Goodbye Civ, and thanks for the memories

[queenpea]

They still can. If it required headcanon before, it still requires headcanon now. What is making it more difficult, if you can eventually evolve into a modern America regardless? The explicit codification of prior Ages isn't jiving with what you considered to be the proto-name you evolved from?

I get not liking the more out there switches, but that's not something you have to engage with.

When I start a game as Greece, with the civilization-specific great people, civics, wonders, districts--I am firmly playing as "Greece." I am not really thinking about my eventual evolution into America, Mexico, Britain, etc. The change into Normans or Spain isn't as smooth or subtle than what I was describing previously. It's a sudden, choppy, and violent change. It's a fade to black without a credible explanation and a confusing rebirth. Yes, I have the option to employ a few policy cards that give me extra % influence on diplomatic actions, but where has Greece gone? Where are my little great writings that my all of my little Logios created? And the game's answer to that is basically: don't worry your little head about that -- better start colonizing -- here are your Greek policy cards and a conquistador! Would you like to found Buddhism in 1000 AD? Better study Trade (again) and re-learn the concept of currency! And if I'm Greek into Spanish Catherine the Great then why am I speaking Russian? There's just a lot of wacky little layers that strain immersion (for me) more than past games.

 

[Gorbles]

When I start a game as Greece, with the civilization-specific great people, civics, wonders, districts--I am firmly playing as "Greece." I am not really thinking about my eventual evolution into America, Mexico, Britain, etc. The change into Normans or Spain isn't as smooth or subtle than what I was describing previously. It's a sudden, choppy, and violent change. It's a fade to black without a credible explanation and a confusing rebirth. Yes, I have the option to employ a few policy cards that give me extra % influence on diplomatic actions, but where has Greece gone? Where are my little great writings that my all of my little Logios created? And the game's answer to that is basically: don't worry your little head about that -- better start colonizing -- here are your Greek policy cards and a conquistador! Would you like to found Buddhism in 1000 AD? Better study Trade (again) and re-learn the concept of currency! And if I'm Greek into Spanish Catherine the Great then why am I speaking Russian? There's just a lot of wacky little layers that strain immersion (for me) more than past games.

I get the bits and pieces adding up negatively, but if you're starting as Greece, it's the same as starting as America and using imagination to backfill the immersion.

Like I kinda get it for something like Civ 1, which was an incredibly blank slate. But coming in hot off of the heals of VI (admittedly, no idea if you played VI), that identity was cemented with abilities and uniques and so on from 5000 BC. Even if you couldn't use some of them yet.

(personally always hated that - its one of the reasons I like Ages - it lets abilities and unique have a better timing to shine)

 

[queenpea]

I get the bits and pieces adding up negatively, but if you're starting as Greece, it's the same as starting as America and using imagination to backfill the immersion.

Like I kinda get it for something like Civ 1, which was an incredibly blank slate. But coming in hot off of the heals of VI (admittedly, no idea if you played VI), that identity was cemented with abilities and uniques and so on from 5000 BC. Even if you couldn't use some of them yet.

(personally always hated that - its one of the reasons I like Ages - it lets abilities and unique have a better timing to shine)

I understand why people like the new system. For the record, I don't hate it. I'm just still getting used to it, and I am not in love with it. I no longer get lost in the gameplay. I play a bit of a chapter, save the game and exit. And when I'm not playing the game, I'm not really day dreaming about it. All of that is a change for me from past iterations, and I am still exploring what the root of that is.

I guess in VI (I love VI) and I am playing America in 4000 BCE -- I have never pretended that I was "Greece" per say. You don't get hoplites. You don't get a boost on the Oracle. There ain't a Logios in sight, and you're just crappy little America making your way in the world like everyone else. The only "American" thing about you is a little hint of flute in your ear attempting the Ancient-era America theme. It is up to you to shape your identity until you eventually gain access to your uniques, etc. which then tie you back to real world history.

I do like some of the uniques in VII, and I find some of the Traditions to be the most exciting parts of the civilizations as they are portrayed in VII. But they do reinforce a more saturated, real-world (or stereotypical depending on your persuasion) version of the civ you're playing.

 

[Gori the Grey]

develops into different identities over those years

develops into different identities, yes.

develops into different specific disparate this-world identities, no.

and to Gorbles, yes, but your headcanon has to actively rename a bunch of stuff. These are my antiquity-America hoplites. But they're not really "hoplite" hoplites, they're just American spearmen-who-fight-well-in-formation.

(I get it that we who have a hang-up about it will never, by describing that hang-up, get people who don't to share the hang-up; and that's a good thing; I happy for you that you can enjoy the game without my hang-up.)

 

[Gorbles]

and to Gorbles, yes, but your headcanon has to actively rename a bunch of stuff. These are my antiquity-America hoplites. But they're not really "hoplite" hoplites, they're just American spearmen-who-fight-well-in-formation.

