Civilization VII Dev Diary #7: Legends & Mementos

[Leucarum]

Hopefully this is optional in both single player and multiplayer. I'm not a fan at the outset, but I can see this becoming more useful once fatigue with available civs and leaders inevitably sets in, to spice things up...

If it's optional I imagine it'll be like tech shuffle, or heroes and legends in Civ6 - left off 90% of the time, turned on occasionally if I want something different.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Huh, this is pretty cool. Basically you get to customize an additional 2 leader abilities for each leader, doubling down on awesome synergies or making a leader more flexible.

Slap some Bifocals on Machiavelli, for instance:

Or help Augustus become more introspective:

Having immediate leader attribute points can be powerful as well - each leader has affinities for certain attribute trees, so shoring up their weakness in other trees might be really nice...OR just get a jumpstart towards your favorite tree regardless.

This is pretty neat. Plus, maybe gives some motivation to play a leader you are less drawn to if there's a memento that would work really well with one of your favorite leaders.

The player card...meh - that might as well not be there for me, but cool for those who like to play multiplayer.

 

[tedhebert]

This feels like steam achievements just more integrated into the game, where now the achievements you get actually affect the game.

Maybe this explain why the announced number of steam achievements is so low ?

 

[King Flevance]

I like that it tracks your games, but I agree that I would have preferred it all be cosmetic. I think the idea of the attribute point tree is great and offers something valuable to the game. Giving a player a free point at the start because you have already played some games feels cheap or patronizing.

In some places it feels like AI cheat bonuses - but for the player. Which then means this could easily play into the difficulty stuff people get into. But also could help provide buffers between each difficulty increase.

Even if I don't like it, I can ignore it. I can see it have some use as I step up in difficulty levels.

 

[Ryansinbela]

But does Shakokidogu allow me to deflect Physical?

 

[TheGrayFox]

I don't like it and it seems like a waste of effort having time and manpower put into what ultimately amounts to an optional progression system in a series that has historically never had such mechanics but then I remember that Firaxis is obviously trying to sell this game to a new and wider market and familiar progression systems seem to be all the rage these days.

Honestly I have less of a problem with cosmetics than I do the actual momento system though. Hopefully those are off as a default in multiplayer

 

[Brutus2]

Age of Wonders 4 has a system a lot like this where you earn points for completing a game, win or lose, based on things you accomplished in that game. Then you spend the points to unlock small cosmetic things or new traits (sounds similar to the mementos) to use in future games. It's a great idea and takes the Hall of Fame to a new level. I think it will absolutely encourage people to finish out a game to get that Legend XP.

 

[Nic@Melbourne]

So much dislike for something that is optional.

Looks good, minor buffs that reward playthrough. And a cap on how many you can use at once, emphasising the choice aspect of Civ.

 

[Graethyenne]

Personally it seems fine to me. We will see how much I engage with it, but even if it is near zero it doesn't bother me that exists. Specifically because a number of folks have already expressed how excited they are for the various pieces of it. I don't mind that the game includes bits that others might enjoy more than me particularly since they are purely optional. So while this doesn't blow my socks off (at least not yet) I have no beef that it will be there.

 

[TheGrayFox]

So much dislike for something that is optional.

Looks good, minor buffs that reward playthrough. And a cap on how many you can use at once, emphasising the choice aspect of Civ.

The thing about optional cosmetic and gameplay reward progression system like this is that devolopment time, assets, and resources have to be alloted to creating said system.

They could've given us much needed missing leaders for all the effort

 

[pokiehl]

The thing about optional cosmetic and gameplay reward progression system like this is that devolopment time, assets, and resources have to be alloted to creating said system.

They could've given us much needed missing leaders for all the effort

I think it’s fallacious to assume all this development money comes from one single bucket and it’s zero-sum.

The alternative to this effort likely wasn’t “more leaders” or anything like that: the alternative was probably just nothing.

The money for this from the budget could have been “Use it or lose it” and been something entirely extra that they wouldn’t be able to allocate to something else for whatever reason. Could be any number of possibilities other than a simplistic zero-sum setup.

 

[Ebon-Hawke-]

The thing about optional cosmetic and gameplay reward progression system like this is that devolopment time, assets, and resources have to be alloted to creating said system.

They could've given us much needed missing leaders for all the effort

I'm sure it's different people arguing different sides but I swear half the people here would prefer a feature empty game with more civs and leaders like the launches that were civ 5 and 6. And the other half is hoping all the new features doesn't make it seem like launch civ 5 and 6.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Though if we take them at their word, it may have been integral to the total game design (encouraging play to the end), and for anything integral, you would have budgeted it in.

