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

[Gorbles]

But why god why with this Civ changing feature. I understand it for "balance reasons" but I hate it. The biggest problem is how immersion breaking it is. I don't understand how they tried to spin it as more immersive

As someone who's played Civ for a long time, I appreciate that immersion is a personal yardstick . . . but I've never understood how Immortal Dictator Shaka leading the neverending Zulu Empire was immersive.

No system is going to be perfect. Adapting history to gameplay will always require adaptation by definition. But at the moment I'm understanding the "pidgeonholing colonised identities into colonial empires" line more than "empires breaking up and reforming is immersion breaking".

The easy explanation is, of course, that it's subjective.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Yeah the gameplay showcase makes it look... better and playable.

And there is no like... ice cream cone style flavour swapping between Era's which seems good to me.

 

[Razpor]

All they needed to give us was a Civ 6 with graphics shown in the gameplay and it would have sold like anything,instead they went ahead and ruined Civilization with this stupid mechanic no one needed or asked for.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Even if it ends up being a disaster, and I kind of feel like it will for the type of game I like to play, I hope that Firaxis sticks with it for continued support. I've seen a lot of promising games suffer terrible launches recently, and several were dropped by their studios as a result

The best thing they can do, if it's not already in the works, is starting development on a "classic mode" ASAP, and give that continued support alongside the support for the game at-large, even designing abilities with it in mind.

I honestly don't feel especially interested in this game unless they do that and make that mode the primary supported mode

 

[criZp]

The world looks very good. Shame they preemptively killed the game with the humankind mechanic. F

 

[Razpor]

The best thing they can do, if it's not already in the works, is starting development on a "classic mode" ASAP, and give that continued support alongside the support for the game at-large, even designing abilities with it in mind.

I honestly don't feel especially interested in this game unless they do that and make that mode the primary supported mode

Yeah make classic mode ,add it as a free dlc .

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I wonder how long a single era will last in terms of turns or time played. Something that has always gotten me (and a lot of players from what I can tell) is that I'm kind of done with a game before the end, and end up starting over. If the ages are really as different from each other as they're saying that could really mix things up. You could play an age as a self contained game.

I do have misgivings about that name changes between ages, but really like the idea of evolving abilities as you go based on what you're doing.

 

[Lord Lakely]

What I really don't like is that civilizations that peaked in the Medieval age will be sidelined.
For example, you can't put Byzantine neither in Antiquity nor in Exploration age, as civilization. The Medieval age is in Europe is literally defined by their begging and ending.

Exploration Age covers Renaissance and the Medieval Era, up to the steam engine, so I think they're fine there. Technically, ANY empire of note between the split of the two Romes and the French Revolution should be viable as an Era 2 Civ.

Civ i'd expect in that age would include Ottomans, Bulgarians, Franks, Japanese, Aztecs, Incans + Songhai, Mongols and Shawnee which we already know about. It looks like a good blend.

 

[CGPanama]

I must say that I approach this as a new game. I do not expect Civ VI, or V or even IV (and yes, I have been playing since the OG). I do not even want a retread, and I applaud the efforts and innovations that 2K has worked on and look forward to the game. This is something new, and I hope that it still has the spirit of the Civ franchise, because every 4X or grand strategy game that I have played has always left me without that One More Turn tic. And as long as VII has that, I am happy.

My 2 cents....

• I was initially shying away from the changing civilizations model. Like others I agree that Humankind did not get this right. But 2K presented this really well, their reasoning and implementation, and turned my uncertainty to tentative optimism.
• I found the leaders to be a step back to even before V. Less realistic than V and less engaging than VI. Hoping they lock this down by release and change my opinion.
• Otherwise, there was so much about this that I found intriguing and left me wanting to get my hands on the game as soon as possible.

 

[muhtesem insan]

I wonder how flexible it will be. Like could you go Egypt -> Mongolia -> USA or something?

From what I understand, NO. But it could be something like, Rome -> Byzantium -> Greece.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Exploration Age covers Renaissance and the Medieval Era, up to the steam engine, so I think they're fine there. Technically, ANY empire of note between the split of the two Romes and the French Revolution should be viable as an Era 2 Civ.

Civ i'd expect in that age would include Ottomans, Bulgarians, Franks, Japanese, Aztecs, Incans + Songhai, Mongols and Shawnee which we already know about. It looks like a good blend.

ottomans and byzantines in the same era rather than one succeeding the other?

(I'm not endorsing this as a more "accurate" thing, but the ottomans are widely considered to come *after* the byzantines since their coexistence was far before the peak of the ottomans and far after the peak of the byzantines)

 

[ManoftheHour333]

Yeah we're basically playing 3 different games now and the connective tissue (A leader and their bonuses) is all that's going to tie it together. The changing map also is pissing me off the more I think about it...a few resources coming and going and some tiles being eaten by the sea...but the WHOLE MAP resetting with the minor nations changing seems extremely frustrating and non-connective. So date fruits are just going to disappear? Wouldn't they become something else later on? Something like "Date farm->Date plantation->Date sugar factory" could have represented this without completely rewriting the game map.

