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

[ColtSeavers]

The problem for me is that many of the leaders in VI were a bit annoying because of the way they interrupted your game every turn to repeat the same few lines of dialogue. So whilst I see them as important in theory, I'm hoping for better implementation here.

Which of course leads me to my main complaint, and I know it is shared by many: the diplo screen. I want to play against recognisable characters, but I want to play as myself. I miss being able to choose the name of my own leader.

I agree with you there, I think there is even a mod for Civ 6 which reduces the constant interruption by the AI, which just get's annoying after a while. The Civ 7 Diplo Screen where I have to watch my own avatar I don't like at all, too.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Leader switching? Changing avatars would be confusing for players.
Keeping your existing civ? Not all civs existed at all times, so they decided to focus the designs around the period when that civ was at the height of its power, with all unique elements informed by historical research. No need to balance each civ to be strong at any given point in the game.

And you know what? I don't know if it all will work. Actually, to be honest, I'm a little overwhelmed by how unique every civilization is - there's a lot to wrap my head around and when looking at the wall of uniques there's a risk that each civilization loses personality in favor of just being different combos of stat boosts. And I've always found immortal leader avatars to be silly. Heh - turns out narrative is important to me too. I've actually been finding it helpful to just look at Traditions for each civ to get a sense of its "personality".

But I do know that if a gameplay shakeup makes it fun to play a full game for me, then I can opt-in to the narrative framework. A different framework, sure, but a framework that's just as valid as the one presented in previous iterations.

Leader Swichting has its downsides for sure, but I'd prefer a having a changing avatar starting with Perikles ending up with Venizelos, instead of having Greece turning into France for no comprehensible reason, anytime. (btw: why are they doing this anyway? Greece is still an existing country after all, even roughly within its original borders? It is like Mexico would evole into Argentina, and having Mexico ceasing to exist in Modern Age).

Same challegens with levelling up with existing Civs. Difficult to find a predecessor for America, but you got similar challenges there with Civ Swichting. On top of that, it is going to be difficult to play TSL for the latter.

So to sum it up again, shaking up the gameplay is great, I'd just would have done it differently! That's the entire point of this thread. Discussing Firaxis ideas and come up with alternative suggestions, if you don't agree with them.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I think that isn't simple at all.

For one, it forces every civ to now have 3x as much design depth as they would with just era-specific bonuses, effectively tripling the design/balancing workload.

For two, it still likely will result in a lot of civs feeling kind of samey/impotent in "offline" eras that don't highlight the era they would want to be designed for.

We haven't seen any indication the game will be designed like this, so until we see evidence of it I'm discarding what is essentially a many worlds theory as not being worth all the vague implausibility it opens up.

This is the exact same argument I just addressed with a concrete example

From a workload perspective, designing 12 Civs that swap for three era switches is literally THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF WORK AS DESIGNING 4 CIVS THAT PERSIST OVER 3 ERA SWITCHES

Again, this is an already proven concept that was done for Civ Revolutions 2.

No I'm not. We have tons of unique features in each civ design on Civ 7, and all those are possible because they focused on the targeted age.

What unique unit for the Antiquity America? What unique buildings for the Exploration Egypt? What unique civic for the Modern Rome? I once told about it, I don't want to see the Cart knight or the Pharaoh emperor.

Already answered by the existence of a previous game. God forbid we put any effort in.

And since suddenly historical roleplay matters again; funny how supporters of civ switching seem to Schrodinger’s Cat this concept, having a unique unit AND building AND whatever else for each era for each civ will dilute the whole concept to the point where it becomes meaningless

If virtually everything is a unique, nothing is.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

If virtually everything is a unique, nothing is.

I mean, we're quite a long way from that, aren't we.

But I certainly take the point that as soon as you add any unique elements, you begin to reduce the so called "sandbox" (not that I think this is a very good term for Civ in any iteration, it has never been a sandbox). Civ VII is certainly continuing the trend.

 

[Siptah]

@ColtSeavers I have hopes that leader screens are less disruptive than in civ VI. A few interaction from the separate screens are gone altogether (e.g., trade). And, hopefully, others don‘t force you into the screen but create a notification next to „next turn“ button to go into the diplo screen. That‘s far from perfect, but miles better than civ VI and V.

And Greece is actually a good example for civ switching. Greece (either as independent city states of unified by Philip) doesn‘t still exist - it exists again, after roughly 2000 years of being part of the Roman and Ottoman empires. And the „borders“ are not at all as in antiquity - Thracia isn‘t in ancient Greece, Macedonia hardly, but Minor Asia to an important degree.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

And, hopefully, others don‘t force you into the screen but create a notification next to „next turn“ button to go into the diplo screen.

Pleeeeeeeeaaaaase!

They've got these nice little leader icons in the top right, why not animate them or something, but only when they have something they want to say - you could hover over the icon to see what it's about in a tooltip, and then decide whether it's worth entering into a full discussion or not. It would be so much better! I don't care if they complain about my lack of gold every other turn if it isn't obtrusive.

