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

[Siptah]

Confucius and Himiko do? Unless you don't count someone that would have lived in the Zhou dynasty instead of the Han. Same with Himiko and Meiji Japan.

Yeah, I didn't count these as native civs, similar to how I wouldn't count Ashoka as native leader for Chola. But I see how you can take a different stance on that.

But for the point in question, whether first looks should be leader + their native civ in one video, I think presenting Himiko and Meiji Japan, as was done in a way in the Nintendo direct (which wasn't a FL video), is a civ VI move that feels misplaced for civ VII. And even if we allow that stretch of a 1500+ years and different culture, as civ VI would have, as an exception, it still doesn't help at all with a case like Trung Trac or Amina.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Yeah, I didn't count these as native civs, similar to how I wouldn't count Ashoka as native leader for Chola. But I see how you can take a different stance on that.

But for the point in question, whether first looks should be leader + their native civ in one video, I think presenting Himiko and Meiji Japan, as was done in a way in the Nintendo direct (which wasn't a FL video), is a civ VI move that feels misplaced for civ VII. And even if we allow that stretch of a 1500+ years and different culture, as civ VI would have, as an exception, it still doesn't help at all with a case like Trung Trac or Amina.

That's a fair point. Though in hindsight if Himiko was in Civ 6, as a leader, she would also have Meiji Restoration, Samurai, and Electronics Factory, so I don't necessarily see the difference. The good news is Japan will most likely be more filled in the future.
I agree more on Trung Trac and Amina.

 

[thecrazyscot]

If you think Civ Swichting is the best and only way to fix the boring mid/ end games, great for you. I (and a lot of other participants in this thread) think however, there would have been a more practical and immersive way to do this. Plenty of alternative solutions (from levelling up your existing civ to having the leaders change instead of the civs) have been discussed in this thread already. Agree to disagree. No need to belittle people, who just do not share your opinion on this.

Alternative solutions have been discussed, yes, but they are offered from a single perspective, that of maintaining immersion via playing a single civilization through the entire game.

If that is the most important thing for you that's fine. Your perspective and disappointment in the direction Civ7 is taking are totally valid.

However, I stand by my comments that it is a narrow interpretation what roleplaying in the civ series is, and that it elevates roleplay over gameplay. Ages and Civ Switching (the two mechanics are inextricably intertwined, imo) are explicitly intended to address gameplay, or mechanical problems. The devs have been really, really clear that they view the low percentage of finished games to be a problem, and they've publicly identified the latter half of the game as the culprit. Ages and Civ Switching are their solution, and they've also publicly stated reasons as to why they designed it they way they did - some of which directly and pre-emptively addressed some of the proposed alternatives in this thread.

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.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Leader switching would be worse for me, I think, but I've definitely only come to this opinion over time. Having recognisable characters to compete against is an absolute staple of the series, even more than playing as a single civ, because civs used to be identical, bar the names and their leaders.

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.

 

[Psychotronics]

I am in fact hoping the game does so badly at release the devs have no choice but to either scrap the civ switching mechanic entirely or at least make it optional, maybe in like a game mode.

I'm not a fan of the mechanic either, but I don't think this would be wise. This is a core mechanic, the game was designed around it. I think it's very unlikely the game will become better by taking it off. If it's really as bad as I think it will be and the game bombs, I hope they just shorten the development cycle and bring Civ 8 early. But what I'd really rather is to be proven wrong.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

But what I'd really rather is to be proven wrong.

Sounds like a much healthier attitude than hoping it fails.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Seems a lot of people on here care more about a narrowly-interpreted roleplay aspect more than gameplay fundamentals. The late-game malaise is a critical failure of the last few iterations. The Age system directly addresses that, and civ switching is designed to capitalize on that new system.

I'd be much more on board if I thought the new age system was actually likely to beat late-game malaise.

It looks to me like there will be ways via several game mechanics to reduce harm suffered by players on era change. I think we'll figure out how to min/max it. Trivially. There are so many bonuses that stacking a few together may be so easy that even if parity is restored more completely it may be easier than past versions to create an impact that widens the gulf again.

I think to me, post 1UPT, the roleplay aspects of civ have taken on much more importance as the strategy side has candidly become much easier. 1UPT and yet more bonuses make me think that general trend is gonna continue.

As to RP, I don't think the switching concept itself is probably what's hurting it most. It's that the concept requires many, many more civs for me to have seamless transitions. I'm probably gonna love this game 6-7 years from now, when they've filled the roster as it should be, if it's priced correctly. I'm not super thrilled because that's a long time to wait, baby. That's 4 jobs, 2 ex girlfriends and 10 pounds, a 10% reduction in hairline and more.

 

[Disgustipated]

I miss being able to choose the name of my own leader.

Me too. It seems they are really leaning in with the roleplay this time around. So I definitely don't see name changes happening in this game either. It reminds me of RPG's where you are forced to play a certain character, I know some are highly acclaimed (Witcher 3), but I'm one of the few who think they aren't that great. I want to play a character I create, not be shoehorned into something else. But I digress. Even in SMAC when you were playing a character, you could still rename. I just imagined myself as the leader of that particular faction, not actually as Deirdre or Morgan etc.

I'd love to see a build your own leader feature in Civ 7, but I don't see that happening.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I'd be much more on board if I thought the new age system was actually likely to beat late-game malaise.

It looks to me like there will be ways via several game mechanics to reduce harm suffered by players on era change. I think we'll figure out how to min/max it. Trivially. There are so many bonuses that stacking a few together may be so easy that even if parity is restored more completely it may be easier than past versions to create an impact that widens the gulf again.

I think to me, post 1UPT, the roleplay aspects of civ have taken on much more importance as the strategy side has candidly become much easier. 1UPT and yet more bonuses make me think that general trend is gonna continue.

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, in singleplayer at least, and I believe the problem of snowballing will be reduced in multiplayer games. In my group, we restart games on VI so often because it's obvious that someone has had a wonder start and it will be nigh on impossible to catch them. I think that dynamic will change.

 

[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.