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

[CanuckSoldier]

This. Humankind was flatly a bland, forgettable game. Even on Endless speed, you didn't play as any given civ long enough to feel attached to it. Even if I have concerns for the concept itself, I'm not concerned that FXS will bungle it as badly as Amplitude did. (And I loved Amplitude's former games.)

We can hope that Firaxis does Ages better than Amplitude....but there is the other option that its simply a flawed mechanic and has no place in a 4X game....I guess we'll find out in Feb...

 

[CanuckSoldier]

My neighbors got really sick of the throat singing and pillaging.


Depending on the game, consoles have supported modding for well over a decade now.

But 2K has never done it, that was my question in the first place asking for experiences in other genres....

 

[Zaarin]

We can hope that Firaxis does Ages better than Amplitude....but there is the other option that its simply a flawed mechanic and has no place in a 4X game....I guess we'll find out in Feb...

Like I said, I don't love the concept, but I do like some of the associated mechanics--and I have full confidence that FXS isn't even capable of bungling it as badly as Amplitude bungled HK. (I should say "Sega." I kind of feel like Amplitude was gutted before HK. Even late ES2, which was a great game, shows signs of corporate overbearing oversight.)

 

[CanuckSoldier]

That supposition is completely unsupported. In fact, all the evidence is the other way. There are tons of games that have modding on PC even though they are playable on console. Sure, the mods aren't available for console players. Doesn't stop Steam Workshop being super active for them.

Yes but that separates PC MP and console MP into different groups which runs contrary to what 2K looks like they want...

 

[TheGrayFox]

Who says that switching Civs is equivalent to a foreign invasion or cultural replacement? Why not instead interpret it as a shift in culture and identity following a response to a crisis?

The devs who created the game and gave examples of cultures shifting using explicit hisotircal references to foreign invasion and cultural replacement. You know that Ancient Eygpt didn't become Arabic Islamic Eygpt through kisses and hugs right?

For example you could have an exploration era England be replaced by a modern era United Kingdom, without any kind of invasion or cultural replacement. Same thing with ancient Rome to exploration Byzantium or exploration HRE to modern Germany. Or even ancient Han China to exploration Song China.

Even in these examples, Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire because of collapse of its west to barbarian invasion. Han China and Song China are just two different Chinese dynasties created through conflict and Chinese mongol dynasy was quite literally founded by invaders. England is replaced by the UK in history because its conquest, political union with, and assimilation of Scotland and Ireland.

If you (and I'm not addressing this personally to BuchiTaton, but to everyone) don't like the interpretation of changing civs as a foreign invasion and cultural replacement, then don't interpret it that way? Nobody forces you to. History is literally full of cultures that evolve and whose identity change, blend, merge and split. In fact every culture is like that, none is a "pure" form of anything, even going back only a few centuries, let alone 6 millennia. It's the extinction of cultures and the total replacement by foreigners which is the rare historical exception - not the rule.

No history is not full examples of civilizations arbitrarily morphing into completely unrelated civilizations ala Eygpt to Abbasids to Buganda....and even in the historical examples you cite, most of these cultural changes and assimilations were literally brought about by conquests, invasion, wars, revolution,
and conflicts

 

[Zaarin]

DLCs and Expansion packs divide the player base, but you can absolutely bet that Civ7 will have lots of them.

I'm not a MP player, but my understanding is that if the host has the relevant DLC/expansion, it's usable in the game.

 

[AriochIV]

Sorry for the tangent, but what news was this?

He said "news" but meant "rumor."

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

but I do get why people are upset if it was the last drop for them, welcome being me years ago

don't worry, you'll heal.

Nice try to make people calm and relaxed.

But i‘m already good with it cause at the end of the day, it‘s really just a videogame.

 

[Gedemon]

You are missing the entire point here. Consoles have never supported modding, so as soon as you mod the PC game you can no longer play with consoles. And I suspect 2K doesn't want that mess and will either not allow modding or severely limit it...

Modding civ is not like modding GTA, there is nothing preventing a player on PC with mods installed to cross play with a console, he'd just need to deactivate his mods from the ingame menu, no core files are modified.

 

[moondog385]

I’m coming around to the concept and I think that as more civs are added over time, the “historical” paths for certain civs will be a lot less goofy.

Though to be honest I’m not sure anything could have turned me off from getting the game bar it being a complete genre shift.

