Civilization VII - Content Spreadsheet Thread - Civ overview!

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I mean, that depends on whether we count the "spoils" as financial and tourist benefits or the immortal fame of the culture that originally created those artworks and breathed its spirit in them

So we need to separate cultural and touristic victories you say?

I would like one unified victory with many ways of achieving it. Count both the creation of the Parthenon Marble, the exhibition of them in the British Museum**, but also include the spread of non material culture, like Oktoberfest or Cinco De Mayo.

** - In the game of civilization, and you should be able to get them back, by force if necessary.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I would like one unified victory with many ways of achieving it. Count both the creation of the Parthenon Marble, the exhibition of them in the British Museum**, but also include the spread of non material culture, like Oktoberfest or Cinco De Mayo.

This is cool and could make the culture game fun to manage. Antiquity era cultural items could have a steadily increasing value over time (call it fame or renown or whatever) for the culture that produced them. Owning them gets you tourism (when they are items; literature you always get the credit). And then other aspects of your culture can spread around the world. I think you could put Hollywood or even McDonalds into the category with Oktoberfest. These come later in the game and they give you points by breadth of dispersion rather than longevity. You can win cultural victory either by producing famous things early, by holding on to them, or by diffusing your culture late, or some combination.

There's a little trace of this in Civ 5's theming bonuses, maybe (again I don't know Civ 6), because some of the cultural storage buildings want you to have, e.g. two works from one particular era, so if you managed to get two produced in one of the early eras, that's a theming bonus that other people can't easily replicate. But that ancient-path-to-culture / modern-path-to-culture could be greatly expanded.

and you should be able to get them back, by force if necessary.

or the culture that took them can repatriate them, for a tourism loss but a diplo gain.

 

[Jeppetto]

If we talk in context of Civ 7 specifically, is there indication we will get proper grand victories at all? The legacy path system came across to me as mini victories for each Age (if you dont feel like playing whole game but only AA for example), I could imagine that same system for MA. So those Victory Conditions might be akin to what we have already seen. Such as Display X amount of Products / Inventions for Economic / Scientific Victory / Path. We already have Display Codices and Display Relics.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, I worry about that. One part of the appeal of a Civ game for me is victory conditions that require a whole game's focused attention to achieve. If the Modern Era just has its own set for that era, and then there's some kind of tallying up of how well you did on that same legacy path in earlier eras, it will feel a little disappointing.

I don't like to have to know my VC from turn 1. I like a phase where I can just develop my civ on its own terms for a while and then pick what might be the best victory type for it. In fact, in my perfectly designed civ game, you could play about a third of the way through, just making a generally good civ, before you even have to think about what you want to go for as a victory condition. But once I have settled on that, I like the long haul of pulling all the appropriate elements together in a coordinated fashion.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Yeah, I worry about that. One part of the appeal of a Civ game for me is victory conditions that require a whole game's focused attention to achieve. If the Modern Era just has its own set for that era, and then there's some kind of tallying up of how well you did on that same legacy path in earlier eras, it will feel a little disappointing.

I don't like to have to know my VC from turn 1. I like a phase where I can just develop my civ on its own terms for a while and then pick what might be the best victory type for it. In fact, in my perfectly designed civ game, you could play about a third of the way through, just making a generally good civ, before you even have to think about what you want to go for as a victory condition. But once I have settled on that, I like the long haul of pulling all the appropriate elements together in a coordinated fashion.

Hopefully they'll get around this by making victory agnostic of method of getting points. You accumulate them through excelling in one or more areas, then the winner is the player with the most across the 3 ages.

Weird side note - I had to catch myself in typing that as rather than player I initially typed "civ", but civilizations don't win civilization any more, they are just vessels/tools that leaders use along the way so that they can win. First time that's really dawned on me, and I don't really like it

 

[Evie]

You just invented the score victory, which has been in the game since (checks notes)…the OG Civ, 33 years ago.

(But I agree score is an unfairly maligned and ignored victory condition since around Civ IV-V or so)

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

You just invented the score victory, which has been in the game since (checks notes)…the OG Civ, 33 years ago.

(But I agree score is an unfairly maligned and ignored victory condition since around Civ IV-V or so)

I suppose so yeah! But I'm suggesting it as the only victory condition, not as the tie break it currently serves at.

