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

[Nikolai II]

Now that is really bizarre.

There is no doubt in my mind SMAC/X is the best Civ game by miles.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Again this game series is built on its abstractions of human history and creating a game around those abstractions and connections. If this game didn't have its historical themeing, it would've never been series it is today

Nobody plays Civilization for its cold text files and values. The historical flavour and the sandbox immersion is part of the series' game play. Even then splitting the entire game into three seperated campaigns and completely changing how players interact with unique units/abilities over the course of the game is a HUGE gameplay change mechanically

You're still talking about flavour here, rather than gameplay mechanics, aren't you?

If we take Civ VI, exactly as it is, with no changes to those "cold text files and values", but give it an entirely new theme based on the planet Zurg and its various tribes, have you changed the gameplay? The strategies to win would be identical - sure, you now need to research cloning in order to increase the build charges of your muffwumples, rather than feudalism for your builders, but isn't it functionally the same? Similarly in VII, if we replace the idea of switching from Egypt to Mongolia with the idea of switching from Antiquity Egypt to Exploration Egypt, have you changed the game in any functional way? Or is it just that you've tweaked the theme, or flavour?

Flavour is important, of course. But Civ VII is still very clearly a game based on historical theming, clearly a game "built on its abstractions of human history". They have tweaked the flavour by allowing Civs to change from one to another, but it's still rooted in its historical theme.

I understand that the change is too much for many, but it's not a gameplay change. The new Ages structure is a significant gameplay change, yes, but you can have Ages without switching, and switching without Ages - they are not the same.

 

[Glassmage]

honestly only European (white people) have an obsession with Roman legacy and all that, so they are okay with Rome turn to Spain turn into whatever in Europe. For peoples like in Southeast Asia for example, I don't think they are too happy with being Vietnam turning into Siam and then later into modern China for example. Devs made a misstep.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Devs made a misstep.

Definitely possible, be interesting to see how it does on release.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

honestly only European (white people) have an obsession with Roman legacy and all that, so they are okay with Rome turn to Spain turn into whatever in Europe. For peoples like in Southeast Asia for example, I don't think they are too happy with being Vietnam turning into Siam and then later into modern China for example. Devs made a misstep.

Vietnam isn't in the game at the moment. Modern China is represented by the Qing dynasty. Siam is also modern, and therefore can't turn into China.

 

[Thormodr]

You can also make the argument that the phrase was meaningless in civ I-VI, because there was no test of time. Only a test of opponent empires. Civ VII is the first one in which time itself is a factor at all.

That's a strange argument, IMHO.

There has always been a time victory in Civilization games.

I mean, the main thing people cite for not having played Civ VI is graphics, so... opinions.

It shows how shallow many people are. *Shrug*

I thought 5 was horrendous for the mechanics, first and foremost. I wasn't a big fan of the graphics but they weren't a deal breaker. Crap like globull crappiness, was.

 

[Siptah]

That's a strange argument, IMHO.

There has always been a time victory in Civilization games.

But you don‘t win the time victory by just standing the test of time… ah, that‘s right. It‘s not a time victory at all. It‘s a score victory. That’s the thing. Yeah, time and score, easy to confuse.

Nah, civ‘s catchphrase never had any sense to it gameplay-wise.

 

[TheGrayFox]

You're still talking about flavour here, rather than gameplay mechanics, aren't you?

No I'm not because as already explained, how the player interacts and plans around using unique units, buildings, and abilities throughout the span of a long sandbox campaign is gameplay mechanics, regardless of how many try and simply write it off as purely flavor. Splitting the game into three seperate rounds with their seperated win conditions and arbitrary forced end of round crisises and giving you a new set of unique units, buildings, and abilities during each round is huge departure in gameplay mechanics in addition to being a huge departure in flavor that many don't like

If we take Civ VI, exactly as it is, with no changes to those "cold text files and values", but give it an entirely new theme based on the planet Zurg and its various tribes, have you changed the gameplay?

