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

[ColtSeavers]

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.

How should this work? I mean, if several different exploration Civs can unlock a modern Civ, which one will the AI pick (assuming, these Civs haven't been picked by the human player)? I'd expect there is ranking, how the AI picks its Civs. E.G. the AI selects France if it plays the Normans; in case France has already been selected by the Human Player, it will pick England as a second choice etc. Alternatively, the AI picks randomly among a certain set of Civs, but that wouldn't make much sense to me.

 

[Krajzen]

I think devs are going to minimize the chances of that happening because "hurr this stupid patch ruined my favourite historical transition which also made sense btw, I'm gonna write lame Steam review" but it is hard for me to believe there won't be clear cases of later civs offering much more sensible transitions than the former ones.

I also think it'd create more problems to the devs to artifiially constrain themselves like that "oooh we have a super cool transition civ, unfortunately we can't use it there bc there are too many linkages already " I also think too many linkages leading to certain civs over other civs would be perceived as a balance problem/awkward design on their own. There are some civs which could have like 8 legit precedessors (hi Ottomans) but I think sometimes devs would simply prefer to trim down this mess to the minimum amount of connections.

Or going in reverse, take Celts for example. Celts are a great ancient precedessor for like two thirds of all European civs lol. It is hard for me to believe they wouldn't take some of the job of forced and weird connections of Rome and Greece (cough cough Greece to Spain cough cough)

It would be more economic for the devs to introduce a certain civ with some simplest, most far-fetched connections first, and then feel free years later to change its connections after introducing its close cousin, rather than plan "ok guys now keep with me we need to really figure out who do we add in what order because once Tibet starts from Israel and leads to Boers there is no going back"

 

[Evie]

Because they've stated explicitly they want to limit the number of connections to avoid overwhelming players with too many choices.

 

[Sagax]

We should first decide/agree on the number of connections that will be deemed “overwhelming” to players. I, for one, doubt that any civ will have more than 5-6 by the end of the game’s life cycle (not counting mods).

From everything I’ve read so far, this seems more like a potential Rome problem than a systemic issue that will plague the entire roster. In which case, should we or FXS really care that one civ specifically known for its widespread legacy ends up with…… a widespread legacy?

 

[Krikkit1]

Because they've stated explicitly they want to limit the number of connections to avoid overwhelming players with too many choices.

I think that is more of a proportion than total number…and it neglects gameplay unlocks (which would be some portion of total civs gameplay unlocked by random chance)

once you have 30 DLC civs…in one age, then if 8 of them are unlocked by Rome or Han or Persia, that seems fine.

All the base game will probably have a number of unlocks (because all non pack DLC will have to connect to one of them)

 

[Evie]

I would say I think 3-4 unlock per civs is a more likely goal than 5-6, since you have to factor in leader unlocks and gameplay unlocks on top.

And I do think they will want to keep an upper limit because it's hardly just the Romans. They're just the most obvious problem because everyone want every Europesn country thst ever was included.

 

[AriochIV]

How should this work? I mean, if several different exploration Civs can unlock a modern Civ, which one will the AI pick (assuming, these Civs haven't been picked by the human player)? I'd expect there is ranking, how the AI picks its Civs. E.G. the AI selects France if it plays the Normans; in case France has already been selected by the Human Player, it will pick England as a second choice etc. Alternatively, the AI picks randomly among a certain set of Civs, but that wouldn't make much sense to me.

The AI already has to be able to choose between multiple options, as it will have unlocks for civilization, leader and possible gameplay unlocks. Adding a few more should not pose a problem; I expect the AI limitation on making "historical" choices is for the human player's immersion benefit, not the AI's playing ability.

It wouldn't make sense to change or remove existing unlocks when new DLC's are released. If you enjoy playing Rome into Normans, you shouldn't be prevented from doing so just because Byzantium is released... especially since you might not have bought that DLC.

