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

[Zaarin]

I meant, they chose civ switching over leader switching because it is less work making new civs than making new leaders.

I'd say there were a variety of reasons to choose civ switching over leader switching. Money and effort was certainly one. Research that said players invested more in leaders was another (I personally think they misinterpreted the research--at least here it seems more common for people to say they identify their opponents with leaders but themselves with the civ; that's certainly my position). Losing meaningful diplomacy is a third.

having the Greeks switch into the Normans

Considering Greek culture is foundational for Western culture, I think Greece into virtually any European civ makes perfect sense.

 

[Evolena]

I'd say there were a variety of reasons to choose civ switching over leader switching. Money and effort was certainly one. Research that said players invested more in leaders was another (I personally think they misinterpreted the research--at least here it seems more common for people to say they identify their opponents with leaders but themselves with the civ; that's certainly my position). Losing meaningful diplomacy is a third.

But while you're p laying, what matters it to recognize your opponents, not yourself.

 

[ColtSeavers]

I don’t think any of that is true. They in fact prototyped leader switching first and the feedback from that process informed the final design of civ switching.

What feedback are you talking about? Introduce this to whom, not sure who you are referring to?

 

[Zaarin]

But while you're p laying, what matters it to recognize your opponents, not yourself.

I 100% agree; that's why I dislike the Mortal Kombat diplomacy screen. I don't need to be reminded what leader I'm playing, just my opponent.

 

[TheGrayFox]

This argument really doesn't make sense, there are reasons leader switching wouldn't work completely unrelated to financial cost of making leaders and they've gone over them in the dev diary. The obvious one is you completely lose a sense of whom your opponents are if the leader and civ are are changing each age. And you need the civ switching to address the core problem of civs being unbalanced via early and late game uniques, not to mention not wanting to limit civs to only those that have "survived" for all of history.

Firaxis declaring leader switching "wouldn't work" doesn't make it a reality though. There are other 4x titles where leaders, not civilizations, swap with no problems of player/opponent identification and considering they had no problem completely reinventing how we view Civilizations, , the same exact treatment could've been done for leaders if they wanted. You don't need civ switching to address the problem of civs being unbalanced or not having early/late game uniques. They could've simply given players with another way of choosing uniques/bonuses per era without having your entire civ change.

also they never have or had to limit civs to only those that have survived all of history .that is only something that has to be thought about now specfically because the way Firaxis specifically designed VII around ages and seperatable rounds.

What feedback are you talking about? Introduce this to whom, not sure who you are referring to?

Firaxis stated in a dev diary that they thought about having leaders swap instead of civ swapping but decided against it for a few stated gameplay reasons... but again how persuasive you'll find their reasoning or arguments will vary

 

[ColtSeavers]

This argument really doesn't make sense, there are reasons leader switching wouldn't work completely unrelated to financial cost of making leaders and they've gone over them in the dev diary. The obvious one is you completely lose a sense of whom your opponents are if the leader and civ are are changing each age. And you need the civ switching to address the core problem of civs being unbalanced via early and late game uniques, not to mention not wanting to limit civs to only those that have "survived" for all of history.

Again, we played 6 titels without switching, I don't remember much complaints about the "unbalanced civs" as you call it back then. I mentioned that before, Civ is not such a difficult game after all. I'm certainly not a pro player and I won on Level 7 without caring much about Civ's or Leader's bonusses. It's not like everybody is Potato Mc Whiskey out there.

 

[ColtSeavers]

I'd say there were a variety of reasons to choose civ switching over leader switching. Money and effort was certainly one. Research that said players invested more in leaders was another (I personally think they misinterpreted the research--at least here it seems more common for people to say they identify their opponents with leaders but themselves with the civ; that's certainly my position). Losing meaningful diplomacy is a third.

I wonder what kind of research that was after all? Who did they talk to or where did they get these data from?

 

[Ebon-Hawke-]

Again, we played 6 titels without switching, I don't remember much complaints about the "unbalanced civs" as you call it back then. I mentioned that before, Civ is not such a difficult game after all. I'm certainly not a pro player and I won on Level 7 without caring much about Civ's or Leader's bonusses. It's not like everybody is Potato Mc Whiskey out there.

Personally I play very casually so maybe "balance" in regards to strength isn't the correct way to describe it and I see what you mean. But at the same time I 100% can get behind what the devs mean by saying generally civs just feel better to play (more fun) when you get to use the things that actually make them unique.