As did the Britons when the Romans took over, and the Anglo-Saxons, and then the Vikings, and the Normans on top. Active renaming was part and parcel of how everything worked, for centuries. It's only as things have gotten more recent that they got more static, and Civ. in a way has always modelled that (by adding fewer per years ingame turn the further you got along the timeline).

 

[Gori the Grey]

Right, but that happened after the fact.

There's a stretch of Civ 7 when you're playing Greece-who-will-become-America where your units are named hoplites.

So you have to be actively renaming while you are playing as that Greece-who-is-really-America-to-be.

 

[Gorbles]

Right, but that happened after the fact.

There's a stretch of Civ 7 when you're playing Greece-who-will-become-America where your units are named hoplites.

So you have to be actively renaming while you are playing as that Greece-who-is-really-America-to-be.

Everything in history happened after the fact. Only the people who came after (e.g. us) are the ones looking back.

You're differentiating headcanon based on what you consider "active" renaming. That threshold may be similar, but will be different, to queenpea's, the same as mine is different to you both. I get where they're coming from. I don't know where your thresholds are. It's a very subjective thing.

In my mind, if you can mentally rename America to X, you can mentally rename Greece to X. But that's my mind. I was interested in queenpea's thoughts. And yours too, if you want to share your specific thresholds and what stretches them to break.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Everything in history happened after the fact.

Right, but a Civ game puts you during the fact. The action of the game is always in the present moment of the civ you are playing as.

Now, for players who really want to be playing America, they have to be continually fighting that present moment for the whole time that they are playing as Greece.

I'll move my hoplite-that's-not-really-a-hoplite-but-a-proto-American-spearman-who-fights-well-in-phalanx over to attack my opponent's archer.

 

[Gorbles]

Right, but a Civ game puts you during the fact. The action of the game is always in a particular present moment.

Now, for players who really want to be playing America, they have to be continually fighting that present moment for the whole time that they are playing as Greece.

I'll move my hoplite-that's-not-really-a-hoplite-but-a-proto-American-spearman-who-fights-well-in-phalanx over to attack my opponent's archer.

And the same goes for people playing as America but imagining is as proto-but-not-really-America-at-all. At least in my opinion.

Are you in the the same proverbial boat as queenpea then?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Except there's no this-world specifics to keep having to cancel out. You're just genero-antique civ.

You're America-to-be, but you're not not-really-Greece.

 

[Gorbles]

Except Greece is your protoform. If you're overriding the name anway, what does it matter what the name actually is?

Again, I get where queenpea is coming from. I appreciate them sharing their thoughts. But are you trying to argue their argument, or is this your position, specifically? If your position is exactly the same as theirs, all I can say is: I liked their post and I get what they're getting at. Rehashing it helps nobody.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I don't know how close my position is to queenpea's. You said you would welcome us trying to articulate our positions. I'm trying to do that for how I experience the game. Or more precisely how I experience laying out a historical account of the civ I am playing / have played in one of my games.

I often write up an elaborate historical account of the civilization that I guide through the game. If the civ is a late-history civ like USA, in its antiquity phase, I often give it a different name, different language (because Civ VII does have it right; that does happen). But I don't give it the name of a different this-world civilization. It's that-game-world's early America. Because in that game world America had a antiquity-era stage.

That world might also have had a Greece (since Greece is one of the opponents I might have rolled). I'm not them.

It's as jarring for me as if there were Middle Earth flashbacks in a Star Wars movie.

 

[Gorbles]

I get that. What I guess I don't get, for your position, is how Greece is any more wrong than America, because neither are the America you end up at. Is it simply a degree of closer?

For me you see, it's different. Both countries are so different, seven thousand years in the past, that calling it anything akin to the country I want to play in the modern Age doesn't really hold any weight for me.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Because the word "Greece" has a whole set of its own associations that aren't America.

Proto-America is whatever my imagination wants it to be. Greece is its own specific thing.

To continue with my reference to my own historical write-ups. I believe I could play a game of Civ VII and then retroactively cast it in the form that I've described I do for Civ V. So, in modernity, my civ would be America, so its earlier two phases would be antiquity-America and exploration-America. I might give them names. Let's say that in this game of Civ VII, I had been Greece during the antiquity phase. So now I'm a modern day historian recounting how it is that America came to conquer the world (I usually do the write-ups when I am playing domination, and their title is "How We X Came to Conquer the World"). Part of America's past glory (in this write up) is how, in its earliest times, it had great spearmen who fought well in formation. So I give them some name. I don't want to give them the name "hoplite," because "hoplites" are a part of Greece's glory. So I give them a made up name.