No but that's not what is happenign here so I don't know why you're trying to make this assertion. Also if you took the Civilization and removed the themeing, you'd have Beyond Earth which would sell significantly less because flavor and immersion is also just as important as the cold text files and values and gameplay for many people. Which was my point

The strategies to win would be identical - sure, you now need to research cloning in order to increase the build charges of your muffwumples, rather than feudalism for your builders, but isn't it functionally the same? Similarly in VII, if we replace the idea of switching from Egypt to Mongolia with the idea of switching from Antiquity Egypt to Exploration Egypt, have you changed the game in any functional way? Or is it just that you've tweaked the theme, or flavour?

How are the strategies to win identical between Civ IV and VII, this does not make sense. These changes to the formula are huge game play changes in addiition to being huge departure in how Civilization traditionally flavored its campaigns and BOTH of these things can upset people. Eras, Crises, and Civ Switching are inherently tied mechanics in VII and many of us hate them both for a multitude of reasons.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Splitting the game into three seperate rounds with their seperated win conditions and arbitrary forced end of round crisises and giving you a new set of unique units, buildings, and abilities during each round is huge departure in gameplay mechanics in addition to being a huge departure in flavor that many don't like

Yes, but you are not describing civ switching, you are describing Ages. They are not the same.

The rest of my post was a thought experiment, I genuinely can't make any sense of your response to it, sorry.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Yes, but you are not describing civ switching, you are describing Ages. They are not the same.

The rest of my post was a thought experiment, I genuinely can't make any sense of your response to it, sorry.

They are inherently linked and designed mechanics. In Ed Beach and the Civ team's vision, you don't have one without the other.

"Civ swapping" (aka picking new uniques, new abilities, and buildings each round so no civilization goes an without unique bonuses and units for too long) is a huge gameplay change and will absolutely change how you plan in your campaign even if thats not why many are specifically against the change. So I don't understand why you keep saying its not a gameplay change .

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

In Ed Beach and the Civ team's vision, you don't have one without the other.

Yes. But you can have one without the other, they are not inherently linked just because Ed and co have decided to pair them. Ages are a structural, mechanical change to the gameplay loop that we know. Having new uniques and abilities in each Age is a significant change to the gameplay.

But the theme of switching to a new "civilization" with each Age is just flavour layered on top of the mechanics. You could just as easily go from Egypt to Egypt to Egypt; it wouldn't change the fundamental mechanics of the game.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

But mechanics is not the only thing about a game. Flavour is also very important. Unless you play your games like a robot, focusing only on gameplay, and not about the package around it. As I have said multiple times, Civ VII may do what it does well gameplay-wise, but it does not mean it will be the right thing atmosphere-wise.
I can compare this again to Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. If you strip the game down to its mechanics, you get a pretty good game. But if you also take into consideration the fact the game is called "Assassin's Creed", you will start asking yourself questions. Like, why is there no parkour, only climbing stuff like Spiderman? Why is the stealth mechanism so bare-bones and most of the time you don't sneak, but engage in combat? Why don't you have a hidden blade? Why is there so much mythology involved? What's with all the RPG elements and level-scaling? And then you end up being disappointed with the game regardless of how fun it is, because it betrays the franchise's formula.
So you can say all you want that the only thing that changes is text and unit graphics, and this is no big deal, but it actually is quite a big deal to people who care about immersion and atmosphere, and not just about gameplay.

I agree that flavour stuff can be very important to people. I never said otherwise. In fact, as I said before, I expect its important enough that this will be one of the first mods available, if the dev team doesn't recognize that some players don't want the name of their civ to change and provide a solution themselves.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Yes. But you can have one without the other, they are not inherently linked just because Ed and co have decided to pair them. Ages are a structural, mechanical change to the gameplay loop that we know. Having new uniques and abilities in each Age is a significant change to the gameplay.

But the theme of switching to a new "civilization" with each Age is just flavour layered on top of the mechanics. You could just as easily go from Egypt to Egypt to Egypt; it wouldn't change the fundamental mechanics of the game.

You could have one without the other but we don't because of the game's overarching design philosphy. These two mechanics are inherently linked, they both were designed to rectify the same gameplay concerns (long term engagement over entire campaign) and both were designed with the team's dubious abstraction of "layered history" in mind and both are absolutely significant changes to the gameplay of the series.

