Civ VII Post-mortem: Crafting a redemption arc

[aieeegrunt]

My opinion is that it's a cultural phenomenon that, if not unique, at least began with the last couple of generations.

I've had so many managers who:

1. Think in terms of short term success.
2. Focus heavily on how they appear to higher ups, where managing optics and blame takes up more energy than making things work.
3. An attitude of "I got mine screw you."
4. A boys' club or frat boys attitude that if you hold the car keys/building keys/keys to the kingdom, you're entitled to use it as your personal playground for people you like.
5. Common narcissistic behavioral patterns, creating loyal inner cliques and identifying outliers you can persecute and turn the community against.
6. Higher up leadership that actually really dose only care about appearances, not causes, and is firmly quarterly minded.

There are some economic reasons for this. It's the result of "Modern Monetary Theory" which solve the problem of a poorly structured economy by essentially leveraging the entire economy against massive high risk, high return investments which in theory finally fund the parts of the economy which are structurally wasteful. It also creates more waste. This makes the base structure of the economy unaffordable, so you can't really afford to invest in a studio, a company, people, etc. Ironically though, there's a flood of money available for more expensive high-return investments, but these are indeed measured on a quarterly basis. Lowly capital needs can't compete with quarterly demands, even though there's a ton of money to be had to spend and waste on failed investments, so long as there's a chance it could lead to high returns.

There's no feedback loop to reward doing things the "right" way but you have to do things the right way at a minimum, so the entire burden of performance is placed on a declining expert experience class to make up for the institutional shortfalls in the places where they work. If you work somewhere caught in the money hype loop, like AI, as a top expert, your compensation will be obscene. Outside of that, you're grinding longer hours, with more expected of you. Got a skills gap? Your problem entirely to solve at your own cost and time, always, inevitably. And if you look at inflation and cost of living then integrate it into your anticipated salaries adjusted for time value of money, you'll find out that your lifetime anticipated wealth is closer to the poverty line than you'd think.

I think the only exceptions are in these niche foundational fields like industrial control systems which are actually required for the real economy to function, so they do tend to pay their staffs to go off and get training to keep up with trends.

Anyway, this seems to be an overarching reality. Resource and economy driven, so 4X brain... And it's a systemic feature that could explain a lot of the economic but also cultural constraints affecting why the game turned out this way.

You know, there was a bill lately I think North Carolina wants to grant immigration visas for medical professionals because they have a shortage. This is ironic because medical schools and the residency system in the US explicitly limit the number of doctors produced every year. The left hand isn't talking to the right.

In my case, while I did end up getting a CS as a second degree, when I was first in college with a 5 on my AP CS AB I sought out the CS major - this was my state school, and the only tuition I could afford, and a I had been given a scholarship. I was told that CS was limited enrollment and you had to apply in your senior year of high school and it was highly competitive with limited space, and there was nothing I could do except transfer schools (where I wouldn't receive in state tuition). What's up with that? Why are we restricting the number of CS professionals being produced, but then complaining there aren't enough of them?

I think I literally dove into a rabbit hole of Civ 3 addiction after being mildly depressed about the above, so I frankly am not very happy at what happened with Civ 7. I think I would have got myself fired being a spark-plug complaining about the game had I been working there, which I think is the energy this industry once had, and according to rumors, this is literally what happened with the UI team.

So frustrating.

it’s “burn it all down and start over” time honestly

How can they spend so much money and end up with such a mess?

See above. The situation is one serious crises or even “wanr of a nail” scenario from complete collapse.

Well, if they eliminated ages/switching and 1upt and put in a good strategic combat system they would sell like 50 millions units. And the kind of combat system wouldn't need to be new, any number of systems from 60 to 70 year old wargames would be fine.

This is just sitting out there literally waiting to be picked up from the ground. Not even low hanging fruit. Its laying on the bloody ground for anyone to pick up.

Never has this genre been more primed for a AA developer to swoop in and pull a Helldivers to steal the crown Civ7 tossed in the gutter

You could, but then that'd be something else to dissect and interrogate

It's easy to say "this is going to do badly". People tried it with VI. People predicted with absolute confidence that Firaxis had lost their way and were appealing to mobile gamers.

It was a massive success.

We have the inverse here. People are right in hindsight but are seemingly unable to see that that's only because of hindsight. It doesn't let you go back in time and design something more successful. It only lets you build on what to do better for the future.

