Discussion On Why Civ 7 Doesn't Feel Like A "Civ" Game

[tman2000]

I feel like these discussion threads are fruitless. No side is going to convince the other that Civ 7 either “feels like” or “doesn’t feel like” Civ, whatever that means. It is Civ because the creators of Civilization said it is. Personally, I don’t see the moment to moment gameplay as significantly different from the previous entry.

There are game series that have changed entire genres before (think Final Fantasy going from turn-based to real-time combat or Paper Mario going from turn-based RPG to platformer) and the introduction of civ switching does not even scratch the surface of those kinds of changes. Civ 7 is Civ.

It’s also unfinished, repetitive and probably won’t be fixed.

 

[Skojardu]

"Didn't Firaxis learn from Humankind's mistake???"

That narrative will probably never die.

The convergent evolution feels too suspicious, but I can believe it somewhat. Casting doubt, though, there were intimations that they needed to scrap a bunch of work and rebuild it midway, at which point Humankind presumably could have launched, and they could have proverbially peeped at Amplitude's homework

 

[protocol7]

I don’t really have any insight into what they knew or didn’t at the time. I do know that Humankind has been a flop for four years now. In theory at some point you can learn from their failure instead of bravely going down with your own ship that’s (coincidentally or not) built on the same parts.

 

[Tanel]

Civ players weren't asking for an ages mechanic. It was shoved down their throats. It's a rip off of HumanKind and HK did a much better job with it.

For me personally Humankind had a lot of great ideas but I didn't like the implementation. Some of the things in Civ 7 certainly seem inspired by Humankind but their implementation is a lot better. Games take ideas from other games all the time so I don't particularly care as long as they put their own spin on things and it's not a straight copy paste. Conversely Humankind copied essentially the whole game formula from Civ.

I'm personally satisfied with the changes in Civ 7 but it seems that some people will never be. So it's impossible to have a Civ game that will satisfy everyone anyway.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The convergent evolution feels too suspicious, but I can believe it somewhat. Casting doubt, though, there were intimations that they needed to scrap a bunch of work and rebuild it midway, at which point Humankind presumably could have launched, and they could have proverbially peeped at Amplitude's homework

Ideas are floating in the air. Civ6 had some form of ages and age goals. "Rhye's and Fall of Civilization" mod for Civ4 had civilization switching mechanics. Cosmetic ages existed in civilization since Civ1 and mechanically important ages existed in Age of Empires since the beginning. There are many other examples which lead to game developers eventually considering putting civilization switch on top of age changes.

But the approach to those ideas is so different in Civ7 and HK, that convergent evolution is the most logical explanation. To start, HK came from smooth game (like previous civ games) and added age breakpoints on top of this; while Civ7 game developers started from total age reset and when started adding things to keep in minimal amount.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Too much railroading, can't take Romans and Aztecs to the space age, a complete lack of near future speculative tech that has been around since Civ 1.

Do enough people even play online to justify so much streamlining? Statistically it doesn't feel like they are the majority.

I think FXis want near future to be the 4th Age. and has different ideas regarding to playable factions since 'uniqueness' actually disappears at this point in history. especially with 'nations' gave way to 'Federations'.

 

[tman2000]

The convergent evolution feels too suspicious, but I can believe it somewhat. Casting doubt, though, there were intimations that they needed to scrap a bunch of work and rebuild it midway, at which point Humankind presumably could have launched, and they could have proverbially peeped at Amplitude's homework

I never understood this dynamic. Like is it that they don’t have to pay out bonuses to laid off employees if they redo some percentage like 51% or something? Like a restructuring of pay to staff?

Destiny was like this. They made 80% of the game, threw out 60%, then remade the last 70% of the game from scratch with a substandard story, minimum viable product that kind of thing.

Like, what if Civ 7 was going to be this other thing entirely and got 4 years into development?

 

[Skojardu]

I never understood this dynamic. Like is it that they don’t have to pay out bonuses to laid off employees if they redo some percentage like 51% or something? Like a restructuring of pay to staff?

Destiny was like this. They made 80% of the game, threw out 60%, then remade the last 70% of the game from scratch with a substandard story, minimum viable product that kind of thing.

Like, what if Civ 7 was going to be this other thing entirely and got 4 years into development?

I am honestly just really curious about the aborted 0.5 version of the game, if it exists.

 

[Gorbles]

I am honestly just really curious about the aborted 0.5 version of the game, if it exists.

All we have are random theories from the community based on effectively nothing. Old UI screenshots, unused game files . . these are a dime a dozen (apologies to my fellow Brits for the US idiom).

Games change during development all the time. Most of the time, you simply don't see it.

 

[Nikolai II]

All we have are random theories from the community based on effectively nothing. Old UI screenshots, unused game files . . these are a dime a dozen (apologies to my fellow Brits for the US idiom).