 

[Gicusan]

I play since civ 1 and this is truly one of the best features I have seen. But it is not good enough yet.
It is ok to have leaders play any civ (it worked great in the forth installment) and it is ok to turn Rome into Mongolia into Brasil if you develop in a way that is meaningfull in that direction. Those are options and are never wrong to have. But 3 horses is not enough. Add 5 victorious cavalry units. 3 stables and a certain tech or cultural trait like stirrups and horseback archery. And Egypt can become Songhai if it has a number of wet farms, rice resource and some naval river tech and a meaningfull cultural link. Read meaningfull. In more than one way. You want immersion and that is how you get it.

But Egypt should turn into Mamluk or Byzantium or Ottoman Empire and finally into Modern Egypt. Or a succesfull Egypt in one era should be able to hold onto its name and culture and turn into a more evolved, era strengthened, Egypt.
Options means you should be able to build the next era civilization to follow yours. Turn a succesfull Mongolia into a modern day Mongolia if you hit at least a golden age. You choose your perks from a meaningfull list based on what you are and what you archived in a modern interpretation so that you have a strong civ that is more or less the same.

But most immersive way is to do it right which means we need a hundred civs at least. Rome should go to Byzantium or HRE or Frankish Kingdom or Spain and from there it can go in many directions like Turkey, Modern Greece or Hre going into Germany, Austria, Switzerland or more straightforward Frankish kingdom to France and Spain into modern Spain with different strengths. A lot of work for Firaxis and for the modders. Good luck!

 

[ColtSeavers]

@ColtSeavers
And Greece is actually a good example for civ switching. Greece (either as independent city states of unified by Philip) doesn‘t still exist - it exists again, after roughly 2000 years of being part of the Roman and Ottoman empires. And the „borders“ are not at all as in antiquity - Thracia isn‘t in ancient Greece, Macedonia hardly, but Minor Asia to an important degree.

Well, I guess there are always different ways to look at this. For me, Greece, though being conquered and being part of foregin empires for many centuries, has endured after all, and is still there. Same could be said for many other European countires like Poland or even Germany for that matter. Since I'm from Europe, I more familiar with these countries, but I'm sure that applies to other parts of the world, too. Sure the borders are not exactly the same, and the languages have also evolved quiet a bit. Still I find it much more plausible, to have the Gauls evolve into Modern France, than switching from Greece to Normans to France. At the end of the day, I think it was also important for Firaxis to cover as many "well known" countries as possible. Having switches like Persia - Mongols - Russia allows them to introduce much more known Civs, as if they went for Kiev Rus - Zarist Russia - Sovjet Union, for example. I would have preferred the latter, though.

 

[gdr_willter]

Again, this is an already proven concept that was done for Civ Revolutions 2.

Already answered by the existence of a previous game. God forbid we put any effort in.

And since suddenly historical roleplay matters again; funny how supporters of civ switching seem to Schrodinger’s Cat this concept, having a unique unit AND building AND whatever else for each era for each civ will dilute the whole concept to the point where it becomes meaningless

If virtually everything is a unique, nothing is.

I don't agree with you.

1. Civ Revolution 2 was extremely simplified version and I didn't enjoyed it at all. And I think FXS didn't adopt the concept of CR2 they already done because of the same reason.

2. Civ 7 introduced the Age system to improve the gameplay first. From this decision, they found the problems and possibilities at the same time: If civs are designed too commonly and all-timely, the game-renewing power of the Age system will be halfed. But the Age system also allowed them a room for more specific civ designs. Therefore they decided to make civs to age-dependent and have more unique features fitting in the mechanism of the age. You followed it in reversed order, you want less unique and age-independent civs first and then let them fit to the Age system.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I mean, we're quite a long way from that, aren't we.

But I certainly take the point that as soon as you add any unique elements, you begin to reduce the so called "sandbox" (not that I think this is a very good term for Civ in any iteration, it has never been a sandbox). Civ VII is certainly continuing the trend.

Honestly I kinda hate the model where civs like Eqypt are the “deser/Floodplains bonus Civ” and Russia is the “Tundra” civ because it leads to situations where your spawn either screws you or makes you unstoppable.

Unique buildings/units have the problem where there is a massive, massive “time value” to them because it’s almost always better to have early ones than late ones

I’d rather see Civ bonuses develop naturally based on where you spawn and found cities.

 

[Voidwalkin]

If I can counter that, I think the problem of endgame malaise in VI is not just about snowballing & the ease of winning, the endgame is simply boring: nothing interesting to build, no new systems, nothing that changes the dynamic, too much micromanagement, long turn times, etc. Even if VII doesn't solve the problem of snowballing, I'm quite convinced it will still be more fun to play.

Whether it's interesting from a strategic perspective is as much down to the AI as anything

Yeah.

To me, it's a matter of two things, one very AI related

A: balance of power between offense and defense is weighted too heavily to the latter. This is greatly exacerbated by a military AI that isn't blunder prone, but outright incapable of attacking cities tightly enough that it conquers without attrition. It's one city and invasion is over and here, I refer to AI v AI, not player vs AI.

In consequence, the age of exploration is exploration without empire creation. You never need to worry about a rival disrupting the relative balance of power very much. You can altogether ignore foreign affairs if you like.

