Do you think the prerquisite civs will change as more fitting civs are released?

[Evie]

"Recommended" or "Suggested" would also have been better.

 

[Siptah]

"Recommended" or "Suggested" imply a different meaning to me personally. When a game suggests that I choose a specific civ, I expect that the logic behind it considers previous civ, leader, and state of the game to some extent. FXS went with "regional" in most cases, and I think that is ok. The best choice in my opinion is a simple "civilization unlock" as a contrast to "leader unlock" and "gameplay unlock."

 

[Evolena]

I think Evie's response above sums up their likely motivations perfectly. It was probably to help not overwhelm new players.

Ed Beach said it is indeed the intent in an interview. Except not only new players but all players.

 

[Evie]

Those are the best terms indeed.

Ed Beach said it is indeed the intent in an interview. Except not only new players but all players.

Thank you, I thought I remembered something like that but I wasn't sure enough to state it outright.

And I'd agree it'S not just new players - casual players, even if not new, definitely benefits too. And that's the vast majority of players.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I see. I didn't consider it in that way but I can accept that the purpose is to limit choice so that people don't get overwhelmed; personally, I don't like it, but ok. Thankfully I will be playing multiplayer 90% of the time, so I get that sweet overwhelming free for all.

 

[evonannoredars]

The problem with that is getting a DLC suddenly removes an option from the player. If I like going Inca-Mexico, Firaxis still wants to sell me the Brazil DLC…so it’s better if that doesn’t remove the option.

Will all civs have gameplay-based unlocks like Mongolia's horses one? Because if they do, then Inca-Mexico might still be an option, just not a default one.

 

[Siptah]

Will all civs have gameplay-based unlocks like Mongolia's horses one? Because if they do, then Inca-Mexico might still be an option, just not a default one.

It's not confirmed. We know the requirement of the Mongols and that the Normans have one (but don't know which one). But I fail to see any benefits of this not being the case.

 

[Krikkit1]

It seems quite self-evident to me that the purpose of the design is (in no small part) to avoid overwhelming players, especially more casual players, with too many civs to chose from. Another purpose is to limit the AI to a predictable paths. Both of these are undone if some civ get more than a handful of historical paths, hence, I expect the number of historical-ish paths each civ has to remain limited.

Given that less casual players who may want to play a specific civilization path that's not allowed by default will likely be able to unlock them via fulfilling certain game requirements, to me that's a best of both worlds scenario: people who risk being overwhelmed by choice, are not, and people who want to take specific paths outside the historical ones, may do so.

Far better design than having some civilizations overstacked with potential paths in the name of historical realism. Let alone having some civilizations overstacked with potential paths in the name of not changing the vanilla paths.

The issue is other civs will be added by piecemeal DLCs….I could see pruning some connections with an expansion pack, but otherwise there could be a complicated boolean of which civs connect based on which DLC combinations you have.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't expect any unlocks to be removed, that, IMHO, goes against the idea of expanding the game. More unlocks surely will be added as new civs need to have paths to and from, similarly to leaders who will need associated civs.

 

[chaosprophet]

I'm convinced of the exact opposite as the last two posters. Existing unlocks will be updated as new civilizations get into the game. Maybe not right at first, as they may be willing to increase the number of paths a little, but there will be a point in the game lifetime where they don't want to let the number of paths grow beyond a certain size, and they will start adjusting paths accordingly.

Variable paths (eg, what paths are available vary depending on which DLC you own) are easily coded enough to make this an option.

The problem with removing/changing unlocks is that it soon becomes a really complicated game. When we get 20 dlcs civilizations, for example, then you have every combination of people having the base game plus 1 to all these dlcs. It also can be confusing for the player who already owns the game when new dlc are added they would have to lock up somewhere that with their current composition of civs they got, what changed on the unlocks path to not get surprised to not have an option they had before with a new game. And then also possible causing problems with older saves before the new DLC.

While if they just add on, it is pretty simple. For each new dlcs civ, they just need to pick at least one base game civ to be their path forward and backwards, and decide on the other existent civs and pick them as path that will be available if those civs are in the person game (if they own the dlc).

They did make the unlock system to not overhelm the player with too much choice every timeon age transition but it makes sense the amount of free unlocks grow as the amount of civs per age also increases.

 

[Evie]

It's much easier to manage than that. Conditional coding (ie, "if DLC X active, then Y, if DLC X not active, then Z") is fairly standard with DLCs these days. When you inTroduce a new appropriate path that you want tO replace an old path), you just add conditional coding accordingly,

Of course, you shouldn't be constanttly changing connections for the same civ, but if you're giving one civ so many logical paths that you need to constantly change them, you may need to check prioroties anyway,

 

[Siptah]

I don‘t see the benefit of having to disable the Byzantium and Franks DLCs first when I intend to play a Rome > Spain game with Xerxes.

