Fireside chat with Andrew Frederiksen

[evonannoredars]

Oh come on....

The dev in question was talking generally about needing to triple amount of Civs, the 18 number is just the bare minimum that past Civilizations launched with.. No matter how you try to explain it away, Firaxis failed to provide us with an adaquet amount of civs per age

How do we know what Firaxis considers the bare minimum of civs a game could ship with? All we know is what number they ended up having, not what the lowest number they would've considered was.

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

Sure, you have reasoning behind why you picked that number, but the fact you chose 18 civs to be the number that you think should've been tripled remains.

I think 10 is a reasonable minimum number to triple, but likewise I'm just speculating since he did not indicate what number they should have three times as many as.

The user you're responding to didn't pull the number 18 out of their butt

10 is not a reasonable minimum number to triple because past Civ titles did not launch with only 10 civs..... Again the dev was talking generally, we all know what he meant when he said they needed triple the civilization. They failed to provide us with an adequate amount of civs at launch to make their own changes work, according to Firaxis' own logic

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

How do we know what Firaxis considers the bare minimum of civs a game could ship with? All we know is what number they ended up having, not what the lowest number they would've considered was.

We know that they needed triple the civilizations of past Civilization titles to make the changes in VII work, Firaxis themselves awknowledge this fact..... Civilization 5 and 6 did not launch with only 10 civilization.

Follow the logic and you'll see why lack of Civs per age was such a common complaint. Firaxis failed and again the overwhelmingly negative reviews speak for themselves

 

[Skojardu]

Yup, stare decisis. Defer to previous entries; 18.

Imagine the Ford F-150 is released with 400 HP in 2025, 400 HP in 2026, and then hybrid only 300 HP in 2027. The 2027 model is deficient even if there is a 2 in 1 motor so through some hand waving one could imply there is 600 HP or whatever Andrew did

 

[evonannoredars]

I'm giving up, I don't think my point is going to get through to these people

 

[Civinator]

I'm giving up, I don't think my point is going to get through to these people

Civ 7 is disturbing our brains - since Civ 7 I have the feeling, that even the lead designer has never understood the "soul" of the civ games.

 

[JNR13]

I'm giving up, I don't think my point is going to get through to these people

It's wild, twisting over backwards to keep the idea of "more is less" alive. Of course, it all also ignores that there are more *leaders* than ever before (which together with mementos can give you 26 unique abilities rivaling previous games' civ+leader ability combos in terms of scope). Or that not having 3x as many uniques in previous games was its own form of repetition of the "no unique" civ so to speak in all eras where your uniques didn't hit.

Let alone twisting the original quote, making up that it was supposedly about variety between separate games. "Civs necessary" just means having enough civs that each player has one. If a map had 6 players in Civ VI, the minimum number of civs needed for that map was 6. Traditional player count for the largest map was 12, so we can mark that as the actually *needed* number. The game having shipped with more doesn't change that. In Civ VII, that number triples to 36. It shipped with fewer, but not by that much. Bringing up numbers such as 54 is blowing that way out of proportion. I'd like to have seen a few more base game civs and was disappointed when we realized there'd be 30 civs total, but it's not the end of the world.

I'd rather have these in-depth civ designs and in return wait a bit longer to see a satisfying civ count than trade that for stripped down civs just to have more "tags".

Btw., the series started out with a max of 7 and it didn't stop the games from being incredibly fun. Even in Civ IV, unique elements were still fairly limited and yet the game offered massive replayability. Civ shouldn't need to rely on uniques to be fun playing it over and over, anyway.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I'm giving up, I don't think my point is going to get through to these people

It's not that I don't understand your point, it's that I think it's rubbish.

Firaxis would not launch a game with anything more than what they think is the minimum required for users to buy it. 18 is the conclusion they've come to for the last 2 games. Number of Civs is the thing you most want to minimise on launch as it's the best thing to monetise through additional sales of content later - they would not launch any more than is deemed necessary. You can disagree that's the minimum, that's fine, but that's irrelevant to this thread. This thread is about the inconsistencies in Firaxis public positions.

Firaxis have acknowledged the last two games tacitly that the minimum Civs they can launch with is 18. They've now redefined a Civ so they can say they've launched with 30. But this interview shows they know what many of us were already thinking - it's sleight of hand, and it's actually 10 in their eyes too. They launched with less and sold it as more. You may argue that it actually is more because they are meatier more unique things. Firaxis didn't make that argument. They said "most Civs ever" that relates to pure numbers. And I say, that's horsehockey and anti consumerist snake oil, and I don't like that they've stooped to this.

There's plenty to sell Civ VII on. The variety and quantity of Civs is not it when you've redefined them. It feels like a thumb in the face.