B: lack of diplomatic options
No alliances. No power blocs. No large, end game world wars. Never happens. It doesn't need to always happen but it should be far from impossible.

Those 2 things, if fixed, would go some ways towards improving malaise. That the player will build a successful empire is near certain; stagnation is avoided largely by potential emergence of a meaningful opposing power center. That should have the chance of forming organically, mind, and not be forced via coding the ai to form it specifically.

I’d rather see Civ bonuses develop naturally based on where you spawn and found cities.

Dynamic bonuses are the logical conclusion of the civ morphing concept.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Honestly I kinda hate the model where civs like Eqypt are the “deser/Floodplains bonus Civ” and Russia is the “Tundra” civ because it leads to situations where your spawn either screws you or makes you unstoppable.

Unique buildings/units have the problem where there is a massive, massive “time value” to them because it’s almost always better to have early ones than late ones

I’d rather see Civ bonuses develop naturally based on where you spawn and found cities.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, this design decision was made in Civ 3, and all subsequent versions of Civ have followed it. In Civ 1 and 2, the real world attributes of your civ did not come into play, the only thing that mattered was what your civ did in that game. Beginning with Civ 3, real world attributes of your civ became associated with your civ and excluded from all other civs, regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in that particular game. As Egypt, your people are the best at working the desert, even if you've never seen the desert; as Russia, your people will never figure out how to thrive in the desert, even if you start there.

I can't say this decision was wrong, as its been very popular. But it also didn't need to be done this way, either. Uniques could have been handed out based on in game play, rather than preassigned at the start.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Honestly I kinda hate the model where civs like Eqypt are the “deser/Floodplains bonus Civ” and Russia is the “Tundra” civ because it leads to situations where your spawn either screws you or makes you unstoppable.

Unique buildings/units have the problem where there is a massive, massive “time value” to them because it’s almost always better to have early ones than late ones

I’d rather see Civ bonuses develop naturally based on where you spawn and found cities.

I like the idea of bonuses developing naturally; wouldn't be surprised to see something like this in future Civs, it feels like a natural progression of the current system.

As for the rest, I guess they've kind of fixed some of this by equalising all the terrain, and as far as I can remember, there aren't many terrain specific bonuses in the civs announced so far (beyond coast and navigable rivers).

 

[aieeegrunt]

I like the idea of bonuses developing naturally; wouldn't be surprised to see something like this in future Civs, it feels like a natural progression of the current system.

As for the rest, I guess they've kind of fixed some of this by equalising all the terrain, and as far as I can remember, there aren't many terrain specific bonuses in the civs announced so far (beyond coast and navigable rivers).

There are several mods for Civ6 that do this, mostly through the Eureka/Inspiration system

 

[thecrazyscot]

Depending on how extensive the Legacy Option triggers and effects are you could probably already do a version of that by simply vastly expanding the number of bonuses available as Legacy Options. Have 4 settlements on Deserts? Unlock a Legacy Option to make your tiles immune to sandstorms. Etc etc. You could also unlock all sorts of unique Legacy Options via civ-specific Civic trees. You'd probably want to reduce the number of unique elements for each civ by default to reduce how complex this would get but potentially could be done. You'd have 2 big "break points" with the Age Transitions to customize your civ further.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It all comes down to implementation. Good implementation allows something like this:
1. Based on your initial situation you could decide, which next era civ fits your planned strategy best
2. The same initial situation allows you to make efforts to unlock this next era civ
3. This applies to all civs - so all civs fit some strategies and actions required from player fit this strategy

Those unlock requirements could be map-dependent or independent, both could work.
For example, requirement for Mongols to connect X horses is quite ok. You see enough horses, you could prioritize them, so you lead a cavalry conquest in exploration age. That's map-dependednt unlock.
Map-independent unlock could be something like building X commanders to unlock more universal conquest civ.

But, of course, there are a lot of ways to screw this system.

 

[Leucarum]

Honestly I kinda hate the model where civs like Eqypt are the “deser/Floodplains bonus Civ” and Russia is the “Tundra” civ because it leads to situations where your spawn either screws you or makes you unstoppable.

Unique buildings/units have the problem where there is a massive, massive “time value” to them because it’s almost always better to have early ones than late ones

I’d rather see Civ bonuses develop naturally based on where you spawn and found cities.

I agree to some extent though, tying civs to terrain made some sense for Civ6's "play the map."

In Civ7 though, I am much less a fan of this type of civ. Especially if they are age 2/3 Civs. To use your example, a player who wants to go for (a hypothetical tundra-themed) Russia but doesn't get a Tundra spawn is going to be a bit bummed I suspect. You can already see this with Shawnee and their need for navigable rivers, especially with them getting a malus...

 

[Psychotronics]

Sounds like a much healthier attitude than hoping it fails.

Well, being a member of this forum, I'm obviously a civfanatic. I think it's illogical to hope for a game in a series I love to be bad. I want it to be good and to put hundreds, thousands of hours into it. So far, I'm not convinced this will be the case, but that's always what I want to happen.