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

[Professor Phobo]

Call to Power had so many cool ideas. It was an unbalanced mess of a game but there's a lot there to extract I wish the games that came after paid more attention to.

 

[pokiehl]

Do you have a source? Not doubting, but I like confirmation when there are so many rumours around.

There's no source; it's just a rumor based on the number of 15 visible dots people saw below "Songhai" or something on B-roll footage of the civ switch screen. Also people are tallying up who they expect to be in based on wonders and other mentions in interviews. 15 x 3 eras = 45.

I don't know if I believe it fully, but it makes sense. At the same time, the 15 dots representing selection could just have been wrapped-around, since the dot was in the middle for Songhai.

 

[TheGrayFox]

In no world is 45 civs small; you're just moving goalposts. Civ 5 and 6 launched with like 1/3 of that.

1) we don't even know if there is actually going to be 45 leaders

2) thats still small when you split the game in three, each civ is only used in a small portion of the entire game, you expect some sort of historical/sensible progression between these civs.

3) and its slightly less than a third

 

[GreSte]

Not really a fan of the idea as flavour but I was not going to buy it at that initial price point anyway. I will see if the game is good or not later on as I'm not adverse to playing it just over that. Some of the best theme songs in VI are outside the civ's designated age though so I hope that's not too badly affected.

 

[ColtSeavers]

I mean, the poll is kind of biased with its options, lots of people at the top of the thread complained about the lack of "I like it, but it's not the main reason I'll buy it" option. And a forum of old grognards debating every miniscule detail of the game and comparing it to old versions is not a representative sample of the 11,000,000+ players of Civ6 - it's unsurprising that it skews conservative when it comes to big changes.

Certainly Not saying this a perfect scientific poll, but this constant belittling of these results (other polls concerning Civ Switching here have shown similar results), doesn't make any sense either. Polls for the US presidential election are usually conducted with a couple of hundreds votes too. You certainly don't need all 11 Mio Players/ Buyers of Civ 6 to vote on this, to get a decent impressionen how this feature is assessed by Civ Fans. If are Not able to convince the majority of the users here, this will also affect the Player Base as a whole, that i am certain about.

 

[Thormodr]

I mean, the poll is kind of biased with its options, lots of people at the top of the thread complained about the lack of "I like it, but it's not the main reason I'll buy it" option. And a forum of old grognards debating every miniscule detail of the game and comparing it to old versions is not a representative sample of the 11,000,000+ players of Civ6 - it's unsurprising that it skews conservative when it comes to big changes.

I suppose, to be fair, there is not a way to change your vote afterwards. People could be talked into a different position. Still, I'd say a vast majority are not excited about these changes or a solid majority downright don't like them.

Perhaps on the cesspool that is reddit, it's different? Facebook seems to be split a little more evenly.

 

[pokiehl]

Certainly Not saying this a perfect scientific poll, but this constant belittling of these results (other polls concerning Civ Switching here have shown similar results), doesn't make any sense either. Polls for the US presidential election are usually conducted with a couple of hundreds votes too. You certainly don't need all 11 Mio Players/ Buyers of Civ 6 to vote on this, to get a decent impressionen how this feature is assessed by Civ Fans. If are Not able to convince the majority of the users here, this will also affect the Player Base as a whole, that i am certain about.

Presidential polls are conducted with actual statistical methodology to remove sample selection bias. Statistical powering to accommodate for sample sizes is a thing.

This is an informal click a button poll on an enthusiast gaming forum where the loudest voices are always the most negative. CFC is in no way representative of the broader player base. No enthusiast forum is.

The comparison is apples and bowling balls.

 

[Kev1916]

1) we don't even know if there is actually going to be 45 leaders

2) thats still small when you split the game in three, each civ is only used in a small portion of the entire game, you expect some sort of historical/sensible progression between these civs.

3) and its slightly less than a third

Totally with one DLC a month to add to coffers there is no chance there will be as many as 15 x3 Civs on launch.

 

[Zaarin]

Still, I'd say a vast majority are not excited about these changes or a solid majority downright don't like them.

From what I've seen, the majority here are either cautiously optimistic or intrigued enough by other mechanics to overlook. The part who hate it enough to consider it a dealbreaker are just really loud (and I'm not sure why they're still here--I hate Star Wars, but I don't hang out on SW boards to tell them why SW sucks--previous versions of Civ aren't going anywhere, and we're obviously far too late in development for the game's core feature to change).

Presidential polls are conducted with actual statistical methodology to remove sample selection bias.

And are still frequently inaccurate outside of coastal cities.

