Civ-Switching

[AD1730]

May be because this mod can only be played by civers who still own Civ 7 and it would be up to those players to post more responses and feedback ?

I know that for me, I have no desire to give money to Firaxis and reward the design decisions they made on this game. I can still play Civ 5 and Civ 6, no reason to get a mod to fix this game.

 

[Pfeffersack]

May be because this mod can only be played by civers who still own Civ 7 and it would be up to those players to post more responses and feedback ?

Sure...the crowd of people having decided to just purchase Civ7 not (yet) are out (at least for the time being). But I thought it would be worth to point it out, as I could imagine that some people wary towards civ-switching bought the game, disliked civ-switching as expected, but are still civ-owners because of the refund period having passed....and maybe som of them weren't aware of it yet.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Sure...the crowd of people having decided to just purchase Civ7 not (yet) are out (at least for the time being). But I thought it would be worth to point it out, as I could imagine that some people wary towards civ-switching bought the game, disliked civ-switching as expected, but are still civ-owners because of the refund period having passed....and maybe som of them weren't aware of it yet.

If we look at this forum as some representation of civ fans, number of people who actively dislike civ switching is not that high and it includes people who didn't buy the game.

Sure, many more would prefer Civ7 to be designed without civ switching, but it's not the same as installing some mod, which breaks gameplay and requires time to adopt to patches. Sure, potentially we could expect some mods, which would fully adapt all civs for all ages, but I doubt it's possible to do now, when the game has significant monthly updates - mods just won't be able to catch up.

So, even people who dislike civ switching, prefer playable game to some experiment.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Given how unpopular civ switching seems to be (there is a vocal significant crowd outright disliking it and probably a good sized group of people accepting it/coping with it, but few people stating that they explicitly like the design decision the way it was made), I'm surprised that this mod hasn't received more responses / feedback yet:

Thread 'Classic Civ'

Feb 16, 2025

Preview version of a mod that will allow to play all base* civs on all ages (*excluding DLC at this moment)

In this preview both Antiquity and Exploration civs have been set for testing on all three ages (and all civs are available for a Modern start)

This is experimental, expect issues, and please report them in this thread.

Download here


Installation

extract in your "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VII\Mods" folder


To uninstall

delete the "classic-civ" folder created on extraction


Configuration

You can edit some parameters...

• Gedemon
• Replies: 24
• Forum: Released Mods

• 

Me being in the "wouldn't have needed civ switching, but can somehow cope with it..."-tent, I gave said mod now a try...and I have to say, despite this being an alpha version and not able to cure anything, the mod does exactly what its name says and @Gedemon already crafted a pretty nice classic Civ experience with it. If I imagine that over time more and more civ and leaders will fill out gaps and someone takes up to balance all of them for the concept of "same civ sticks with leader for the entire game", then I wonder if that could be a solution for those just being irritated by Civ-Switching (but e.g. not with separated eras including partial resets)

This is certainly a move in the right direction, I figured a mod like this would happen. Glad to see @Gedemon is still active

 

[Leucarum]

The mod is a step in the right direction, but quite bare bones. It's definitely going to require quite a bit of work to rebalance civs to actually be fun in each era. If there's some community effort I'd love to know about it and offer assistance.

Still the fact that the mod exists shows that Firaxis certainly could remove civ switching. My personal stance is that they need to find some big red button and press it if they want to save Civ7. Nuking civ switching feels like the "easiest" controversial feature to offer up as a sacrifice.

I also think the era system is more salvageable than civ switching if they smooth out the transitions enough. Civ switching is always going to suffer from creating confusion over civ identity, awkward transitions, and feelings that you lost something, while making it feel like 7 has a third of the civs it does.

 

[Krikkit1]

The mod is a step in the right direction, but quite bare bones. It's definitely going to require quite a bit of work to rebalance civs to actually be fun in each era. If there's some community effort I'd love to know about it and offer assistance.

Still the fact that the mod exists shows that Firaxis certainly could remove civ switching. My personal stance is that they need to find some big red button and press it if they want to save Civ7. Nuking civ switching feels like the "easiest" controversial feature to offer up as a sacrifice.

I also think the era system is more salvageable than civ switching if they smooth out the transitions enough. Civ switching is always going to suffer from creating confusion over civ identity, awkward transitions, and feelings that you lost something, while making it feel like 7 has a third of the civs it does.

