Happening this Thursday, May 15: we want to hear your thoughts on Advisor Warnings!

[Naokaukodem]

To be fair, the Civilopedia and self-called "advisors" are quite about the same thing : assisting the player...

But yes, I understand that some people find the Civilopedia more consistent, even though I never noticed one that explained some key small things like for example in the booklets (that had generally some key sentences coated with crap (= things I already knew or even didn't need to know other by just playing - I was probably smarter by then by all probabilities ))

For now, on top of my head they really need to allow the player to link X town with Y city, or maybe make the ability to make roads and connections more clear. I've seen Marbozir make a road, but I don't know how - merchants are quite difficult to move around, that's just painful. (at least on PS5) If there would be a way to weight what goes where, it would be perfect. (provided it's simple to do AND understand, but coders are not used to human logic so I'm not putting my hopes up)

As to "advisors", I have to find them first !

 

[MutilationWave]

I was talking about the ones above the button, such as the disaster and attack notifications. Those stack by type, but different types are separated.

Ah it must be one of my mods that's combining them all, sorry about that.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

I was talking about the ones above the button, such as the disaster and attack notifications. Those stack by type, but different types are separated.

Yes me too! I’m playing Antiquity now and I just had one circle above the next turn button with 3! in it. I clicked in and there’s one each of unit attacked, relationship status changed and volcano now active alerts.

 

[misesfan]

To be fair, the Civilopedia and self-called "advisors" are quite about the same thing : assisting the player...

Here's the thing though - a player needs a detailed description of the rules to the game in order to play. That needs to be documented clearly in a manual or in the civopedia. How can anyone be expected to learn to play without the rules being clearly defined somewhere? I buy a boardgame, I expect the rules to be printed in a manual or hell - on the back of the box. The rules are what defines the game. How is this not a top priority for this company? I just dont get it...

 

[MutilationWave]

Here's the thing though - a player needs a detailed description of the rules to the game in order to play. That needs to be documented clearly in a manual or in the civopedia. How can anyone be expected to learn to play without the rules being clearly defined somewhere? I buy a boardgame, I expect the rules to be printed in a manual or hell - on the back of the box. The rules are what defines the game. How is this not a top priority for this company? I just dont get it...

I've said this before, but I easily spent twice as much time doing research online as I did playing my first game. This information is easier to find now, because that was back at launch, but the point remains we shouldn't have to be doing that.

Most players will not do that. Most will probably say screw this and give up. Only roughly 25% even bother with mods (going by civ 6 stats), and I know I would have said screw this and given up long ago without mods.

Thank you to all the incredible modders out there that absolutely crushed it in fixing the UI.

 

[CliffCo]

To be fair, the Civilopedia and self-called "advisors" are quite about the same thing : assisting the player...

But yes, I understand that some people find the Civilopedia more consistent, even though I never noticed one that explained some key small things like for example in the booklets (that had generally some key sentences coated with crap (= things I already knew or even didn't need to know other by just playing - I was probably smarter by then by all probabilities ))

For now, on top of my head they really need to allow the player to link X town with Y city, or maybe make the ability to make roads and connections more clear. I've seen Marbozir make a road, but I don't know how - merchants are quite difficult to move around, that's just painful. (at least on PS5) If there would be a way to weight what goes where, it would be perfect. (provided it's simple to do AND understand, but coders are not used to human logic so I'm not putting my hopes up)

As to "advisors", I have to find them first !

With road building merchants have an icon in their menu that you can click on to create a road, this is seperate from how you create a trade route. Roads and sea routes have a limit on how far the settlements can be apart and this changes by era.

I did have an issue with creating a trade route at one point in my last game. when i tried sending a merchant to the settlement so i could create a trade route it wouldn't move, i assumed it was due to it having to pass through an area that i hadn't explored yet and that was greyed out, I ended up having to direct them around that area via a different settlement manually for them to be able to reach the settlement i wanted them to go to.