And quite frankly, there are some people who don't want anything new and just want endlessly refreshed versions of the game they played 10, 20 or 30 years ago. That mentality is a curse on new games. We have old games. Play them. I still play SMAC!

No, it’s not hindsight. That’s just more cope. PLENTY of us saw that this was going to suck and didn’t buy the game as a result; the proof is in the sales figures.

 

[Kenshiro70]

So, while it's not switch - the reason I am still playing Civ7 is that it runs really well on a Steam Deck. If not for that, then I very much doubt I'd have stuck with it as long as I have.

I don't hate the UI (could be better but it's come a long way), and I appreciate that it runs well on a console interface. It's just incredibly useful while on the move.

I hear you. Discovering that Civ VI was available on my iPad via Netflix kept me sane during a very long flight.

 

[Kenshiro70]

Never has this genre been more primed for a AA developer to swoop in and pull a Helldivers to steal the crown Civ7 tossed in the gutter

If only Stardock had taken over Civ instead of Ara...

 

[King Flevance]

I think civ switching would feel a little better (a little) if they had managed to make each age feel like an actual challenge to the very last turn.

I think the biggest issue is having it be synchronous. Having it be challenging or not doesn't necessarily change whether it will be fun. Maybe you have asynchronous optional switching but keep crisis mechanics and switching occurs organically as a way to overcome crisis mechanics (e.g. different civs will have crisis-bonuses for the eras in which they're naturally ascendant, representing them rising from the ashes of old sagging empires) but a player can avoid switching if they are really good at the game and for some reason want to keep their old civ (RP, as a personal challenge, or just because they still have marginal uses for the obsolete bonuses). Maybe you have asynchronous optional switching without crises but you just give civs REALLY OP era-sensitive (e.g. tied to specific units, techs, buildings, etc that will be superseded) bonuses so that it's aspirational and engaging to switch to keep the snowball rolling.

Having it be synchronous I think takes the player out of the experience by removing them from the narrative and decision-making of the game and forcing the developer-preferred choice. The player is reminded that they're not crafting something of their own but having to paint within the lines; this is always true to a degree for any video game, but I think synchronous interrupts in the middle of a play session are one of the most grating ways to remind a player to paint by numbers.

This is a neat idea. What if overcoming the crisis gave you civ some really nice bonuses if you succeed based on the crisis. Maybe the barbarian uprising crisis grants a UU and Unique Commander to anyone that defeats the barbarians. Perhaps the plague can give UB hospitals or even unique district with a unique hospital and unique inn or something. Perhaps overcoming the crises can even create a new unique civic tree. But whoever succeeds will have all the same new uniques but lose any military uniques of their original civ.

EDIT: To clarify, you would only gain these crisis uniques if you succeeded the crisis and chose to retain your civ. (Civ retention could only be possible if you succeed the crisis). Civ switching would forfeit these uniques.

I have a question for everyone on the subject of snowballing. I understand that not everyone likes it, but what I'm having trouble envisioning is this: if I'm playing on the lowest difficulty and there's no snowballing, what does gameplay feel like? What feedback would I get from the game that it's time to increase the difficulty level?

Can snowballing be removed from the game without the cure being worse than the disease?

I think that, in Civ, playing the easiest difficulty and not snowballing means very harsh limitations, to the point of it being a simple scenario rather than a campaign. I do not think it is possible to remove snowballing, only reduce it. On lower difficulties, you should absolutely dominate or snowball with good play choices. That said, I think you could greatly reduce the snowball in Civ and not have it make the game "worse" but figuring out where the cut-off should be is going to be based on personal tastes. Having certain "power thresholds" (Having over 10 settlements, Having over 1000 science per turn, etc.) come with a new challenge to manage can offer a soft tether to delay the momentum of playing wide, though not stop it. Additionally, offering boons to "low thresholds" will help promote growth and applying both of these would mechanically separate someone who is doing poor (give a small helping hand) from someone who is playing tall. (They would gain a soft tether for science per turn, happiness, etc. just as the wide player because of their power thresholds.) A well done maintenance system can easily make a mighty military be a strong draw on your economy independent of all of this. City maintenance is the real issue here. Getting to have the game have a built in maintenance factor for who has a mighty spread of cities vs. who just has some cities. But poor suboptimal city building would still not be worth it to gain those free bonuses. The game is just willing to overlook your ignorance or give you a small helping hand.

 

[Leucarum]

If only Stardock had taken over Civ instead of Ara...

I think Firaxis did a better job with Civ7 than Ara... Not that they did a great job, but Ara needed less to be successful though.

