Civilization VII - Official Gameplay Showcase Discussion (8/20)

[KayAU]

Funny to see how the community has gone from give us more micromanagement to I'm glad they got rid of workers, so we don't have to micromanage so much anymore. I've always played Civ because it was heavy into micromanagement so for me, I'll miss workers or builders. Why even play Civ if you don't want to micromanage???

It depends. In the early game, I love to micromanage everything. With regards to Civ 6, that meant placing districts, deciding which tiles to work, swapping out policy cards, individually moving and adjusting every bit and piece on the map. At this stage, everything *matters*. However, as the game progresses, the amount of micromanagement grows dramatically, while the significance of each action decreases. Just about all 4X games suffers from this to some degree, but Civ 6 was especially egregious, for a number of reasons: the game incentivizes getting as many cities as possible, there are a large number of gameplay systems to manage, poor automation options, additional chores like remembering to swap out research and policy cards, governors which have to be manually moved around - with a cooldown which also must be kept track of. To make it even worse, there is a long time between knowing that you have won and actually reaching a victory condition, so you're left doing chores for hours and hours. This is the kind of tedium which kills a game for me. Personally, I want to control all the details in the early game, but as my empire and possibilities grow, I want to be able to zoom out and focus on the bigger picture.

Placing roads, Civ 5 style, is an example of micromanagement which I don't mind. The roads matter strategically, and they give some yields, but while those yields don't come until you have connected a city to the capital, the costs come as soon as you finish the first tile. There is a tradeoff to the expense and utilitiy, and when and where to put roads is a real decision to be made. What's even better, as the game progresses, and the impact of placing roads decreases, you will also need to do it far less. It is naturally phased out as the game progresses.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Quite predictably, they're having a lot of fun at the Humankind subreddit

 

[Fluphen Azine]

It depends. In the early game, I love to micromanage everything. With regards to Civ 6, that meant placing districts, deciding which tiles to work, swapping out policy cards, individually moving and adjusting every bit and piece on the map. At this stage, everything *matters*. However, as the game progresses, the amount of micromanagement grows dramatically, while the significance of each action decreases. Just about all 4X games suffers from this to some degree, but Civ 6 was especially egregious, for a number of reasons: the game incentivizes getting as many cities as possible, there are a large number of gameplay systems to manage, poor automation options, additional chores like remembering to swap out research and policy cards, governors which have to be manually moved around - with a cooldown which also must be kept track of. To make it even worse, there is a long time between knowing that you have won and actually reaching a victory condition, so you're left doing chores for hours and hours. This is the kind of tedium which kills a game for me. Personally, I want to control all the details in the early game, but as my empire and possibilities grow, I want to be able to zoom out and focus on the bigger picture.

Placing roads, Civ 5 style, is an example of micromanagement which I don't mind. The roads matter strategically, and they give some yields, but while those yields don't come until you have connected a city to the capital, the costs come as soon as you finish the first tile. There is a tradeoff to the expense and utilitiy, and when and where to put roads is a real decision to be made. What's even better, as the game progresses, and the impact of placing roads decreases, you will also need to do it far less. It is naturally phased out as the game progresses.

I dunno. When I play CPL Multiplayer games it seems micromanaging is important throughout. Civ 7 basically just killed Multiplayer. Hope they readjust it.