unique stuff via culture. So I can start as, say, China, and invest my culture into disciplined Legion-style forces and unlock the Legion unit. Lean into the alternate history stuff.

Unfortunately I think a design like that would be completely illegible to other players ("what do you MEAN, Babylon locked up Turtle Ships before I could?!") but it'd be neat.

 

[Zaarin]

Wouldn't it have been better to study a method of adding new characteristics to civilization as the eras passed to better define it?

This feels an awful lot like the theory, long defunct in academia (dead by the early twentieth century at the latest) but remarkably persistent in pop history, that history is an unending progression upwards. It also does nothing to make the late game more interesting or to counter snowballing, which are two of the obvious reasons for the age mechanic.

 

[queenpea]

I’m worried about the civ switching, but I’m happy to give it a shot.

I’m waiting for a complete list of civs/“cultures” before coming down with firm judgement in any case.

I am worried that the base game will not launch with a wide enough variety of civs for the switching to feel like a natural progression through history. One example in the material released so far is ancient Egypt to an eventual Buganda. That’s a bit of a head scratcher for me.

Years in the future, with hundreds of dollars worth of DLC that will eventually be released, we will have a large number of civilizations which will make the switches feel less abrupt, or what they are calling the “historical choice”.

 

[Professor Phobo]

The series is literally called Civlization (singular) and the tagline since the first game is literally build an empire that spans the test of time

The impossibility of that makes for dramatic tension. What stands the test of time is people and what they remember, not specific polities. Standing the test of time doesn't require a linear increase in power and dominance until you press the spaceship button.

 

[Siptah]

Right, TBH I've always kinda disliked the trend towards unique Civ traits and powers and units and buildings and the like. I had my favorites in Civ 2 despite none of that stuff being a factor.

I'd love a Civ-style game where you started with a blank or mostly blank slate and purchased unique stuff via culture. So I can start as, say, China, and invest my culture into disciplined Legion-style forces and unlock the Legion unit. Lean into the alternate history stuff.

Unfortunately I think a design like that would be completely illegible to other players ("what do you MEAN, Babylon locked up Turtle Ships before I could?!") but it'd be neat.

Have you tried Millennia? It might be what comes closest to that, currently, aside from modded games.

 

[Gedemon]

PC gamers have mods for a reason, they are not at all interested in playing a completely unbalanced base game....so yes while why you say is technically true its never going to happen.

If I understand your point, I thing you overestimate the number of people that play civ with mods.

 

[lt22677]

This feels an awful lot like the theory, long defunct in academia (dead by the early twentieth century at the latest) but remarkably persistent in pop history, that history is an unending progression upwards. It also does nothing to make the late game more interesting or to counter snowballing, which are two of the obvious reasons for the age mechanic.

The problem is that I still find the concept that one civilization transforms into another so suddenly. I repeat, if Rome had survived the Barbarian invasions why does it have to become France or England? (nations with nothing to do with it as well as Egypt - Songhai or Mongolia)

 

[TheGrayFox]

The impossibility of that makes for dramatic tension.

No it doesn't, Civilization is not and has never been a historical 1:1 depiction of reality. If that's what you want you probably are looking for Paradox Grand strategy game

What stands the test of time is people and what they remember, not specific polities. Standing the test of time doesn't require a linear increase in power and dominance until you press the spaceship button.

Again this doesn't make sense. "The people" didn't go from being Eygptians to Mongols because there were horses nearby to the Cheerokee and having your civilization be wiped out and replaced by a completely different group of people culturally isn't building an empire that spans the test of time.

 

[Zaarin]

The problem is that I still find the concept that one civilization transforms into another so suddenly. I repeat, if Rome had survived the Barbarian invasions why does it have to become, what do I know, France or England? (nations with nothing to do with it as well as Egypt - Songhai or Mongolia)

Rome did survive the barbarian invasion, not as an empire but as a culture, and the result was precisely that it became France, Italy, Spain, England (indirectly), etc.

 

[Professor Phobo]

Have you tried Millennia? It might be what comes closest to that, currently, aside from modded games.

Been waiting on a steam sale, since I heard mixed, but I'm a sucker for the genre in general so I'll give it a whirl.

Yeah, that's another good element of unique civs (and playing 3 in the course of a game) - you get a lot of replay value there. I can go Rome - Double Rome - Brazil and then the next game do Rome - Triple Rome - Half Brazil, and have two wildly different campaigns. Plus the map will be different, the other civs will be different, etc...