Games change during development all the time. Most of the time, you simply don't see it.

Yeah, this very much this. Games change a lot during development. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the topic would concur.

 

[tman2000]

All we have are random theories from the community based on effectively nothing. Old UI screenshots, unused game files . . these are a dime a dozen (apologies to my fellow Brits for the US idiom).

Games change during development all the time. Most of the time, you simply don't see it.

All we can speculate on was the one Glassdoor post which had a UI team that wanted more tooltips but management kept (allegedly) push back to accommodate consoles or something, then management came back one day from a spirit journey in Peru and decided on a massive overhaul. The UI team allegedly quit.

If I had to guess, I think there was probably more variability and customization with yields, including reassignable specialists. If you look at diplomacy, it copies BE apparently so it would only be more complex with more espionage options and more relationship tracking.

We do know that city connections are abysmal and the UI is terrible at showing where yields come from. I imagine if there was a reimagining it was to what we have now with a set and forget specialists, “you wanna see the yields in detail? Don’t worry about it…” that sort of thing.

Problem is, with so much streamlining, why even have any of these systems at all? Everyone who loves playing with specialists (apparently just for the youve-already-won portion of modern), what’s the strategy where you do something other than stack specialists? Where’s the choice?

 

[BackseatTyrant]

Because we live in a world of hot takes and outrageous headlines, often in all caps. So when one dislikes something one is socially pressured (j/k) into saying crazy things like Civ 7 isn't even a game, or This feature will kill the game or This doesn't even FEEL like Civ. It's a strategy to make more people pay attention to what you say.

I agree with Quill18's take that the general reception of Civ 7 is largely due to social media erasing all possibility of nuance in public discourse. Everything has to be either the Greatest Thing Ever or the Worst Thing Ever

 

[Skojardu]

Yeah, this very much this. Games change a lot during development. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the topic would concur.

I know this. I am making my own game and it changed considerably. However, if you get my final game and you bounce off of it, I could forgive you for being curious about the older version of the game, wondering if you would have preferred its previous form.

 

[Gorbles]

Problem is, with so much streamlining, why even have any of these systems at all? Everyone who loves playing with specialists (apparently just for the youve-already-won portion of modern), what’s the strategy where you do something other than stack specialists? Where’s the choice?

Have systems that are streamlined for convenience, but also systems with depth (even if they're not perfect / polished / introduce their own lack of streamlining) is a part of iteration. Easy to learn, hard to master kind of thing.

A big thing holding Civ VII back from that, aside from the fact that CFC is absolutely bananas level good at theorycrafting and strategy (even though CFC is a very small boat in the wider sea of franchise players), is the UI (and signposting of features / mechanics within that UI).

 

[tman2000]

I agree with Quill18's take that the general reception of Civ 7 is largely due to social media erasing all possibility of nuance in public discourse. Everything has to be either the Greatest Thing Ever or the Worst Thing Ever

This is a ten year old played out narrative. There’s a weird part of millennial culture where it’s somewhat socially taboo to have opinions and there’s deference to institutional authority.

Civ 7 is just an unfinished bad game with botched development and a terrible UI.

 

[tman2000]

Have systems that are streamlined for convenience, but also systems with depth (even if they're not perfect / polished / introduce their own lack of streamlining) is a part of iteration. Easy to learn, hard to master kind of thing.

Think about natural parks. Where is there anything like that in Civ 7? It’s not designed to have things like that.

 

[Nikolai II]

Think about natural parks. Where is there anything like that in Civ 7? It’s not designed to have things like that.

Ugh.I hated the national parks feature. Too restricting and not possible to modify the reach for or remove. It was a poorly implemented feature.

 

[Gorbles]

Think about natural parks. Where is there anything like that in Civ 7? It’s not designed to have things like that.

Not sure what you're getting at here, sorry. Could you explain how this relates to depth and / or streamlining?

 

[Serenya]

I’ve been playing since Civ3 and I turn 60 this year so I don’t think it’s an age thing. I do think it might relate to what earlier features you particularly liked though. I’ve found something to enjoy in each version, and I honestly really like the age switching! I’ve always aligned to the leader more so than the civ, so civ switching lets me make some interesting decisions. The ages give me a natural pause point too so I’m actually completing games instead of abandoning them. I’ve also done things like save on the last run of an age, and then make two different starts for the next age, trying different civs/mementos/starting choices to see the impact, which I’ve found quite fun

 

[tman2000]

Not sure what you're getting at here, sorry. Could you explain how this relates to depth and / or streamlining?

Just how in past Civ games different systems or mechanics could just fit in to the overall experience, but in Civ 7 I don't think there's any room for extra stuff. It's literally a board game with fixed sets of things to do in separate categories.