 

[Gorbles]

No, it’s not hindsight. That’s just more cope. PLENTY of us saw that this was going to suck and didn’t buy the game as a result; the proof is in the sales figures.

What sales figures? Vague estimated allusions that get read into whichever way people like or don't like the game?

If it was a definitive, inarguable statistic, I'd be the first to concede the point. But it isn't, is it?

Plenty people predicted failure with VI, like I said. People even tried to rationalise its success with arguments like "they went mobile: and "made it appeal to kids".

Extremely funny that those arguments are being repeated now, isn't it? It doesn't make you think? You've got to reach past your own like or dislike of the game (just like I do).

Nobody knows the success of a game before release. Those whose predictions end up lining up with reality tend to take it as evidence their opinions are objectively correct. Despite it not necessarily being that strong of a correlation.

 

[Core Imposter]

One possible method to counter snowballing is to build leaders into the game. Said leaders could offer mighty bonuses but would not remain for a long period of time. Basically, a civ would receive more and better leaders as a result of adversity but the snowballing civs get less and less. Be a bear to balance it out though.

 

[Kenshiro70]

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What sales figures? Vague estimated allusions that get read into whichever way people like or don't like the game?

If it was a definitive, inarguable statistic, I'd be the first to concede the point. But it isn't, is it?

For my cost-model analysis, I used the SteamDB numbers, which come from three vendors:

• PlayTracker
• Gamalytic
• VG Insights

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I'd agree with you on the difficulty around reliability of statistics, and I'm beginning to think that it's no longer possible to get a definitive statistic, particularly in the age of the game passes, base game giveaways from the Epic Store, and so on.

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That's why I pretty quickly moved past the initial sales and focused on the yearly sales needed to sustain Firaxis (i.e., make payroll). I looked more closely at the rate of change of the sales estimate - the VG Insights one, for example, was at 900-950K on launch and has sold 300K since then. Double that to reflect a year (600K) and compare to the needed run rate (850K), it's about a 30% deficit. The layoffs, which impacted 70 people out of 214, were a 33% reduction.

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While it's good that my numbers matched up reasonably well, what's more important is that hopefully the bar for minimum future sales has been reset to 600K, and the current staffing level matches the current sales level. That greatly reduces the possibility of future layoffs. To be clear though, that 600K reflects the full price; if you account for sale pricing it's probably close to 1m base games or two DLC collections.

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My concern is that 2K "piled on" the number of 2K personnel credited on the release in anticipation of high sales (almost 3X the number for Civ VI). For accounting purposes, those weigh on the internal 2K perception of profitability of the game, which matters because the directive on personnel actions (i.e., layoffs) comes from 2K. This is where cost-accounting shenanigans come into play - costs can easily be shifted from one game to another (which happens all the time in Hollywood). It's internal accounting only, so there's nothing illegal. So if Civ doesn't do as well, do they costs get shifted away? Probably not, so Firaxis may have an extra burden to clear. That's a political battle the Studio Head has to fight.

Final thoughts​

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Firaxis is not out of the woods yet; if they don't right the ship within the next six months, more layoffs are likely, probably in Q1. But if 2K doesn't like what it's seeing and gets impatient, it could happen as soon as December.

 

[Kenshiro70]

One possible method to counter snowballing is to build leaders into the game. Said leaders could offer mighty bonuses but would not remain for a long period of time. Basically, a civ would receive more and better leaders as a result of adversity but the snowballing civs get less and less. Be a bear to balance it out though.

By "leaders" I'm assuming you mean something like VI's Great People, right?

I like it. I think it would kill two birds with one stone; adding a little more complexity and helping those behind to catch up rather than slowing those ahead down.

 

[bladex1200]

I think civ switching would feel a little better (a little) if they had managed to make each age feel like an actual challenge to the very last turn.

This is a neat idea. What if overcoming the crisis gave you civ some really nice bonuses if you succeed based on the crisis. Maybe the barbarian uprising crisis grants a UU and Unique Commander to anyone that defeats the barbarians. Perhaps the plague can give UB hospitals or even unique district with a unique hospital and unique inn or something. Perhaps overcoming the crises can even create a new unique civic tree. But whoever succeeds will have all the same new uniques but lose any military uniques of their original civ.

EDIT: To clarify, you would only gain these crisis uniques if you succeeded the crisis and chose to retain your civ. (Civ retention could only be possible if you succeed the crisis). Civ switching would forfeit these uniques.