 

[Siptah]

Ok you both have a point

I still maintain my last point though - that I'd prefer scientific victory having pacing of cultural one, where you have to really purposefully work for it for the entire game, with later eras getting exponentially more important, but needing more active effort before the modern age space race than simply "let's get as much science as possible" (which is obviously something every civ should always do anyway)

In a way, you would then arrive at VCs as in Humankind (just separated and not all accumulated in the one and only fame). As far as I remember, this wasn’t very popular.

 

[Jeppetto]

Then again Humankind also introduced the star-system of different bucket lists to represent overall scoring of uour civ in an era which legacy path are similar to (though more refined and flavourful)

 

[Siptah]

Then again Humankind also introduced the star-system of different bucket lists to represent overall scoring of uour civ in an era which legacy path are similar to (though more refined and flavourful)

Yes, I think the thematic goals are much better than just research x techs or earn x gold as HK had it. Still, HK has probably the best score victory of all civ-like games and it doesn‘t allow to focus on just one aspect of the game if you want to win.

 

[Evie]

I suppose so yeah! But I'm suggesting it as the only victory condition, not as the tie break it currently serves at.

I mean conquest - true conquest, not that wishy washy nonsense about other peoples capitals - would still be instant win because, you know, if everyone else dead you win by score by default.

But yeah I agree. The game should only end because it reached the end point - or because continuing to play make no sense, because there’s one player left or something similar

 

[Siptah]

Real World conquest is the most tiring and tedious VC though. You win and the you need two more hours until the game recognizes your victory. It’s very bad design imho.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Real World conquest is the most tiring and tedious VC though. You win and the you need two more hours until the game recognizes your victory. It’s very bad design imho.

I don't think Evie or I are advocating for it or suggesting that will be the way you win militarily, just that you default to victory if there are not units and cities left that aren't yours, so that is always by its nature a victory condition. A semantic caveat to the idea that a score victory may be the "only" victory condition.

 

[Evie]

It's gamey nonsense because people couldn't stand the idea that the game was supposed to be played to the end and score computation, and starting with culture and expanding outward from there, kept demanding more shiny big fast victory buttons they could press wihtout actualy finishing their games.

Yes, there could be a mercy rule where, when you havef achieved a certain degree of world control (similar the old domination victory), but capturing an arbitrary list of cities is not and never was it. That's just kowtowing to people who are far too impatient for their own good.

 

[Siptah]

I mean not finishing a game that‘s already decided is kind of a natural decision. I know that in most sports people don‘t resign, but in (computer) games it‘s the norm, I think. At least in strategy games from chess to age of empires. Hence, I wouldn‘t accuse people that don‘t want to finish games of doing something wrong - against an (incapable) AI of all things.

 

[Evie]

Yes, that's why I'm onboard with a mercy rule once a certain percentage of population and territory is controlled, ie the old Domination Win.

"Own all the original capitals" is not "A game that's already decided". It's an arbitrary goal for those who want random win-now buttons. It is utterly indefensible.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

"Own all the original capitals" is not "A game that's already decided". It's an arbitrary goal for those who want random win-now buttons. It is utterly indefensible.

It was made 'defensible' in Civ VI by not allowing any Civ to voluntarily change its capital, even though some IRL Civs (China for one) changed capitals with almost every Dynasty.

Since Civ VII specifically allows you to change capitals upon change of Age from Antiquity to Exploration (and, presumably, from Exploration to Modern, but I don't believe we've seen that specifically yet) they will have to do some fancy defining of 'capital' to re-use it as a 'Victory determinant'. Hopefully, they won't go stumbling down that yellow brick road carrying us, kicking and screaming in protest, along with them.

 

[Evie]

Those quotation marks around "defensible" sure are doing some heavy lifting here XD

(But I do agree that it will be even harder to justify what was already pretty unjustifiable with this change).

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

"Own all the original capitals" is not "A game that's already decided". It's an arbitrary goal for those who want random win-now buttons. It is utterly indefensible.

I mean, to play devil's advocate, taking all original capitals means that you've beaten every other civ in a war with enough dominance that you overcame their defense of what is likely their most developed and valuable city. Given that domination is also just generally a snowball, once you've taken every other capital, world domination is probably inevitable, at least in single player.

 

[Evie]

Far too many "likely" and "probable" in there to make victory inevitable, in my opinions.