 

[TheGrayFox]

Rome did survive the barbarian invasion, not as an empire but as a culture, and the result was precisely that it became France, Italy, Spain, England (indirectly), etc.

Not really. France Spain Italy, etc are all the results of Western Rome being conquered and divided up by Germanic/outside invasion, who then assimilated with locals they ruled

Eastern portion (which had already been divided as a polity) continued on as Rome

 

[Siptah]

The problem is that I still find the concept that one civilization transforms into another so suddenly. I repeat, if Rome had survived the Barbarian invasions why does it have to become France or England? (nations with nothing to do with it as well as Egypt - Songhai or Mongolia)

Rome survived the barbarian invasions. Really. It stayed Rome until 1453. It even survived the Latin invasion, at least in some form. But not everybody accepted that. And then historians centuries later invented the term Byzantium, which gained a lot of followers since then. But even the contemporaries that didn't agree with Byzantium = Rome called them Rhomanoi in official parlance, and used Graekuli only when condescending. And now, civ fans are calling to have Byzantium in age 2 as a follow up on Rome... oh, the irony.

 

[Professor Phobo]

No it doesn't, Civilization is not and has never been a historical 1:1 depiction of reality. If that's what you want you probably are looking for Paradox Grand strategy game



Again this doesn't make sense. "The people" didn't go from being Eygptians to Mongols because there were horses nearby to the Cheerokee and having your civilization be wiped out and replaced by a completely different group of people culturally isn't building an empire that spans the test of time.

Isn't that the point? It's not a 1:1, you're sort of transitioning your civilization from (for example) an Egypt Analogy to a Mongol Analogy, not actual historical Egypt is somehow replaced by the actual historical Mongols.

It's really not any sillier than an Immortal Abraham Lincoln meeting Bismarck for lunch in 2845 BCE, or that time I abused the science traits of Korea to have nuclear weapons before the stirrup.

 

[Zaarin]

Rome survived the barbarian invasions. Really. It stayed Rome until 1453. It even survived the Latin invasion, at least in some form. But not everybody accepted that. And then historians centuries later invented the term Byzantium, which gained a lot of followers since then. But even the contemporaries that didn't agree with Byzantium = Rome called them Rhomanoi in official parlance, and used Graekuli only when condescending. And now, civ fans are calling to have Byzantium in age 2 as a follow up on Rome... oh, the irony.

I eagerly await the day Gibbons is openly mocked (and happily he's lost a lot of the prestige he once had). The Rise and Fall of Rome is angry fan fiction masquerading as history.

 

[lt22677]

The impossibility of that makes for dramatic tension. What stands the test of time is people and what they remember, not specific polities. Standing the test of time doesn't require a linear increase in power and dominance until you press the spaceship button.

I find it more impossible that a civilization that survives the change of era decides to transform itself into another so suddenly without reason (and among other things by taking nations that have nothing to do with the one chosen at the beginning such as Egypt - Songhai or Mongols) putting it from the player's point of view you have committed yourself to making your civilization survive and now you make it become something else

 

[Vandlys]

I like it, but it's not the main reason I'm buying the game. Poll could do with at least one more "positive" choice imo.

+1

 

[Zaarin]

I find it more impossible that a civilization that survives the change of era decides to transform itself into another so suddenly without reason

It's not sudden, and it's not without reason. Crises often cause considerable changes in culture in real life--look at Europe before and after the Black Death or the Protestant Reformation, for example. And from what we've seen, the crises build up. We also know that there's a time jump from Antiquity to Exploration.

 

[Siptah]

I eagerly await the day Gibbons is openly mocked (and happily he's lost a lot of the prestige he once had). The Rise and Fall of Rome is angry fan fiction masquerading as history.

It's a problem with several historical classics. They are often outdated in a hilarious way. But for some reason, every now and then new editions are printed and people still read it... I never tried reading original Gibbons. But I tried Breasted once... and really couldn't continue.

 

[Gedemon]

your civilization be wiped out and replaced by a completely different group of people culturally isn't building an empire that spans the test of time.

But it's not being wiped out, it's just a change of name, ok, the name change is not "1:1 depiction of reality", but you said it, that was never the point of the game.

The important part is that you're still building your empire.