Firaxis declaring leader switching "wouldn't work" doesn't make it a reality though. There are other 4x titles where leaders, not civilizations, swap with no problems of player/opponent identification and considering they had no problem completely reinventing how we view Civilizations, , the same exact treatment could've been done for leaders if they wanted. You don't need civ switching to address the problem of civs being unbalanced or not having early/late game uniques. They could've simply given players with another way of choosing uniques/bonuses per era without having your entire civ change.

I'm not sure how one would go about giving choices for early/late uniques while keeping historical flavor (not bonuses, that makes sense and is arguably in civ 7 with leader attribute points). I guess an important part of civs for me is how unique civs feels to play, it honestly makes it very hard to go back to older titles where they all feel more generic since they add more and more uniqueness each title.

 

[Acken]

This argument that because we can win level 7 without caring for bonuses therefore we shouldn't care about making the unique powers/units more relevant doesn't sound very logical.
It's a subjective preference between gameplay/balance and flavor.

I'm also very perplexed by the idea that players on average would not care for bonuses, that clearly doesn't match my interaction online with people that love synergies it creates (many wonders Egypt, massive natural wonder yields Spain etc.). People spend their time flexing that kind of thing.

You could have instead an argument that they should simply have made all bonuses ageless without having to switch but I'm not sure how they would have handled UU/UB

 

[ColtSeavers]

This argument that because we can win level 7 without caring for bonuses therefore we shouldn't care about making the unique powers/units more relevant doesn't sound very logical.
It's a subjective preference between gameplay/balance and flavor.

I'm also very perplexed by the idea that players on average would not care for bonuses, that clearly doesn't match my interaction online with people that love synergies it creates (many wonders Egypt, massive natural wonder yields Spain etc.). People spend their time flexing that kind of thing.

You could have instead an argument that they should simply have made all bonuses ageless without having to switch but I'm not sure how they would have handled UU/UB

Sure, that is just my personal preference, and at the end of the day, we can all just make a more or less edcuated guess on this matter. I just can't imagine, that the average players focus so much on these bonusess, but I could be wrong. Ageless bonusses like in Civ 5 would work out too, of course.

 

[TheGrayFox]

This argument that because we can win level 7 without caring for bonuses therefore we shouldn't care about making the unique powers/units more relevant doesn't sound very logical.
It's a subjective preference between gameplay/balance and flavor.

I'm also very perplexed by the idea that players on average would not care for bonuses, that clearly doesn't match my interaction online with people that love synergies it creates (many wonders Egypt, massive natural wonder yields Spain etc.). People spend their time flexing that kind of thing.

You could have instead an argument that they should simply have made all bonuses ageless without having to switch but I'm not sure how they would have handled UU/UB

His point wasn't that no one cares about having uniques and/or powerful bonuses/units though. It's that having unique abilities and relevant unique buildings/units in every single era ala what civ swapping trying to achieve and address wasn't nessecary in any past Civ titles

His point was more directly addressing the claim the other user was making about how we NEED civ swapping address the core problem of civs being unbalanced via early and late game uniques... which simply isn't true. We didn't NEED civ swapping specifically as evidenced by previous games in the series. Not to mention that the gameplay/balance problem civ swapping is trying address is one that almost exclusively pertains to multiplayer. Not having early game unique units or buildings never stopped me from enjoying or beating the game as United States or Britain.

 

[Ebon-Hawke-]

His point wasn't that no one cares about having uniques and/or powerful bonuses/units though. It's that having unique abilities and relevant unique buildings in every single era ala what civ swapping trying to achieve and address wasn't nessecary in any past Civ titles

His point was more directly addressing the claim the other user was making about how we NEED civ swapping address the core problem of civs being unbalanced via early and late game uniques... which simply isn't true. We didn't NEED civ swapping specifically as evidenced by previous games in the series. Not to mention that the gameplay/balance problem civ swapping is trying address is one that almost exclusively pertains to multiplayer. Not having early game unique units or buildings never stopped me from enjoying or beating the game as United States or Britain.

I'm to blame for poor choice of words I fear. I summed up more what I meant in my last reply. I do remember the devs saying something along the lines of wanting each civ to feel more unique and special at the time they were in history, which is a good goal even if it wasn't a "core problem needing fixed" as I so foolishly said. I love the goal personally as it immensely helps my immersion and replayability

 

[Baudshaw]

One weird thing I was thinking the other day. Buildings and Units for sure are age specific - at least a lot of the time - but there aren't many civs in 7 whose abilities are actully all that tied to the age they are in. Songhai, Mongolia, Majapahit have abilities which tie directly into legacy paths for exploration - but most civs abilities would be fine in any age. Just look at China's stack, as the most homogeneous example in 7. You could prpbably swap the order around and the abilities would function fine. Arguably Han might be better in exploration where specialists matter more.