To make the civ changing work even in the slightest they really need to make "concrete" civ progression choices (Good luck with that though historically lol). Especially for things like the AI cause holy fudge there's no way they'd be able to make those choices. Like, if each civ has to go in a certain direction then it would be more "ah, the persians have become the civ I assumed they would". Otherwise, it'll be chaos and again, each age will be 100% its own game which is extremely limited. Why move on to the next if just your cities and ol Benny Franklin is all you got? So many ways to handle this but like they seemed to take inspiration from Humankind and the Rise+Fall...things that are-to put it mildly-divisive- in their respective communities.

Wafo but extremely disappointing that they're going to have this system with the awesome map, city building, military, and art directions they've seemingly gone with. I wanted to say this for like an hour but NAVIGABLE RIVERS. YESSSS.

 

[Cerilis]

As someone who's played Civ for a long time, I appreciate that immersion is a personal yardstick . . . but I've never understood how Immortal Dictator Shaka leading the neverending Zulu Empire was immersive.

No system is going to be perfect. Adapting history to gameplay will always require adaptation by definition. But at the moment I'm understanding the "pidgeonholing colonised identities into colonial empires" line more than "empires breaking up and reforming is immersion breaking".

The easy explanation is, of course, that it's subjective.

The way I'm getting is, that Civ used to be about playing the civilization (*hinthint* ) rather than the leader (who was more or less an accessory), but for 7 its going to be the other way around?

 

[player1 fanatic]

Exploration Age covers Renaissance and the Medieval Era, up to the steam engine, so I think they're fine there. Technically, ANY empire of note between the split of the two Romes and the French Revolution should be viable as an Era 2 Civ.

Civ i'd expect in that age would include Ottomans, Bulgarians, Franks, Japanese, Aztecs, Incans + Songhai, Mongols and Shawnee which we already know about. It looks like a good blend.

I guess, if you stretch what exploration age is and include Viking and Arab expansion as part of exploration age, that could work.
But it was never confirmed by developers.

 

[muhtesem insan]

ottomans and byzantines in the same era rather than one succeeding the other?

(I'm not endorsing this as a more "accurate" thing, but the ottomans are widely considered to come *after* the byzantines since their coexistence was far before the peak of the ottomans and far after the peak of the byzantines)

I would guess they would be same era, ottomans would probably replace something like huns (A turkic tribe)

 

[eso12por8]

My first impression is the game looks beautiful. I love the availability of dates as a new resource, navigable rivers, the city walls expanding beyond the city center... Hoping the mechanics of progression through the ages works out better in practice than it appears at first glance.

 

[ColtSeavers]

From what I understand, NO. But it could be something like, Rome -> Byzantium -> Greece.

Why would you think that? The Civ switch sounded pretty random to me.

 

[Solovey]

Should I play Humankind so I can understand what we're all mad about?

Play it - its great and fun but it has a number of issues. I spent a year in Humankind and I believe it worth it.
Talking about civ switching - there are two type of people here I believe.
First are who feel that it breaks the immersion - your are Egypt in ancient era, new you are Han in Classical, Aztec in Medieval, etc... You see it - "I don't believe how it may happen, I don't believe it, it breaks my immersion, etc."
Second are who are focused on how you play with this new civ switching system. I believe when the player selects a civ for the whole game before the game starts - he just customizes his gameplay. And in his next game he will / may customize it differently and have fun and this is a great part of Civ replayability. In Humankind you select a civ at the start of each era and this is min-maxing already - it's just another tool to win the game when you already know a lot about the current session so you adapt to it. It's a great feature by itself, but you see - you don't have this customization before the session start. Eventually Humankind have no unique civilization to choose from if you count how civilizations work in Civ. And it hurts your gameplay experience a lot after your first year in the game. Because you always start with "the same starting civ". But the first several hundreds hours of Humankind are great enough - so give it a try.
Ok, honestly saying there are other issues in Humankind, but I recommend it to all civ players just to refresh your exoperience.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I would guess they would be same era, ottomans would probably replace something like huns (A turkic tribe)

idk, and this is the issue with this era distinction--the byzantines are very explicitly medieval, while the fall of constantinople is widely considered to be one of the main endpoints of the medieval era, so the ottomans are ostensibly part of a different era.

I get that 3 eras is the only reasonable way to abstractify the gameplay of switching civs to not be insanely unreasonable, but this is also the weird unintended side effect of this all. One of these empires literally retrofitted the Hagia Sofia, built by the other. How can they be considered to be members of the same era?

 

[nicki_boy777]

So much overreaction. Let's see how it actually plays out?

Remember the change from stack of doom to 1UPT and then districts and wonders placements etc. Let's wait and see. Don't pre-order if you are so upset but still, don't pass your judgement until you actually know and see more.