Totally with one DLC a month to add to coffers there is no chance there will be as many as 15 x3 Civs on launch.

That's a cynical assumption that doesn't even take into account that 45 civs at launch leaves plenty of room to sell DLC, which is something most people will want anyway.

 

[Thormodr]

56% dislike it at the time of this post, not 81.5%

I know, I voted 2.

19.5% love it. The next option is don't like it and down it goes in worsening degrees of dislikeatude. Oh and 80.5% and not 81.5%, sorry.

 

[pokiehl]

The part who hate it enough to consider it a dealbreaker are just really loud

Precisely. There are like 3 people who have registered in the past few days and have posted 30+ times a day exclusively about how much the idea sucks. Throw that in with the regulars here who might not like it and chime in a few posts, and it seems like the opinion is a lot more widespread than it actually is

 

[TheGrayFox]

19.5% love it. The next option is don't like it and down it goes in worsening degrees of dislikeatude. Oh and 80.5% and not 81.5%, sorry.

this isn't entirely fair, there is a neutral category that is like 25%. (i haven't looked at exact figures in while,)

but its still a majority hard dislikes and only 19% who are positive about the change

 

[Xandinho]

Totally with one DLC a month to add to coffers there is no chance there will be as many as 15 x3 Civs on launch.

What drives the sales of expansions and especially DLCs are the "big names," and there's no need to include all of them in the base game. I'm confident many of them are being saved for later releases.

 

[DWilson]

What I find really interesting is that I always play these games by choosing a Civilization to play as, and that doesn't seem to be universal the way I would have guessed without thinking about it. I kind of like when my expectations are subverted, it's a good reminder that my ways of seeing the world are nowhere near universal.

A lot of people seem to just want to build something, and so are less bothered by this change. I'm happy that they're getting to be excited for this game!

But I do think that some of you are dismissing the amount of people who don't like it. Even if only so many are commenting for either side at this point, there does seem to be quite a negative response from a broader group in (non-scientific) polls and in the initial announcement.

Overall, I expect there will be a fair chunk of people who don't continue playing with the series, but recent trends have shown that they tend to pick up more new players with each generation, and I don't have evidence to suggest that won't happen again this time. I do hope Firaxis is better about supporting the games on a longer term than some other developers have been, if there's a negative initial response.

 

[Zaarin]

What I find really interesting is that I always play these games by choosing a Civilization to play as

A lot of people seem to just want to build something, and so are less bothered by this change.

I'm in the middle of these two approaches. I also enjoy playing particular civs because I enjoy that particular civ thematically--and I'm always happy when a civ I'm invested in is given a playstyle I'm invested in (e.g., I was delighted to see a more cultural Persia and an exploration/economic-focused Phoenicia, and I continue to hope that when we finally get Assyria again they won't be a raging warmonger civ). So I definitely get the disappointment and frustration with the new system.

 

[Gorbles]

you're fine with it but over half the active members of the forum are not

That's not how active members work, even if CFC were representative of the entire fanbase.

(and sorry, but we're not, for logistically reasons alone)

Congrats. You are in the 19.5% that like this. 81.5% don't like it with varying degrees of us holding our noses about it.

19.5% love it. The next option is don't like it and down it goes in worsening degrees of dislikeatude. Oh and 80.5% and not 81.5%, sorry.

I mentioned in my first reply that the poll choices could do with work. To that end, I didn't vote, even though I like the mechanic.

I still haven't, and the options still need work.

This sounds like a big cope to me because i think those people just wouldn't have voted in a poll specifically about civ switching if they didn't have an opinion

See above

Yeah, but everyone mighty morphing at the same exact time?

Anyone who doesn't like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers needs to go back and resit their 90s Kids' Exam.

(I guess 90s Teens can sit in as well)

 

[Gedemon]

Totally with one DLC a month to add to coffers there is no chance there will be as many as 15 x3 Civs on launch.

that would depend: is it too many (to allow DLC sales) or too low (for a game split in eras with civ switching)

For HK it was 10 cultures per Era

19.5% love it. The next option is don't like it and down it goes in worsening degrees of dislikeatude. Oh and 80.5% and not 81.5%, sorry.

"don't like the idea in particular" is the neutral choice, there is no other in the list, if you want to compare "love/like it", IMO it's more honest refer to the "hate/dislike" choices.

But I do think that some of you are dismissing the amount of people who don't like it. Even if only so many are commenting for either side at this point, there does seem to be quite a negative response from a broader group in (non-scientific) polls and in the initial announcement.

Yes, but how many are afraid because of how it was implemented in HK ?