 

[stealth_nsk]

No option between "love" and "don't like"? That's a bit of a stretch

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Who says that switching Civs is equivalent to a foreign invasion or cultural replacement? Why not instead interpret it as a shift in culture and identity following a response to a crisis? For example you could have an exploration era England be replaced by a modern era United Kingdom, without any kind of invasion or cultural replacement. Same thing with ancient Rome to exploration Byzantium or exploration HRE to modern Germany. Or even ancient Han China to exploration Song China.

If you (and I'm not addressing this personally to BuchiTaton, but to everyone) don't like the interpretation of changing civs as a foreign invasion and cultural replacement, then don't interpret it that way? Nobody forces you to. History is literally full of cultures that evolve and whose identity change, blend, merge and split. In fact every culture is like that, none is a "pure" form of anything, even going back only a few centuries, let alone 6 millennia. It's the extinction of cultures and the total replacement by foreigners which is the rare historical exception - not the rule.

I can agree with you when it comes to Rome and Byzantium or England and U.K. but I'm not totally sure how I'm supposed to interpret Egypt switching to Songhai, and then to Buganda, as not a cultural replacement, but as an evolution from three totally distinct groups of people?

 

[TheGrayFox]

Already rebutted by:

That rebuttal really doesn't address the point of the post i was responding to which was based on the same sort of flimsy historical justifications that the devs gave for the mechanic in the first place.

No Eygpt didn't became the Mongols because they settled near horses and used cavalry. No American civs don't just have "mongol phases"

 

[Professor Phobo]

No option between "love" and "don't like"? That's a bit of a stretch

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.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Modding civ is not like modding GTA, there is nothing preventing a player on PC with mods installed to cross play with a console, he'd just need to deactivate his mods from the ingame menu, no core files are modified.

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.

 

[ColtSeavers]

No option between "love" and "don't like"? That's a bit of a stretch

Well noted, but apparently I can't change the survey no more. However, the most important thing I wanted to get out of this poll, is whether people are still willing to buy this game despite this mechanic. Therefore, I'd suggest you pick option 1 or 2 here.

 

[Professor Phobo]

To be fair to the detractors, suspension of disbelief is a subjective thing and you can't control when or if it will trigger or fail on your part, so I don't begrudge people not happy with the concept.

I've long wished someone would make a truly hardcore grand strategyish/4x game about simulating the patterns of real history from the end of the last Ice Age all the way to the modern day. If Paradox made it I'd call it "Universalis." Model the patterns of human development but none of the specific historical cultures or societies. Sort of reshuffling Earth history every time; the butterfly effect in full force, even on a true start Earth, settling near the Nile doesn't make you ancient Egypt, that sort of thing.

You'd have to have some kind of procedural fake-name generator and it'd almost immediately be impossible to follow; there's a reason the Civ games use recognized and familiar touchstones. But still, I'd be interested in something like that.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

I'm not a MP player, but my understanding is that if the host has the relevant DLC/expansion, it's usable in the game.

With Civ games to date you need the XP to play....2k will not allow players without GS to get it from a host, for example. In Civ6 so long as you have RF and GS you can play with a host with all the Frontiers stuff you just will not get any of the additional civs as options to play

 

[ColtSeavers]

compared to AI switching from "leading their civilization to stand the test of time" to "trying to play as human to win a boardgame" after civ4, the civ switching mechanism is a drop of water in the ocean, for me immersion in civ was broken long ago.

but I do get why people are upset if it was the last drop for them, welcome being me years ago

don't worry, you'll heal.

the only deal-breaker for me would be the absence of modding, but I've no reasons to think this will happen.

I agree with you at least for the Civ 6 part, Civ 5 was still a great game for me!

 

[lt22677]

This is my thought, honestly it was better to maintain the old system (like bringing the Babylonians to win the space race) than to create such a non-immersive system, that is, you bring a civilization to overcome the ancient age and suddenly transform it into another one (which has nothing to do with it)? example you take Egypt past the ancient age and suddenly you have to become either Songhai or Mongolia? or Rome that survives the barbarian invasions and suddenly becomes England at the change of era? this could be conceived if civilization collapsed due to traumatic events, but if for example Rome had not collapsed why would it have changed in France or England? Wouldn't it have been better to study a method of adding new characteristics to civilization as the eras passed to better define it? they could keep a similar system if during the crisis phase the player's civilization collapsed, but this is simply a bad copy of one of the worst features of Humankind