 

[Gorbles]

Though if we take them at their word, it may have been integral to the total game design (encouraging play to the end), and for anything integral, you would have budgeted it in.

Simultaneously, mapping the resources it took to build and flesh out this system vs. creating more leaders is a fool's game. Maybe it was worth ten leaders! Maybe five! Or maybe one! Leaders don't exactly scream "low effort" to me, and they require a lot more art (and voice acting) than any of this progression system seems to.

 

[The Fanatical]

Hmm, both the Gauls and Lydia are teased. Interesting...

 

[Kwami]

Here are ChatGPT's suggestions:

• Ibrahim (Ibrahim Babangida – Former President of Nigeria)
• Imran (Imran Khan – Former Prime Minister of Pakistan)
• Indira (Indira Gandhi – Former Prime Minister of India)
• Isaias (Isaias Afwerki – President of Eritrea)
• Ivan (Ivan the Terrible – Tsar of Russia)
• Jacqueline (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis – Former First Lady of the U.S.)
• Jair (Jair Bolsonaro – Former President of Brazil)
• James (James Madison – 4th President of the United States)
• János (János Kádár – Former General Secretary of Hungary)
• Jared (Jared Kushner – Former Senior Advisor to the U.S. President)
• Jorge (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known as Pope Francis – Pope)
• José (José Mujica – Former President of Uruguay)
• John (John F. Kennedy – 35th President of the United States)
• Jonas (Jonas Salk – Developer of the polio vaccine, though not a leader in a political sense, a notable figure)
• Joseph (Joseph Stalin – Former Premier of the Soviet Union)
• Jovan (Jovanović – Various historical leaders from the region of the former Yugoslavia)
• Julian (Julian the Apostate – Roman Emperor)
• Kaiser (Kaiser Wilhelm II – Last German Emperor)
• Khamtai (Khamtai Siphandone – President of Laos)
• Kim (Kim Il-sung – Founder of North Korea)
• Kofi (Kofi Annan – Former Secretary-General of the United Nations)
• Konstantin (Konstantin Chernenko – Former General Secretary of the Soviet Union)
• Kwame (Kwame Nkrumah – Former President of Ghana)
• Lajos (Lajos Kossuth – Hungarian revolutionary leader)
• Lancelot (A prominent knight in Arthurian legend, though not a political leader in the traditional sense, but a key figure in history)
• Léon (Léon Gambetta – French statesman)

Clearly ChatGPT is still struggling with how alphabetizing works.

Edit, hah, it apologized when I called it out:
View attachment 715073

It apologized, then gave you another wrong answer.

Yeah, I'm not scared of "AI" taking over any time soon.

 

[pokiehl]

Hmm, both the Gauls and Lydia are teased. Interesting...

Oh man you just got my hopes up! It would be absolutely amazing to have some sort of kingdom in Asia Minor like Lydia represented. And Croesus could be such a cool economy-focused leader!

 

[The Fanatical]

Himiko

 

[local_hero]

I feel a bit hesitant about the Legends and Mementos system. I appreciate their rational for it, great that it's entirelt optional... But will it stress my completionist impulses...

I hope it's Kamehameha and his abilities helps an Empire with lots of marine tiles or something along those lines. Thinking about how Pachacuti and Catherine helps Empires built next to mountains and on tundras respectively, it wouldn't surprise me at all having such a leader.

All terrain types should be better balanced this time but coastal tiles have generally been weaker in past iterations, so it would encourage me to play these civs.

 

[Hawke9]

I really like this new system! It adds a ton of customizability and a huuuuge amount of OP leader memento combos, which in my opinion are really fun to discover. I also like my previous games all adding up to new abilities and cosmetics, it makes the game fresh. The challenges all look like really cool goals to go for in a playthrough! I hope there are some hard to earn challenges that require quite some effort and don't just come in a standard playthrough too.

I get the part about these abilities making the game easier when you play it a lot, but I'd probably crank up the difficult a notch or 2 after finding a good memento combo.

The cosmetics are a small nice bonus and definitely not for everyone, but I like customizing my own little banner and collecting little titles and backgrounds here and there. I'm not a multiplayer player but honestly these personalization options and the thought of players duking it out with the most OP memento combinations they can find might make me start playing multiplayer games.

I might be in the minority here but this system gets me really excited and I'm very curious to find out all the mementos and challenges!!