 

[Krajzen]

Just as a fun exercise, I wonder what civs would have the biggest amount of "possible parents" for simplification let's only consider civs that actually feel sensible to be added to civ7, so no "sultanate of Karaman" or whatever

So far my picks are:
- modern era Ottomans: Byzantium, Abbasids, Seljuks, Gokturks, "Mongols" (I mean Ilkhanate), really any major era II Turkic or Persianate empire you can think of ad infinitum
- exploration era Seljuks or Ottomans: Hittites, Persia, Greece, Rome, Scythians, whatever ancient parents of Turks or Mongols, kinda Assyria, kinda Egypt, kinda ancient Arabs
- exploration era Spain: Iberians, Phoenicians, Celts, Rome, Goths, Berbers/Numidia, kinda ancient Arabs (->Moors->Spain)

But I think that surprisingly enough the strongest contender would be modern era USA (duh): Normans, Spain, England/Anglo-Saxons, Franks/HRE, Netherlands, Ireland, and last but not least literally all native American tribes if you accept this concept as not offensive hell you can even cram Nordics in there, both in their Viking and non-Viking clothes

EDIT
I think modern India could be one of the very few civilizations capable of matching US regarding the amount of game-worthy civs you can cram in as their sensible ancestors from the previous era...

 

[uppi]

Just as a fun exercise, I wonder what civs would have the biggest amount of "possible parents" for simplification let's only consider civs that actually feel sensible to be added to civ7, so no "sultanate of Karaman" or whatever

So far my picks are:
- modern era Ottomans: Byzantium, Abbasids, Seljuks, Gokturks, "Mongols" (I mean Ilkhanate), really any major era II Turkic or Persianate empire you can think of ad infinitum
- exploration era Seljuks or Ottomans: Hittites, Persia, Greece, Rome, Scythians, whatever ancient parents of Turks or Mongols, kinda Assyria, kinda Egypt, kinda ancient Arabs
- exploration era Spain: Iberians, Phoenicians, Celts, Rome, Goths, Berbers/Numidia, kinda ancient Arabs (->Moors->Spain)

But I think that surprisingly enough the strongest contender would be modern era USA (duh): Normans, Spain, England/Anglo-Saxons, Franks/HRE, Netherlands, Ireland, and last but not least literally all native American tribes if you accept this concept as not offensive hell you can even cram Nordics in there, both in their Viking and non-Viking clothes

EDIT
I think modern India could be one of the very few civilizations capable of matching US regarding the amount of game-worthy civs you can cram in as their sensible ancestors from the previous era...

Many "parents" is not much of a problem, though. If there are many ways to reach America, this won't affect your current game, because it won't give you additional choices.

Civs with many "children" are those that might result in overwhelming the player with too many choices. And I think this is mostly a problem for base game civ, as every Exploration/Modern age civ in a standalone DLC would need an unlock from a base game civ in case you don't have any other DLC.

 

[Sagax]

And I do think they will want to keep an upper limit because it's hardly just the Romans. They're just the most obvious problem because everyone want every Europesn country thst ever was included.

Would be a fun exercise in this thread to think of other civs at risk of having the same problem.

The thing with future civ connections is that FXS could overwhelm a “parent” civ, but they don’t have to. For example, adding any combination of Goths/Celts/Gauls/Norse/Slavs could make Rome connections more manageable. Using some previous civ entrants as examples, you don’t need Austria, Sweden, or the Netherlands to be unlocked by Rome if there are equally or more fitting predecessors in the game.

 

[Evie]

I fully expect that will be part of it, yes.

At the same time, there are civs (eg, Byzantine) that we know will be coming and really wnat that Rome connection eventually. And Renaissance Italy, likewise.

And of course, I fully expect most if not all civs to have more than one way to unlock them, so that also complicate matters.

I don't expect swapping connections to be a *common* thing, don't get me wrong. And I especially don't expect Rome to see much change. Greece, if anything, is more likely to see connections swapped becsuse, as more sncient european civs get added, Greece having the same two Western mediterranean outlets as Rome will make less and less sense.

 

[sTAPler27]

The only thing I'm not sure of is if they'd remove some paths. Hawaii (as a broad example) could come from some antiquity Oceanic civ, or an antiquity South East Asian civ. Will they remove the unlock for them from Mississipii?