From the point of view of my ex post facto historical account, everything's hunky dory. But while I was playing the game, I would have constantly have needed to replace the word "hoplite" that I'm seeing on the screen, with whatever my made-up alternative name for proto-American-spearman-who-fights-well-in-formation is. To create its canon, my head is actively having to contend against what's right there in front of my eyes.

 

[Gorbles]

That's interesting to me. I divorce feelings of glory from the what-ifs of the past. I dunno how to phrase it. A parallel problem to you, maybe. If in our world the British Romans ceded to the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, in another world, maybe Greece ceded to the Italian kingdoms. This doesn't get you to America straight-off, of course, but at the same time unless you're playing a true earth map, the world you're playing in isn't our world either. The setting invites ambiguity. It invites role-playing. I appreciate that codifying the Ages means you have to make explicit choices where you once made implicit choices, but at the same time none of them were accurate previously, in terms of immersing yourself in a world where you had to backwards narrate how faction X came to be called X in the first place.

Like, American warriors in 5000 BC? Slingers? Archers? I'm still replacing those names mentally too. Hoplite might be a tad more distinct, but it's no more anachronistic when compared to actual world history. The glory isn't part of the equation for me (other than "looks cool, I like it", which is why 80% of my starts or more have been Hatshepsut with Egypt).

 

[reddishrecue]

I think I'll give Sid Meier's a break on this one. Civ 7, because I know they probably did mess it up but its normal dev people that made a mistake and they're just human. Maybe it's for the better for the development of civ 8 if there will be one. Heck, there are some games that you can't join multiplayer in so at least in this one you can. Maybe when computers and its development will be better in the future will there be a better civilization yet to come. Not only that but I'm sure that you can play civ 6 or civ 5 still online and even civ 4 and they were great games. However, I still enjoy some of the tracks on civ 7 such as Live Gloriously. I also enjoy the other tracks on it from the ancient and medieval era like Chor der Seligen Geister.

 

[Yzman]

I actually hated how when playing as a civ, say America, they would not be very unique until end game. Hell I may never get their unique. I much prefer every civ being i. It's prime like right now. I think if the transitions were less abrupt and even optional, people would take to them a lot better.

 

[xphantomx]

I’ve been such a long-time and hardcore player, it felt wrong to stop playing Civ without leaving a note for the devs. They worked really hard on Civ VII and obviously wanted it to be a hit. It’s not, for me at least. I didn’t make it through one game.

Everybody had their lists of things they want improved, or want added, or wish was different, and we don’t all get our own bespoke Civ game (unless we’re Sukritract, I suppose). To be very clear, what I’m trying to do here is give personal feedback, and not make any demands or throw any fits. If you like Civ VII, that’s awesome. Me? Unfortunately, I hate it.

I hate Civ switching. It’s bizarre. I tried to explain this in another thread and got shouted down (“Spain IS a successor to Rome,” they said; funny, I thought Rome was a successor to Rome). I hate the emphasis on leaders. I hate the start-over at each age.

Maybe I’m too niche of a Civ player. My go-to game was massive Earth true-start location on Epic pacing, ideally with an AI teammate who would make side deals when I’m at war (I found that doing two-player teams solved the problem of never-ending wars). I had some truly astounding games on V and VII using this setup. This is probably a very unusual way to play Civ, and the devs need to go where the most players are. Where they went with VII essentially makes this setup impossible.

Maybe I’ve moved on as a gamer. Like a lot of Civ players, I’m old. I work a job where I can keep a game going on the side - do a move here, tweak a thing there - and go back to emailing. Farthest Frontier is a lot of fun. Anno 1800 was fantastic. Cities: Skylines engrossed me. Good old-fashioned chess is nice, too. But I think I’m going to set aside Civ this point.

Firaxis, you were a good friend. You listened to fans and made (usually) smart changes. You have to survive as a business, and you have to try new things. The new thing here, sadly, is just not for me. Take care.

I’m an “old” gamer too. Played Civ 1 at launch.

Your entire post reads like someone who will absolutely play Civ again lol. No offense!

 

[Glassmage]

Is there a mod that offers those extra things like city state bonuses and events without being forced to play TSL? Because I'm not a TSL player, but the other things would be nice.

huh? It's a modpack. You can turn any mod on or off except you need to turn all the VP-related mods on because the extra mods are actually "mod mod" to the VP mod....

 

[KayAU]

Vox Populi messed up my vanilla and other mod games and turned Social Policies OFF. How can I reinstall the mod and not have this problem? I had to delete nearly everything AND reinstall to fix it.

Sorry for not responding earlier, but I don't know. I just ran the installer, had some minor issues which were resolved by moving a missing file or two that the game asked for manually, and it's working fine since. I play exclusively with VP these days. Saves are not compatible between VP and vanilla, and you will have to load/unload the VP mods in between, but that was probably not what you meant. Have you tried asking for help in the VP forums? I'm sure there are much more knowledgeable people to ask there.