 

[Nikolai II]

I am sure there will be some tweaking, both from responses in here but also from DLC civs.

 

[ehecatzin]

I think they will remain, and as more historical linear options are unlocked, they will just take add to it. I imagine that if a particular civ tree is feeling rather disconected they could be aleviated a bit through adding leaders or adding "unlocks" like Mongolia has.

 

[Evie]

We already went over the design goal of keeping the number of connections limited, why it is as it is, and what the devs have said about it.

I do think we're likely to see slightly more than 2 connections per age as the game ages (3, 4?), and I certainly do think that Rome will eventually have a connection to Byzantium while keeping the one to Spain (Actually, I think Rome is more likely to keep the Spain connection than to gain the Byzantium one - I think it will probably have both, but I could see the devs giving Roman connections to the Western Empire and Greek connections to the Eastern).

But ultimately, there will come a point when a civ has too many connections, and I fully expect to see connections removed when that happen.

Besides which, I find it far more likely that they will add gameplay unlock for Spain (if currently missing) than that they will keep all civ unlock the same as in teh base game. So if you want to do a Rome - Spain game, you should be able to simply fulfil the in game conditions.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Games have always had artificial limitations to benefit the game-play desired or designed for. Biggest example in all renditions of Civ is the Immoveable and unchangeable Resources: no horse ever wanders away from his original pasture, no new Iron is discovered anywhere in the world after about 1000 BCE. It's a very static and unrealistic system, but it is dead simple and easy to grasp within minutes.

In the case of this here Civ Switching that we are all wrestling with, I suspect a similar artificial limitation will be imposed. So, even though Rome could legitimately be a precurser to almost every later Civ in western Europe, it won't be. At most, a previous Historical (ish) progression may be redefined as better historicaloid prospects are added with DLCs, but, as has been posted here, to add more progression paths, especially historicalic ones that complicate the AI's decision tree, quickly leads down the yellow brick road to the Labyrinth of Confusion.

I suspect (based on absolutely minimal evidence) that each Civ will wind up with no more than 3 progressions, because that is relatively simple while allowing for multiple play-throughs even starting with the same Civ - especially when the multiple potential Leaders are factored in.

I'll go further, but this is more of a Hope than a Prediction: I think each Civ will have one 'in-game' unlock that potentially allows almost any previous Age Civ/Leader combination to progress to it. BUT I also suspect some of the requirements will be such as cause you to severely warp your play of the previous Civ to obtain the Civ you want in the next Age, and somebody else may have a much better path to it - like an AI with a hystorical shot at it requiring no extra effort.

Again, this would multiply the potential variations for multiple play-throughs while keeping the focus on 1 - 2 straightforward paths. The proverbial casual player can ignore the complexities and play many games trying out multiple Leaders with the same Rome - Spain historicalskii progression.

 

[uppi]

It's much easier to manage than that. Conditional coding (ie, "if DLC X active, then Y, if DLC X not active, then Z") is fairly standard with DLCs these days. When you inTroduce a new appropriate path that you want tO replace an old path), you just add conditional coding accordingly,

Of course, you shouldn't be constanttly changing connections for the same civ, but if you're giving one civ so many logical paths that you need to constantly change them, you may need to check prioroties anyway,

Of course you can code that, but over time the unlock options for Rome might become a 20 branch if-then-else tree. Keeping track of that over a million possible combinations (with 20 DLCs) would be a nightmare to design, QA and especially communicate to the player. You could end up with scenarios that specific paths are only achievable with a very specific DLC combination, or that some DLC combinations make a specific civ completely unreachable due to an oversight. If I were Firaxis, I'd only remove civ unlocks in major expansions to keep everyone sane.

 

[Evie]

Best way to avoid that, is to have a plan. You don't just throw new connections that get superceded by other new connections and still more new connections at random - you start with one starting set of connections (what's available when the new civ is released), and one endgame set of connections (what you intend the civ to have once all connections are released). And then, you only change the starting connections for the endgame connections when one of your endgame civs release. Each connection then become a binary option : if no DLC X then A, if yes DLC X then B.

One connection, one change. Pretty simple, really, and straight to the point.

If you add more connections (say, go from 2 to 3), then the new connection can also be changed once. But not more than once.

If you cannot reasonably add one more connection (say, you already have 4-5 of them and you think that's really quite enough), or you've run out of connections you change, then too bad, so sad, new civ doesn'T get a connection to the old civ.

 

[Nic@Melbourne]

Likely future DLC will give the player more unlock options but the AIs preferred path will likely adjust.

Feel it’s unlikely that they will make Civs to patch paths some fans dislike.
More likely focus on Civs in demand with a sprinkle of random niche Civs.
A few missing

 

[moondog385]

I don’t see why any connections should be removed as more civs get added. It makes sense for Rome to lead into most Exploration Age European civs. No need to put a constraint on it.