I wonder if there's gonna be another "base game/dlc split" in terms of leader complexity. In civ 6, the base game civs were usually simpler, while the DLC civs usually had more complex or specialized mechanics. I wonder if the same thing will happen here.

 

[Acken]

I wonder if there's gonna be another "base game/dlc split" in terms of leader complexity. In civ 6, the base game civs were usually simpler, while the DLC civs usually had more complex or specialized mechanics. I wonder if the same thing will happen here.

Probably. Designers typically have more time to do something less generic in an expansion that they didn't have time to fully fleshed out in the base game. I see this pattern in video games, board games and card games.
They also understand the base game better to know what would actually work.

 

[chaosprophet]

Research that said players invested more in leaders was another (I personally think they misinterpreted the research--at least here it seems more common for people to say they identify their opponents with leaders but themselves with the civ; that's certainly my position). Losing meaningful diplomacy is a third.

Albeit When it comes to what switch, it wouldn't make much sense and much harder to balance if they went with players keeping civ and changing leaders while the AI do the opposite. But maybe you meant they misinterpreted it in the sense of, besides the switching, also adding MK diplomacy?

 

[Zaarin]

Albeit When it comes to what switch, it wouldn't make much sense and much harder to balance if they went with players keeping civ and changing leaders while the AI do the opposite. But maybe you meant they misinterpreted it in the sense of, besides the switching, also adding MK diplomacy?

Yes. Their interpretation seems to be that players identify with the leader, which is not my sense from the community nor my own interpretation, and this led them to overemphasize the player's leader. I wasn't suggesting the player and AI should be playing with different mechanics.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Yes. Their interpretation seems to be that players identify with the leader, which is not my sense from the community nor my own interpretation, and this led them to overemphasize the player's leader. I wasn't suggesting the player and AI should be playing with different mechanics.

Again, just my personal opinion, but I always imagine playing against Nations, not Leaders. Especially when playing on TSL maps, I'm playing against America or France etc., and I don't really care who their leader is. And considering how popular the TSL maps are, I think I'm not the only one, here.

 

[Zaarin]

Again, just my personal opinion, but I always imagine playing against Nations, not Leaders. Especially when playing on TSL maps, I'm playing against America or France etc., and I don't really care who their leader is. And considering how popular the TSL maps are, I think I'm not the only one, here.

Since the beginning, though, and especially and increasingly since Civ4, leaders are what have set the Civilization franchise apart from its competitors. It makes Civ feel more personal and human because your opponents have human faces and human personalities. Among other things, it draws in narrative players--like me--and not just the strategy players. Also, I doubt playing TSL really has any relevance to leader preferences. I'm sure there are plenty of TSL players who enjoy interacting with the leaders and plenty of non-TSL players who don't care.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Since the beginning, though, and especially and increasingly since Civ4, leaders are what have set the Civilization franchise apart from its competitors. It makes Civ feel more personal and human because your opponents have human faces and human personalities. Among other things, it draws in narrative players--like me--and not just the strategy players. Also, I doubt playing TSL really has any relevance to leader preferences. I'm sure there are plenty of TSL players who enjoy interacting with the leaders and plenty of non-TSL players who don't care.

The reason I brought up the TSL maps is, that for me it is obvious, that if you play a TSL map, you don't want Spain to "disappear" in the Modern age, or playing against the Normans, where most of its cites are located in the region we now call Greece.

 

[Zaarin]

The reason I brought up the TSL maps is, that for me it is obvious, that if you play a TSL map, you don't want Spain to "disappear" in the Modern age, or playing against the Normans, where most of its cites are located in the region we now call Greece.

Fair, I can see how primarily playing TSL might affect your opinion of civ switching (though for what it's worth there were TSL maps for Humankind, though I never used them and can't tell you much about them). I just don't think it necessarily directly relates to leader association. But I wouldn't know; I rarely play TSL. In fact, I only played TSL in Civ6 as a sort of joke on the excessive number of Balkan-adjacent civs and leaders: select Alexander, Pericles, Gorgo, Trajan, Cleopatra, Basil, Suleiman, Matthias, and Jadwiga as opponents while I chill in China or the New World.