Or if South America gets Brazil and another one modern civ, would Inca not unlock Mexico anymore? (If they will on v1.0)

I kind of hope they will tbh. I think maybe their should be a gradient of civs. Like if you're a south asian civ your first choice would be a civ from that region, then civs in adjacent regions would be easier or harder to unlock based on proximity. Like maybe you get a slight reduction for picking middle eastern or south east asian civs

 

[sTAPler27]

Yeh, I think we'll just see a layering of new paths added to those we already have, no point overcomplicating it.

My only issue is that some paths will straight up not make sense on launch. Like you can justify Rome becoming Spain but nations Like Hawaii are the only civs in their region and civs like the Inca will have to evolve into something like Mexico which has very little in common. These paths should be scrapped in favor of fitting ones asap

 

[sTAPler27]

Would be a fun exercise in this thread to think of other civs at risk of having the same problem.

The thing with future civ connections is that FXS could overwhelm a “parent” civ, but they don’t have to. For example, adding any combination of Goths/Celts/Gauls/Norse/Slavs could make Rome connections more manageable. Using some previous civ entrants as examples, you don’t need Austria, Sweden, or the Netherlands to be unlocked by Rome if there are equally or more fitting predecessors in the game.

Exactly. At the very least one culture from each broad cultural group would help. Europe could probably cover its bases with the addition of a Celtic, Slavic and Germanic path in addition to the more latin based one. The only issue is that that's a lot of specialty treatment for one small continent. I'm really hoping they go wild with DLC for this game to the point where they can cover even the most untouched differences in civs like having a Great Plains and Pacific North West tribe distinction

 

[Evie]

Considering how many civs from Europe we're looking at in latet ages, I expect 2-3 germanics (Norse, Goths, and I think one of the more horse germanics - franks or Saxons perhaps), 1-2 celtics (Gaul and I think maybe one insular celtic), and don't know for ancient slavs since they're notoriously obscure and ill-documented..

Otherwise you're going to end up with only one way to get to each exploration euro civ and whatnot.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

What I'm not sure about is how many "historical choice" options they want each civ to have

I've thought about it, and have decided the number should be.. zero. At the game release have one or more is fine so people can learn the game, and keeping them is fine because there will be people new to the game. As more civs are release the standard should go to zero. Why?

This is a game with win conditions. One of them should be that you have achieved an unlock to a civ of the next era. If playing a game for fun where you don't feel like having any objectives might as well turn the unlock conditions off. And to be clear, I have no problem with anyone turning off the conditions.

Going from Antiquity to Exploration there should be a unlock simply by playing your start bias and abilities. Egypt should have city on a navigable river in the desert to unlock the Songhai. Example made up, of course

Going from Exploration to Modern there should be some measure of standing the test of time at this point. If you want to become Renaissance Italy your civ should have built places for art, have cultural specialists, and you leader should have their cultural trait tree nearly complete. Even more made up guess for conditions and future civ.

 

[sTAPler27]

Considering how many civs from Europe we're looking at in latet ages, I expect 2-3 germanics (Norse, Goths, and I think one of the more horse germanics - franks or Saxons perhaps), 1-2 celtics (Gaul and I think maybe one insular celtic), and don't know for ancient slavs since they're notoriously obscure and ill-documented..

Otherwise you're going to end up with only one way to get to each exploration euro civ and whatnot.

I'm going to be honest I really can't see them adding that much. In 5 there was just the Celts in general and in 6 there was Gaul and Scotland. There really isn't a large celtic population. I think they're important to represent in some form absolutely given how once widespread they were in antiquity and how they live on in other ethnic groups but otherwise it would seem really infair to give them such a focus when 1) there's way more crucial civs needed for Europe, and 2) to make sure resources are being diverted to other regions, especially ones rarely tapped by the game. Have some ancient celtic tribes for antiquity, maybe scotland for Exploration and finish it off with Ireland for a nice Diplomatic option.