I'm hesitant to recommend "win harder" buttons on beating a crisis, because I feel that you shouldn't make one method of play the "correct" method. Crisis uniques could end up making "don't switch" a no-brainer decision (e.g. in the case of barbarian uprising... why would I switch if I get a UU and UC that essentially would be 'generically' very good as opposed to the situational bonuses of a new civ's UU/UC and the downside of losing my existing civ's bonuses is now negated?).

Also don't want to fall into the trap of artificially forcing the correct playstyle on the player. If the player wants to keep their existing civ, even if they suck at the crisis, they should be allowed to. The player will suffer since they're clearly playing from behind and aren't making the best use of their existing civ, but so what? If they want to play suboptimally and lose the game for themselves, that is their choice. If they have some clever way of making use of marginal bonuses of their existing civ, maybe they can still climb out of the hole.

The point of civ switching or civ retention isn't as a reward or penalty for how you deal with the crisis IMO, it should be a core strategic mechanic. In the same way that in Civ III, you don't have an independent narrative reward/punishment system to encourage switching governments. It's the benefits/penalties of the governments themselves (e.g. despotism tile penalty, republic/democracy commerce bonus, communism corruption reduction mechanics, etc) that make government switching a NECESSARY strategic and tactical choice.

Civ7's problem isn't that civ switching isn't built in enough as a core mechanic, that much is obvious. The problem IMO is that they chose to make it a core mechanic driven by artificial narrative necessity (the synchronous age-switching system) and not by natural progression of the ongoing map/city gameplay.

 

[GeneralZift]

Instead, there should be different degrees of snowballing, each with its own skill requirement and rewards, for all kinds of players.

Is this the ultimate Civpost?
Now, this plus each branch of snowballing (eg. economy, military, production, research) could impact other branches to make some push and pull.

 

[King Flevance]

I'm hesitant to recommend "win harder" buttons on beating a crisis, because I feel that you shouldn't make one method of play the "correct" method. Crisis uniques could end up making "don't switch" a no-brainer decision (e.g. in the case of barbarian uprising... why would I switch if I get a UU and UC that essentially would be 'generically' very good as opposed to the situational bonuses of a new civ's UU/UC and the downside of losing my existing civ's bonuses is now negated?).

Also don't want to fall into the trap of artificially forcing the correct playstyle on the player. If the player wants to keep their existing civ, even if they suck at the crisis, they should be allowed to. The player will suffer since they're clearly playing from behind and aren't making the best use of their existing civ, but so what? If they want to play suboptimally and lose the game for themselves, that is their choice. If they have some clever way of making use of marginal bonuses of their existing civ, maybe they can still climb out of the hole.

The point of civ switching or civ retention isn't as a reward or penalty for how you deal with the crisis IMO, it should be a core strategic mechanic. In the same way that in Civ III, you don't have an independent narrative reward/punishment system to encourage switching governments. It's the benefits/penalties of the governments themselves (e.g. despotism tile penalty, republic/democracy commerce bonus, communism corruption reduction mechanics, etc) that make government switching a NECESSARY strategic and tactical choice.

Civ7's problem isn't that civ switching isn't built in enough as a core mechanic, that much is obvious. The problem IMO is that they chose to make it a core mechanic driven by artificial narrative necessity (the synchronous age-switching system) and not by natural progression of the ongoing map/city gameplay.

I would not say that suggestion was "win harder". Bulgaria gets a UU and UC. I am simply suggesting a comparable unique to trade out for carrying over your civ. I figured balancing it would be implied and I didn't expect the assumption to be that this would be an overpowered choice. It would simply be replacing your obsolete uniques with new uniques for the next age and letting you keep the aspects of the civ that don't obsolete like UAs. It is simply a way to refresh your civ in a generic way for an era they were not originally intended to represent. While simultaneously offering a flavor reward (not power reward - balanced with all the other next age civs) for anyone who overcame the crisis. (Many players have discussed seeing civ retention as a reward for overcoming a crisis.) You may overcome the crisis and pick to swap civs anyway because that crisis's unique do not align with your strategy for the next age.

To let you keep your ancient (obsolete) civ even if you failed at the crisis (or at all), serves no purpose other than to pander to those crying foul about civ switching. They will hate it and say it sucks because civ retention is "lose harder" at that point. It could even be seen as mocking fans who dislike civ switching by the devs going "here, then keep your crappy civ" and not making it a viable option. After a month or two fans would cry out "this is stupid, its obsolete, so why even include it then?"

