Civ7 peoples-- before the starting gun -- NoGo

[Lord Lakely]

I think the way I would have done it is have a few broad people groups in Antiquity, with an increasing number of civs in each age. I wouldn't have had roughly equal numbers in at least the first two ages.

I would not be opposed to that on paper. Though I don't really care about Modern Civs in at all.

If it were up to me, the Exploration pool would be the largest. Which might happen eventually, as leaders can be eliminated in the first two ages.

 

[AD1730]

Every age is going to have a group of players who are particularly invested in that era. As someone whose particular interest is Antiquity, I would have found that very dissatisfying.

Given the limit on the number of players in the early era, it makes sense to have fewer Civs in it, particularly at release.

 

[Lord Lakely]

For me, switching as currently implemented destroys identification with the Civ. One more change wouldn't really change that from my perspective, but could help with some very poor civ switching matches.

I'll say that although the switching itself doesn't bother me, I haaaate the History Is Built In Layers mantra that the devs keep repeating over and over and over again. Especially when praising an America that is mostly made up from Greek and Norman city names which have NOT been updated between transitions. At what point does Everwyk stop being Everwyk and starts being York?

I will probably wait until the Rosetta mod comes out before I buy for that reason alone.

 

[AD1730]

I'll say that although the switching itself doesn't bother me, I haaaate the History Is Built In Layers mantra that the devs keep repeating over and over and over again. Especially when praising an America that is mostly made up from Greek and Norman city names which have NOT been updated between transitions. At what point does Everwyk stop being Everwyk and starts being York?

I will probably wait until the Rosetta mod comes out before I buy for that reason alone.

I agree. I think many of the most egregious civ switching issues are created by having only three ages. Let's say if you went Romans > Normans > England > America it would be far less jarring. While not perfect, having the intermediate step helps.

 

[Evolena]

Given the limit on the number of players in the early era, it makes sense to have fewer Civs in it, particularly at release.

There are not less player in Antiquity, unless you play a game of Antiquity only. The civs on the Distant Land still have to be there in this age if you are to discover them in Exploration age.

 

[Krikkit1]

I'll say that although the switching itself doesn't bother me, I haaaate the History Is Built In Layers mantra that the devs keep repeating over and over and over again. Especially when praising an America that is mostly made up from Greek and Norman city names which have NOT been updated between transitions. At what point does Everwyk stop being Everwyk and starts being York?

I will probably wait until the Rosetta mod comes out before I buy for that reason alone.

They do need to really address the Names of both cities and civs. That could help a lot with the changes if players had more control over how much both sets of names changed.

 

[Zaarin]

Given the limit on the number of players in the early era, it makes sense to have fewer Civs in it, particularly at release.

I can't say I agree, especially since, as Evolena said, the civs in Distant Land still exist. If anything, launching with additional Antiquity civs would have made sense from the perspective that choosing your Antiquity civ most closely aligns to your civ choice in other Civ games.

They do need to really address the Names of both cities and civs. That could help a lot with the changes if players had more control over how much both sets of names changed.

I fully expect a mod like Rosetta Stone to be even more invaluable for Civ7 than it was for Civ6.

 

[AD1730]

I can't say I agree, especially since, as Evolena said, the civs in Distant Land still exist. If anything, launching with additional Antiquity civs would have made sense from the perspective that choosing your Antiquity civ most closely aligns to your civ choice in other Civ games.


I fully expect a mod like Rosetta Stone to be even more invaluable for Civ7 than it was for Civ6.

I’ll just say I disagree completely and leave it at that.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I mean...what makes Cleopatra distinctive as a leader is her flirtatiousness/use of sexuality to achieve and maintain power. If "Cleopatra lite" just means "is female and wears Egyptian clothing," I'm not sure how useful a term it is.

idk how to describe it but hatsheptsut’s design doesn’t actually feel very reminiscent of her as it does cleopatra, to me, though i could very much be off base here, or perhaps bcs of the clothing similarities.

hatshepsut doesnt have anything that we attach to her distinctly, for example the beard, the hook that she’s often depicted with, etc.

again, maybe a stupid complaint and cleopatra-lite might not be the right term as much as “generic leader” is, but i just don’t see her as being “hatshepsut” to me.

There are things that I question about the current game design, but it is not the developers fault that resources and slots for starting civs are finite. I feel like complaining about your favorite civ not being available at launch is pretty weak tea. If that's your biggest concern, but the mechanics and gameplay look good, you should probably look to pick up the game and try out a civ you are less excited for now.

to be clear, i actually am very glad my favorite civ *is* in the game.

however, i do take issue with the notion that the civ and leader selections are perfect in isolation and the notable exclusions are solely victims of cast size limitations.

there’s some very clear imbalances geographically in both the starting civs and leaders and while few civs have reasonable progressions (india’s 3 civs might be the only ones), non-european civs have clearly had worse default progressions (roman-norman-french or roman-spanish-french is clearly orders of magnitude better than egypt-songhai-buganda or maya-inca-mexico)

it’s prob unreasonable to be asking for a lot of the european civs ppl are questioning the exclusion of—england and russia are probably the most reasonable ones: netherlands, portugal, germany, poland, italy all feel very reasonable to be dlc inclusions, and many take up similar era/gameplay niches, which will change the calculus around their inclusions long term.