 

[aieeegrunt]

Falling 100% on the side of roleplaying, I think it's very easy to solve.

Especially for a game like Civilization, where the historical “chrome” is very much the point

No grognard community has ever liked a major change. I've never seen it happen. Even when the change turns out to breathe new life into a franchise.

As a grognard, I hate change, but you gotta be self-aware enough to realize there's a psychological bias against uncertain novelty in favor of known familiarity.

Nonsense. Grognards react like this to bad changes.

Halo CE to Halo 2 was a massive change in the weapon sandbox with pretty huge changes to how the MP was played, and the reception was mostly favorable, because most of the changes were good.

Halo Infinite killed the franchise because they completely changed how the campaign worked, and it was awful.

Hell we have an example in this very franchise where the initial reaction to 1 UPT was mostly favorable, myself included. The controversy mostly took off after people played it for a bit, and realized that solving a sliding tile puzzle every time you move units sucks

You would think that, and yet we've already seen Simcity bomb so hard it killed the entire franchise, and more recently the massive flops that were Imperator and Cities Skylines 2. Devs and publishers aren't infallible, and groupthink and cognitive biases haven't gone out of fashion even though there are entire books written about them.

Fallout 76 and Halo Infinite spring immediatly to mind as franchise killers because the core identity of the game went under the bus to chase trends, mostly online mulitplayer monetization nonsense.

 

[Professor Phobo]

Nonsense. Grognards react like this to bad changes.

A lot of whether or not a change is viewed as "good" or "bad" by a community is down to standard cognitive biases against change/novelty, groupthink, social context, or motivated reasoning, and not due to any actual experience with the change or assessment of its merits and demerits. This is universally true. Crowds can be wise and mad at the same time.

This is especially true during the preview period of a new game. It's just a dice roll whether the community hype or anti-hype ends up right or not. I know people like to think they are Rational Kings whose opinions are always manufactured by robots under Logic Mountain, but it's just vibes all the way down.

I can think of many examples of games that got an unfair reception because it departed from expectations. Which is fine! That's how disappointment works! What I'm trying to argue against is what I'll call the unexamined certainty that a change is actually bad, this far out.

I'm trying to be careful about the reverse, and not getting hyped for the game, because it could easily be a garbage factory, either due to launch woes or due to foundational design missteps. I'm not completely convinced myself!

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Honestly, I almost wished they just removed leaders entirely. They add nothing mechanically except, at most, giving two different flavours of the same civilization - but I'd rather have two different civilizations anyway. I also prefer to think of myself playing as collective will or gestalt consciousness of a civilization, rather than as one specific (and bizzarely immortal, omniscient, and omnipotent-within-my-borders) leader. And I think the same way towards the other civilizations too - I go to war with the Aztecs, not Montezuma. Leaders are kind of nice to have in the diplomacy screen, but I quickly stop looking at them anyway and focus on the menus and list of diplomatic modifiers instead. Having a generic envoy displayed on the screen - without a personality, name, or the like (perhaps with vaguely cultural and time appropriate look) would be fine with me. The dev effort spent on modelling, animating, and voicing Leaders could be far better spent. Bring back the quarrelling advisors for example!

Decoupling leaders from civs makes them even less meaningful IMO, and this would have been the perfect time to cut them. But that's never going to happen. People are way too attached to personalities (both in games, and in the way they understand history incidentally) for them to accept a slightly more abstract representation of things. Just look at the Gandhi-the-genocidal-maniac as a 30 year old meme, or the amount of angst there is on this forum about tiny details about the models for leaders.

If they got rid of the immortal leaders, or just leaders in general, then to me it really would just be Humankind 2, and definitely not Sid Meier's Civilization.

How would this work? So half of the civs wouldn’t have the “historical choice” leader and would miss out on the leader ability/civ ability synergy they have been discussing?

We've already seen where Hatshepsut is the "historical" choice for both Egypt and Askum, and presumably Amina is also another "historical" choice for Aksum as well as Songhai. Considering some leaders like Amina might not get her own actual civ, the Hausa, these leaders will just presumably default to their "historical" choices.

I'm in the middle of these two approaches. I also enjoy playing particular civs because I enjoy that particular civ thematically--and I'm always happy when a civ I'm invested in is given a playstyle I'm invested in (e.g., I was delighted to see a more cultural Persia and an exploration/economic-focused Phoenicia, and I continue to hope that when we finally get Assyria again they won't be a raging warmonger civ). So I definitely get the disappointment and frustration with the new system.

Now I definitely know how you felt about the announcement of Australia. This must be my Australia.