Like it or not, the point of civ switching or retention is whatever the developers decide the point of it in their game is, not us. Reward IS a viable design decision considering crises have actually unraveled empires in history. Your statement is not objective fact, it is opinion. It all depends on what the developers are trying to make it, then it is our call as to whther that is something that interests us. Civ 7 has a few problems but from my perspective the path forward is very wide open for possibilities to have a good game here. I know some would disagree with that statement.

All you have to do to avoid this idea if it were implemented is 'unlock all civ choices'. Then you don't have to play the crisis, you can just continue with your civ and pick between the 3 crisis unique updates to your civ. Additionally, they could just chuck in the ability to play as your outdated non-updated civ and pretty much no one would ever pick it because it is worse than suboptimal.

 

[stealth_nsk]

For my cost-model analysis, I used the SteamDB numbers, which come from three vendors:

• PlayTracker
• Gamalytic
• VG Insights

None of them have access to real sales data. Moreover, they most likely don't make manual analysis and instead do automatic (because they have too many games for manual analysis to be cost effective), based on the data they can get through API. Thus they don't take into account sales outside Steam and qualitative information sources. Anyone with market analysis skills could come with more precise data by analyzing the data manually.

 

[Kev1916]

I think Firaxis did a better job with Civ7 than Ara... Not that they did a great job, but Ara needed less to be successful though.

How so? Ara has made many intersting updates and improvements .

Current reviews are 82% positive up from 62% .

Conversely "civ" 7 has went the other way

 

[kotpeter]

Current reviews are 82% positive up from 62%

I'm sorry, but a percentage is nothing without a sample size, which is very small in case of Ara.

Steam reviews' graph is attached.

 

[Kev1916]

I'm sorry, but a percentage is nothing without a sample size, which is very small in case of Ara.

Steam reviews's graph is attached

No need to be sorry , reviews as posted are correct and by all accounts Ara has had major improvements as reflected by reviews.

Both current and “all time “ are significantly better than “Civ” VII.

As re “improvements “ “Civ” VII is getting worse .

So who is doing a better job ..

 

[Leucarum]

How so? Ara has made many intersting updates and improvements .

Current reviews are 82% positive up from 62% .

Conversely "civ" 7 has went the other way

Oh I just plainly and simply don't like Ara. I don't want to play a factory game in the guise of a 4X. I'm sure people do, so it's a personal thing, but I'd prefer Civ switching over that... And I really dislike civ switching.

 

[Crashdummy]

Well, the topic went to a place that i cant follow because i havent played or watched anything about Ara

 

[Kenshiro70]

Can I ask a favor? I just posted an abbreviated version of the post-mortem as a Steam Guide (link). If you all get the chance, I'd be grateful if you could give it a rating - good or bad; as right now it doesn't even have enough ratings for them to show up.

This version is still the primary one; the Steam one doesn't have the Deep Dive appendix and I left out the more sensitive areas such as the discussion of the layoffs, as Civfanatics is one of the few places I trust to have adult conversations about those types of things.

Thanks again for you support and feedback. I appreciate you.

 

[kotpeter]

Can I ask a favor? I just posted an abbreviated version of the post-mortem as a Steam Guide (link). If you all get the chance, I'd be grateful if you could give it a rating - good or bad; as right now it doesn't even have enough ratings for them to show up.

I'm going to be honest, I think the amount of work behind the post-mortem deserves recognition.

With that being said, the text points at Civ 7 issues, some of which have long been fixed by the devs, so at this point in time it's somewhat misleading. If a person new to the civ 7 sees your post-mortem among the most popular and well-rated guides and reads it, the person might get the wrong impression of the game's maturity. Other things that are suggested to fix the game are subjective, and the line of reasoning behind the problem and the solution is not always clear. I believe something as subjective shouldn't be called "guide".

From my experience steam guides are where people seek to learn something about the game, and I myself spent many hours going through brilliant guides of Zigzagzigal on Civ 6. I don't think the post-mortem fits there well, while on the other hand civfanatics is the place where all civs fans eventually arrive ready to talk passionately about the game. And IMO this is where post-mortem and the discussion around it should live. I also firmly believe that the discussion that all of us had here across many pages is worth roughly the same as the post-mortem itself, and I'd prefer to not see it split between forums or platforms.

For reasons stated above, I won't be giving the post-mortem the rating on steam.

On a side note, your steam review clearly illustrates your despise of Civ 7, yet you still played over 1000 hours of it and created this post. The passion you have for this game is insane to me