I can see Germanic civs getting much more attention however, there has been a relatively major germanic power in each era that could warrant an extra inclusion per era. Germany and even Austria-Hungary if you stretch the definition would be obvious modern choices. I'm not well versed enough to know Exploration age Germanic history but I'm aware there's some solid options. I'm honestly a bit annoyed the Normans were their French pick because from what little I know of them the Normans really only adopted French culture. But I guess that makes them very versatile for German, Latin and Celtic cultures to adapt into them. For antiquity I feel like you really only need one option. Not to deny their diversity but it becomes a bit difficult to create unique abilities for each tribe.

 

[Evie]

The fundamental problem is, you are gonna have to have obscure civs in the ancient age. It's close to unavoidable, because keeping the pathway system working well require keeping similar (not identical) number of civs in each era - and for the pathways to work really well, they need to use similar regional balance in each age. So you cannot just stack up all the Mesopotamian civs and call it a day.

If you want 10-ish European modern civs, you need a similar number of European ancient civs to keep thenpaths balanced. Otherwise you are almost certain to end up quickly with overloaded modern or exploration civs.

The gauls...are second only to the Romans in European connections. They'll need help too. Celts are even worse: they could connect to every civ between the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Baltic.

Plus, by September, we're expected to have 39 civs - 11 less than civ VI had total. By the first full expansion, we'll probably be pulling ahead of Civ 6 already. And that's about one year of design cycle - they mentioned supporting the game for ten. 90, civs after four or five yesrs is not at all unreasonable.In which case we can expect a lot of civs that weren't in VI.

 

[Krikkit1]

The fundamental problem is, you are gonna have to have obscure civs in the ancient age. It's close to unavoidable, because keeping the pathway system working well require keeping similar (not identical) number of civs in each era - and for the pathways to work really well, they need to use similar regional balance in each age. So you cannot just stack up all the Mesopotamian civs and call it a day.

If you want 10-ish European modern civs, you need a similar number of European ancient civs to keep thenpaths balanced. Otherwise you are almost certain to end up quickly with overloaded modern or exploration civs.

The gauls...are second only to the Romans in European connections. They'll need help too. Celts are even worse: they could connect to every civ between the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Baltic.

Plus, by September, we're expected to have 39 civs - 11 less than civ VI had total. By the first full expansion, we'll probably be pulling ahead of Civ 6 already. And that's about one year of design cycle - they mentioned supporting the game for ten. 90, civs after four or five yesrs is not at all unreasonable.In which case we can expect a lot of civs that weren't in VI.

The paths don't need to be balanced...

I don't see more than 3 more Ancient Euro civs (a Celt, a Norse, a Germanic)... Exploration there could be a few more (HRE, Poland, Dutch, Italian CS, ?Viking?, ?Portugal?, ?Scotland/Ireland?)... but Modern probably only (Britain, Germany, Austria, Russia, ?Italy?, ?Sweden?)..in addition to the France we know for sure.

so not much more than 5-6?9-5?7
That's close to balanced especially including civs that interact from other areas (Phonecian/Carthage, Byzantine, Ottoman, Mongols, Scythians, America, Mexico, Brazil, Gran columbia, Argentina)

 

[Evie]

It needs not be perfectly balanced, but we know for a fact they don't want too many options per civs (despite people somehow ignoring that part again and again), and I would add that I strongly suspect they want more than one path into each civ, so it will likely be close to balance anyway. The idea of ancient civs with 5 or 6 paths so we can overload on later ages is one I would call extremely unsound, as appealing as some of you seem to find it.

Again, we're looking at around as many or more civ after around one year as Civ VI had in its entire existence; and still manny more years of support after, and given Ancient is the first age of the game (and thus the first age of a full campaign they're certainly not going to shaft it on civ count - they'll want a wide variety of civilizations there, so people have lots of options to start the game. They're not going to out all the options later and just players to start with a micro list.

Which, considering the limited selection of ancient civs in large parts of the world (anywhere but Europe, the Middle East, India and East Asia), due tomlimited informstion, is going to be preeeetty hard to do with only five Euros in the long run.