For example, how many exploration era expansion-and-trade civs can they really include? chola and spain already fill that niche at launch, so it’s more difficult to prevent portugal and netherlands from being repetitive, especially when portugal and the netherlands fill the same geographic niche as well.

meanwhile, any of babylon/assyria/hittites/sumer would fulfill a very empty geographic hole in the ancient era. so would the aztecs, abyssinia, swahili, shona, zimbabwe. the modern era, likely to be the heaviest on european entrants, could really use alternatives to an indigenous to post-colonial pipeline, which seems likely with the cases of the inca or shawnee. even if post-colonial entrants were necessary, peru, chile or bolivia would be far more fitting for the evolution of the inca over mexico, a whole continent away.

 

[Evie]

Distant land civs or not, players playing an ancient-only game (which the game is supposed to support) shouldn't have (significantly) fewer options than other players playing other single-era games. That would simply be bad design, and I'm flabbergasted at the number of people who keep blithely thinking that offering less support to the era they care less about in order to have moar civs in the era they like is perfectly fine.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Distant land civs or not, players playing an ancient-only game (which the game is supposed to support) shouldn't have (significantly) fewer options than other players playing other single-era games. That would simply be bad design, and I'm flabbergasted at the number of people who keep blithely thinking that offering less support to the era they care less about in order to have moar civs in the era they like is perfectly fine.

especially since ancient civs tend to epitomize the traditional appeal of civ: being able to imagine scenarios where babylon was a world power for centuries longer than it actually was.

the entire point of civ 7 is to create 3 equally important games that form a saga—distant lands doesn’t mean those civs aren’t being played either. it means they’re just not visible since the era had transportation limitations.

 

[AD1730]

Distant land civs or not, players playing an ancient-only game (which the game is supposed to support) shouldn't have (significantly) fewer options than other players playing other single-era games. That would simply be bad design, and I'm flabbergasted at the number of people who keep blithely thinking that offering less support to the era they care less about in order to have moar civs in the era they like is perfectly fine.

I’m going to assume your comment is addressing me. It has nothing to do with caring less (don’t assume people’s motives). Instead, I believe it makes sense to have a smaller roster of ancient civs that branch in multiple directions (i.e. Romans to Franks or Byzantines, etc.).

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I’m going to assume your comment is addressing me. It has nothing to do with caring less (don’t assume people’s motives). Instead, I believe it makes sense to have a smaller roster of ancient civs that branch in multiple directions (i.e. Romans to Franks or Byzantines, etc.).

this assumes that historically we always had less people’s who turned into more.

that’s only true if you want to consider timeframes beyond that where civ would start. the roman’s may have branched off into many civs that we understand to have existed in the medieval era, but that doesn’t mean there were less peoples who existed in the ancient era. it’s just that a lot of them were subsumed into other peoples or eliminated via conquest.

 

[Zaarin]

idk how to describe it but hatsheptsut’s design doesn’t actually feel very reminiscent of her as it does cleopatra, to me, though i could very much be off base here, or perhaps bcs of the clothing similarities.

hatshepsut doesnt have anything that we attach to her distinctly, for example the beard, the hook that she’s often depicted with, etc.

again, maybe a stupid complaint and cleopatra-lite might not be the right term as much as “generic leader” is, but i just don’t see her as being “hatshepsut” to me.

That's fair. I certainly agree their depiction of Hatshepsut is very boring and bland (and anachronistic--she's wearing an Old Kingdom style sheath dress; New Kingdom clothing was much more flowy and loose).

that’s only true if you want to consider timeframes beyond that where civ would start.

Even then, that's an artifact of our lack of knowledge about prehistory.

 

[Evie]

What other benefit would there be to short-civing the early game? It achieves nothing else for the game (and harm the game for people playing single-era game, who now have less options), while making it harder to follow the stated dev goal of keeping new civ options limited to avoid overwhelming players with too many choices

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Even then, that's an artifact of our lack of knowledge about prehistory.

absolutely

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Even then, that's an artifact of our lack of knowledge about prehistory.

Although, frankly, the major places where we have no knowledge, or insufficient knowledge, in language reconstruction and specific Leaders/Great People and their names and personalities, are precisely those places where the Civ VII formula makes them less important.