Now where we seem to be going around in circles is the fact that that most of the opposition to "civ swapping" specifically (including my own) comes down to flavor, immersion, and concerns of forcing a narrative on the players. I understand this and as I've already pointed out, flavor and immersion and how players interact with and identify to civilizations are just as important to Civ fans as cold hard text files and gameplay mechanics.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Now where we seem to be going around in circles is the fact that that most of the opposition to "civ swapping" specifically (including my own) comes down to flavor, immersion, and concerns of forcing a narrative on the players. I understand this and as I've already pointed out, flavor and immersion and how players interact with and identify to civilizations are just as important to Civ fans as cold hard text files and gameplay mechanics.

I agree with this. Humankind's dev team realized during testing that this was a big deal for some players and created the option to keep your current culture for the whole game, rather than forcing you to swap it each era. I'm surprised Civ 7 doesn't seem like it will ship with a similar option.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

flavor and immersion and how players interact with and identify to civilizations are just as important to Civ fans as cold hard text files and gameplay mechanics.

Absolutely! This entire thread is indisputable proof of that. I wonder, therefore, why is it so important to argue that civ switching is a gameplay change? But there we go - to bed!

 

[Krikkit1]

I agree with this. Humankind's dev team realized during testing that this was a big deal for some players and created the option to keep your current culture for the whole game, rather than forcing you to swap it each era. I'm surprised Civ 7 doesn't seem like it will ship with a similar option.

At the least they could use their narrative events ….

after Egypt picking Mongol as the new civ

“Our society and culture have changed in this new Age, some have started to refer to us as Mongols…what do we say?”

Yes we keep our traditions, but our new practices deserve a new name
(Civ name-> Mongol, use Mongol city list)
add small amount of culture toward new Mongol unique civics

No, our practices may have changed, but our traditions remain and so should our name
(Civ name stays Egypt, use Egypt city list)
add small amount of happiness towards next celebration

There could be other ways to customize your civ’s & cities’ names. But this would provide a way that helps frame it in a way that provides some of the flavour/roleplay/immersion that the players want. Whether it is the Eternal Han empire adopting radically different approaches over its history Or a Mississippi-Chola-French empire that looks back on its predecessors and to its future.

 

[RedCourtJester]

I agree with this. Humankind's dev team realized during testing that this was a big deal for some players and created the option to keep your current culture for the whole game, rather than forcing you to swap it each era. I'm surprised Civ 7 doesn't seem like it will ship with a similar option.

Because doing so basically shoots you in the foot, probably. Between not having a new preferred wonder to likely missing out on civ-specific bonuses catering to that era (religion, trade, espionage, diplomacy, corporations, technology), you'd basically be playing the game on challenge mode.

So maybe it would be possible, but I doubt it would be encouraged or even really desired in normal play.

 

[Kev1916]

I don't quite understand what you mean, to be honest!

If by "denies player choice", you mean that there are only 10 civs at the start (vs 20 or so in older games), then yes, it's fair to say that you have fewer civs to choose from at the start. Is it a "fundamental gameplay" issue though, given that it's very easy to fix? They can add more civs without changing any of the gameplay mechanics.

If by "denies player choice", you mean that players can't take Rome or America from beginning to end, I would agree that the choices are now different but suggest that this is still just flavour, it has nothing to do with gameplay. I e., you could remove switching and the game would play identically.

lol your at it, OFC it's gameplay you cant play the Civ you want , You cant choose the opponents you want , you and your friends cant choose the Civ ( team ) they would like to play

Imagine FIFA 25 being released without access to say EPL teams ? .... think about it

 

[Gedemon]

it's a good example, there was version of kick off with or without official teams, but gameplay was identical.

 

[Siptah]

lol your at it, OFC it's gameplay you cant play the Civ you want , You cant choose the opponents you want , you and your friends cant choose the Civ ( team ) they would like to play

Imagine FIFA 25 being released without access to say EPL teams ? .... think about it

While this may not be what you desire, I‘m sure that within a week of release a mod will take care of all of that. It will copy all civs to all ages and make 2/3 of them bland generic options that only differ in name/logo and restrict progression paths for players and AI to the same-named civ. That way, you will have your beloved San Marino experience back. Maybe even with another mod that links leaders to civs. The ages won‘t be that easy to mod out though.