They could…but it has potential problems for a number of civs.
Mongolia UA?
Missionary UUs?
Antiquity/Modern Mosque?
Maurya UA?
(not considering balance)

I do agree with having an Optional game mode for only one civ set of uniques the whole game. But I think the civ-specific uniques should be for its “native” Age and have semi-generic bonuses for the other Ages.

That allows more civs to be added without having to 2x check if their uniques work/are balanced in the other Ages.

 

[stealth_nsk]

They could…but it has potential problems for a number of civs.
Mongolia UA?
Missionary UUs?
Antiquity/Modern Mosque?
Maurya UA?
(not considering balance)

I do agree with having an Optional game mode for only one civ set of uniques the whole game. But I think the civ-specific uniques should be for its “native” Age and have semi-generic bonuses for the other Ages.

Yeah, after Civ7 will reach the end of its support cycle, we could see monstrous total overhaul mod, which would add age-specific bonuses for each civ. But at the moment let's be real, mods are mostly good for UI improvements, new maps and things like those.

 

[Leucarum]

They could…but it has potential problems for a number of civs.
Mongolia UA?
Missionary UUs?
Antiquity/Modern Mosque?
Maurya UA?
(not considering balance)

I do agree with having an Optional game mode for only one civ set of uniques the whole game. But I think the civ-specific uniques should be for its “native” Age and have semi-generic bonuses for the other Ages.

That allows more civs to be added without having to 2x check if their uniques work/are balanced in the other Ages.

If you look at the civs most of their abilities work well in any age if they get some scaling. It's ironic in a way that Civ7 showed that Firaxis really can design civs that are good throughout the game. Personally I think it's fine for civs to also only get UUs in specific eras. Showcase where they are strongest... UUs in particular are almost universally underwhelming in Civ7.

I think the bigger questions are traditions, since it's intended you'll accumulate them over the game they'd probably need some sort of generic tradition paths (I saw a suggestion of basing them on a civ/leader attribute like millitary/expansionist etc which you have access to), and UBs/UIs - they are often more central to a civ, but particularly a lot of the modern era ones like Staatseisenbahn or Financial Center don't fit into earlier eras.

You also highlighted some civs whose abilities interact with legacy paths like Mongolia. Since Firaxis seem to have acknowledged that legacy paths need to be optional/selectable I expect these won't stand the test of time anyway...

 

[aieeegrunt]

The mod is a step in the right direction, but quite bare bones. It's definitely going to require quite a bit of work to rebalance civs to actually be fun in each era. If there's some community effort I'd love to know about it and offer assistance.

Still the fact that the mod exists shows that Firaxis certainly could remove civ switching. My personal stance is that they need to find some big red button and press it if they want to save Civ7. Nuking civ switching feels like the "easiest" controversial feature to offer up as a sacrifice.

I also think the era system is more salvageable than civ switching if they smooth out the transitions enough. Civ switching is always going to suffer from creating confusion over civ identity, awkward transitions, and feelings that you lost something, while making it feel like 7 has a third of the civs it does.

It’s also the low hanging fruit. The elephant in the room is the era change. Having your civ deleted and replaced offscreen by developer fiat, twice, is probably the biggest deal breaker in terms of nothing else they chamge mattering. The fact that it is implementex in typical Firaxis style of worse way possible (the entire Royal Navy is now in a Scottish lake) doesn’t help either.

The second I saw that they teleport your units around as part of it I knew it would be awful, since their implementation of that in Civ6 is so awful.

They could…but it has potential problems for a number of civs.
Mongolia UA?
Missionary UUs?
Antiquity/Modern Mosque?
Maurya UA?
(not considering balance)

I do agree with having an Optional game mode for only one civ set of uniques the whole game. But I think the civ-specific uniques should be for its “native” Age and have semi-generic bonuses for the other Ages.

That allows more civs to be added without having to 2x check if their uniques work/are balanced in the other Ages.

This is a solved problem. If the mobile Civ games could figure this out then the flagship dev team has no excuse

 

[Krikkit1]

If you look at the civs most of their abilities work well in any age if they get some scaling. It's ironic in a way that Civ7 showed that Firaxis really can design civs that are good throughout the game. Personally I think it's fine for civs to also only get UUs in specific eras. Showcase where they are strongest... UUs in particular are almost universally underwhelming in Civ7.