What is needed in Civ VII to 'reconstruct' a Civ is Architecture and unique features of culture, art, trade goods or military prowess - which are precisely those things that show up very well in the archeological record. Can't read or speak the Minoan language? No problem: we have architecture, town planning, ship-types, trade goods, and even elements of their culture (bull 'dancing', religious altars, high status of women, etc ). Can't read Etruscan or are even sure what language family Modo Chanyu spoke? Again, no problem in Civ VII - I suspect the Chanyu's Xiong-Nu Antiquity Civ7 will do just fine under Chingis or Subotai or Timer-i-Lenk.

So, while being stuck with fewer Civ choices in an Antiquity setting made sense in all previous Civs, when they required precise data about Leaders, Languages, dress and deportment, Civ VII has dodged all that and gives us a huge assortment of previously-unavailable Civs to try. That includes Civs in Exploration or Modern Ages, but many of those already had enough data to reconstruct for the game: the great new collection of potential Civs to try is in Antiquity

And if for the first time the game allows us to try many ancient and classical Civs in-game, the game designers would be foolish not to provide them.

 

[Zaarin]

Although, frankly, the major places where we have no knowledge, or insufficient knowledge, in language reconstruction and specific Leaders/Great People and their names and personalities, are precisely those places where the Civ VII formula makes them less important.

Indeed. I was speaking specifically of archaeological cultures, where often what we know is limited to pottery types, arrowhead shapes, and possible the shape of their houses. I'm not necessarily itching for an Urnfield Culture civ at this time. But for proto-historical civs like Minoa, Etruscans, Xiongnu, and so forth, I'm quite on board. I'm already delighted with how civ switching and detached leaders have enabled us to include the Mississippians (though, granted, they did have both leader and language options--e.g., Tuskaloosa speaking Choctaw would have been fine--but are definitely easier without).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Indeed. I was speaking specifically of archaeological cultures, where often what we know is limited to pottery types, arrowhead shapes, and possible the shape of their houses. I'm not necessarily itching for an Urnfield Culture civ at this time. But for proto-historical civs like Minoa, Etruscans, Xiongnu, and so forth, I'm quite on board. I'm already delighted with how civ switching and detached leaders have enabled us to include the Mississippians (though, granted, they did have both leader and language options--e.g., Tuskaloosa speaking Choctaw would have been fine--but are definitely easier without).

Purely archeological non-literate Civs are still marginal at best, because in most cases we don't even know what they called themselves and wind up with artificial modern titles for them. That doesn't preclude them by any means, as Civ has played fast and loose with Civ titles forever, almost always choosing Recognition over Accuracy . . .

No matter how you slice it, though, it still leaves a great number of potential Civs that can be reconstructed. And even purely archeological groups, as long as we know 'the shape of their houses' and physical artifacts like pottery decorations (which can yield emblems to identify them by in-game) weapons, tools, burial/religious practices - as stated, the physical record from archeology can yield most of hat is needed to show the Civ 'on the map' and even in Units and iconography.

Urnfeld might be stretching it a bit, but a starting Bronze/Iron Age Scandinavian Civ, since we know their houses, ships/boats, weapons, tools, dress and even some hair-styles (the north European bogs yield amazingly detailed bodies and sacrificed goods) is quite possible as a Starting Point for later Norse, Normans, or Goths.

And in central Asia, in addition to the historical Scythian/Saka Civ, we could easily have the earlier Cimmerians or even the Sintashta or Yamnaya, as well as the Pre-Mongol Xiong-Nu.

Yum.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Purely archeological non-literate Civs are still marginal at best, because in most cases we don't even know what they called themselves and wind up with artificial modern titles for them. That doesn't preclude them by any means, as Civ has played fast and loose with Civ titles forever, almost always choosing Recognition over Accuracy . . .

No matter how you slice it, though, it still leaves a great number of potential Civs that can be reconstructed. And even purely archeological groups, as long as we know 'the shape of their houses' and physical artifacts like pottery decorations (which can yield emblems to identify them by in-game) weapons, tools, burial/religious practices - as stated, the physical record from archeology can yield most of hat is needed to show the Civ 'on the map' and even in Units and iconography.

Urnfeld might be stretching it a bit, but a starting Bronze/Iron Age Scandinavian Civ, since we know their houses, ships/boats, weapons, tools, dress and even some hair-styles (the north European bogs yield amazingly detailed bodies and sacrificed goods) is quite possible as a Starting Point for later Norse, Normans, or Goths.

And in central Asia, in addition to the historical Scythian/Saka Civ, we could easily have the earlier Cimmerians or even the Sintashta or Yamnaya, as well as the Pre-Mongol Xiong-Nu.

Yum.

you also get potential for ppl like aboriginal australian cultures, which don’t allow their dead to be depicted and the pueblo, who hold the speech of their language to be of religious importance and therefore a closed practice.

not to mention the flexibility in settlement type makes nomadic peoples or people with semi-mobile settlements or extremely small settlements make WAYY more sense. an exploration era inuit would be significantly more viable in civ 7