I think the bigger questions are traditions, since it's intended you'll accumulate them over the game they'd probably need some sort of generic tradition paths (I saw a suggestion of basing them on a civ/leader attribute like millitary/expansionist etc which you have access to), and UBs/UIs - they are often more central to a civ, but particularly a lot of the modern era ones like Staatseisenbahn or Financial Center don't fit into earlier eras.

You also highlighted some civs whose abilities interact with legacy paths like Mongolia. Since Firaxis seem to have acknowledged that legacy paths need to be optional/selectable I expect these won't stand the test of time anyway...

There is the tradition issue, the problem is MOST civ abilities work through the game.

Some would require changing because they don’t work (Maurya UA) .Others would require changing because they are terribly imbalanced (Maya UQ)

I think having the civs uniques in one Age and then Generic Attribute Uniques for the other ages would allow the uniques to all work for the proper age…. while meaning you don’t need to specially adapt any civs for multi age mode. (basically it’s about 6 civs worth of work for Multi-Age civs… as opposed to 35)

 

[Kwami]

If you ask the question, why a civilization game should not set Charlemagne to be the leader of the Mississippians, while there exist a lot of other settings in these games that you describe as silly, you will receive an answer.

You're not making any sense.

My claim is that Charlemagne leading the Mississippians is no sillier than the USA building the pyramids in 4000 BCE or Mongolia launching humans to the moon in the 1800s. I view all of those things as silly and I accept all of them as part of Civilization. You apparently find one of them sillier than the others and that's fine, but I don't agree.

There is nothing more to say on this topic if you insist on twisting my words.

There is something more to say about this: You should accept in reality and not only in words, that others have this right, too. And you should understand, that the number of players who are completly happy with the existing Civ 7, is not adding any new players to come on board of Civ 7. If the existing number of players is enough to provide Civ 7 a good future, this is fine, especially for you. If not, you have the optimal game you want in its final version and there is no need for you to waste your time in all these posts - and other civers don´t waste their money in buying Civ 7 and possible DLCs in its current form.

I fully do accept that everyone else can have and share opinions. Truly. But I can, too. And I'm going to. If posters here are trying to change the game in a way that I don't like, then I'm going to say so and I'm going to hope that the game doesn't change in those ways. The game that I have now is very fun, but it needs more work. And whatever happens to the game will affect me. We no longer live in a world where I can play the release version while everyone else plays the latest patch. I'm forced to update my game version. So, if the game changes in ways that I don't like, then I can no longer play the game that I do like.

I completly agree that it is up to Firaxis (and Take 2), if - and may be what - to do with the future of Civ 7. May be you should play the Civ 3 mod CCM 3 in combination with C3X instead of Millenia to get an idea what could be done to make civ switching and leaders more properly in a civ game, especially as Civ 7 in many elements is only an upgrade of the Civ 3 Conquests campaign. The CCM mods were and are existing since many years before the concepts of Civ 7 were explained to the public.

No, thanks. I have no interest in Civ III.

 

[Kwami]

If we look at this forum as some representation of civ fans, number of people who actively dislike civ switching is not that high and it includes people who didn't buy the game.

Indeed, it seems like the most vocal critics didn't buy the game and didn't try the game, but won't stop telling the rest of us how terrible it is.

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

You're not making any sense.

My claim is that Charlemagne leading the Mississippians is no sillier than the USA building the pyramids in 4000 BCE or Mongolia launching humans to the moon in the 1800s. I view all of those things as silly and I accept all of them as part of Civilization. You apparently find one of them sillier than the others and that's fine, but I don't agree.

and judging by those overwhelmingly negative user reviews and player counts you would be in the minority with this opinion

Harriet Tubman leading the Greeks who become Bugandans is infinitely sillier than USA building pyramids in 4000BCE IN A SERIES ABOUT BUILDING AN EMPIRE THAT SPAN ALL OF TIME.

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

Indeed, it seems like the most vocal critics didn't buy the game and didn't try the game, but won't stop telling the rest of us how terrible it is.

The game couldn't even sell as much as Civ VI and has less players than a 15 year old title in the same series. Currently sitting at overwhelming negative user reviews (spoilers: you have to own the game to even leave steam reviews)

The game was a flop, it does no one any good pretending otherwise. There's a reason why Firaxis is scrambling in community feedback mode, you trying to handwave away the people who keep telling you "we told you so" will not change that reality.

 

[Civinator]

You're not making any sense.

My claim is that Charlemagne leading the Mississippians is no sillier than the USA building the pyramids in 4000 BCE or Mongolia launching humans to the moon in the 1800s. I view all of those things as silly and I accept all of them as part of Civilization. You apparently find one of them sillier than the others and that's fine, but I don't agree.

There is nothing more to say on this topic if you insist on twisting my words.

You must no repeat your older posting, because despite these argumentation Charlemagne should not be the leader of the Mississippians. If you don´t want to know why, this is your problem not mine.

No, thanks. I have no interest in Civ III.

It seems, that you are not aware, that when playing Civ 7 in big parts you are playing Civ 3.

 

[Kwami]

You must no repeat your older posting, because despite these argumentation Charlemagne should not be the leader of the Mississippians. If you don´t want to know why, this is your problem not mine.

Maybe there's a language barrier here, but I truly have no idea what you're trying to say. I've made my point clearly numerous times.

Harriet Tubman leading the Greeks who become Bugandans is infinitely sillier than USA building pyramids in 4000BCE IN A SERIES ABOUT BUILDING AN EMPIRE THAT SPAN ALL OF TIME.

In your opinion. Not in mine.

 

[Porry]

But if you don't want the civilization change, just stick with 6! Why criticize a game that others are enjoying?! All this hatred against the game for a simple name change between one era and another!

 

[Leucarum]

But if you don't want the civilization change, just stick with 6! Why criticize a game that others are enjoying?! All this hatred against the game for a simple name change between one era and another!

I personally tried Civ6 again since playing 7, and was surprised how much builders, infinite city spam, and the excessive micromanagement meant I didn't enjoy my game. Civ switching is something I tolerate in 7 because the incremental improvements it made to the series are fantastic! But the era systems need improvement to not feel jarring, and I think walking back on civ switching is something that would really improve the game. It adds to confusion, worsens civ identity, has icky connotations and often feels bad. Hopefully I come accross as criticising 7 from a place of love. It has the potential to be the best game in the series but as it stands... Mistakes were definitely made.

 

[Kwami]

But the era systems need improvement to not feel jarring, and I think walking back on civ switching is something that would really improve the game. It adds to confusion, worsens civ identity, has icky connotations and often feels bad. Hopefully I come accross as criticising 7 from a place of love. It has the potential to be the best game in the series but as it stands... Mistakes were definitely made.

I think that removing civilization switching would kill the game. Everything was built around that concept. The amount of work required to remove it just isn't worth it.

I do agree that the era transitions are still too jarring, though. The developers seem to be aware of that problem and they're already making some changes to address it. I'm sure that they'll get it right!

 

[Leucarum]

I think that removing civilization switching would kill the game. Everything was built around that concept. The amount of work required to remove it just isn't worth it.

I do agree that the era transitions are still too jarring, though. The developers seem to be aware of that problem and they're already making some changes to address it. I'm sure that they'll get it right!

I'm curious on your reasons for this, it seems the most easily removed controversial feature I would say... I've been over the details earlier in this thread (and in others), but you really don't need to make many changes to remove it...

When civ switching was announced I can remember my gut feeling of "ugh, please not that" so I will admit that bias. I decided my gut reaction was probably based on me not liking Humankind, and so I gave Civ7 a shot as it looked like they had tried to avoid the worst features of Humankinds implementation (too many switches, bland civs, constant confusion as to who was whom). I actually think they did improve on Humankind's implementation... but I think Civ7 made new mistakes trying to fix those ones. By going deeper with each civ, they ended up with far too few to make the game varied (and civ switching doesn't add the variability in gameplay the devs hoped). They didn't fix the confusion problem even if they did make it better. They added some quite grim connotations with the suggested paths/civ unlocks while also leaving most "thematic" routes with very, very tenuous links. This last one is subjective, but for me, civ switching always feels like a loss rather than a gain. I don't ever look forward to it. I play Civ7 in spite of switching not because of it.

Unlike eras, I also don't think those problems actually can be fixed. Whereas if you load enough options for how suddenly eras change, how you progress through eras, and what continues over... I think you do fix that system... Or at least leave it customizable enough that everyone ends up happy. What is the equivalent for Civ switching? I don't think leaving it untouched is a viable option, but I haven't heard good ideas for how you fix its weaknesses.