There is an option in game settings where you can enable/disable advisors and change how much information they give you.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Here's the thing though - a player needs a detailed description of the rules to the game in order to play. That needs to be documented clearly in a manual or in the civopedia. How can anyone be expected to learn to play without the rules being clearly defined somewhere? I buy a boardgame, I expect the rules to be printed in a manual or hell - on the back of the box. The rules are what defines the game. How is this not a top priority for this company? I just dont get it...

I agree, I agree. I'm just saying that the Civilopedia, from my inexperience (rarely used it, and when, didn't find what I was looking for), has been reputed for not saying much about the exact rules of Civ games lately.

I'll take an example : in Civ5, when you found or conquer a city, your techs costs will increase, even if you raze or gift said city ! I trust Marbozir on that one, because I've not checked it really. Is that the kind of rule that would have been even described in a manual ? Not sure. So I wouldn't expect too much from the Civilopedia if I were you. I agree however that a manual could get in handy, but unfortunately I don't see any virtual manual on my TV with my PS5.

As to go elsewhere to find the information, I'm not doing it except again, Marbozir, because I just like to watch at this guy after diner. But as I said elsewhere, Civ has become a forum / social media game, so a lot of the people read the strategic guides out there. Personally I'm not comfortable to read on my desk like that, however I could totally see me spare evenings to read a paper manual before sleeping, in my bed.

Alas manuals don't exist anymore, and I wish Civ7 has one or replaced it reasonably.

 

[CliffCo]

Here's the thing though - a player needs a detailed description of the rules to the game in order to play. That needs to be documented clearly in a manual or in the civopedia. How can anyone be expected to learn to play without the rules being clearly defined somewhere? I buy a boardgame, I expect the rules to be printed in a manual or hell - on the back of the box. The rules are what defines the game. How is this not a top priority for this company? I just dont get it...

Civ6 had the same crappy civilopedia and i never used it in that game either, most of the info was either common sense or could be learned in the first few weeks of playing the game. Fandom on the other hand is excellent and gives very detailed info on almost every subject.

 

[MutilationWave]

Civ6 had the same crappy civilopedia and i never used it in that game either, most of the info was either common sense or could be learned in the first few weeks of playing the game. Fandom on the other hand is excellent and gives very detailed info on almost every subject.

At least the civ 6 one had hyperlinks to different concepts, units, whatever. This one is even more half-assed. It's quarter-assed!

 

[misesfan]

Civ6 had the same crappy civilopedia and i never used it in that game either, most of the info was either common sense or could be learned in the first few weeks of playing the game. Fandom on the other hand is excellent and gives very detailed info on almost every subject.

I assume you are a veteran of the game that knows the basic concepts and mechanics. What about a new player, though? The brand new player needs to go to an Internet web site to get all the information he needs to play the game - thats a bunch of BS, in my opinion.

Sorry for derailing this thread, but I think their priorities for this game is totally whacked and they need to get back to fundamentals.

 

[King of Prussia]

I assume you are a veteran of the game that knows the basic concepts and mechanics. What about a new player, though? The brand new player needs to go to an Internet web site to get all the information he needs to play the game - thats a bunch of BS, in my opinion.

Sorry for derailing this thread, but I think their priorities for this game is totally whacked and they need to get back to fundamentals.

The first thing you deal with as a new player when you start a game of civ 7 is the Advisor/notification system. Its there all the time. It walks you through all sorts of important info. How to do X. What Y means. X is happening. How to fix Z issue. Getting that working well for new players and remaining useful even for more experience players is important. As important as the civilopedia is, it doesnt compare.

 

[Krikkit1]

It would be nice if civ7 was the first civ to actually tell you the rules of the game

 

[CliffCo]

I assume you are a veteran of the game that knows the basic concepts and mechanics. What about a new player, though? The brand new player needs to go to an Internet web site to get all the information he needs to play the game - thats a bunch of BS, in my opinion.

Sorry for derailing this thread, but I think their priorities for this game is totally whacked and they need to get back to fundamentals.

We were all new to Civ7. There were a lot of new mechanics etc to learn for Civ7 but I started off playing it for probably 60 hrs a week pre release so i learned quickly. I don't have a problem using external sites as i can look them up on my tablet while playing on PC, but it would be great if the Civilopedia had the detailed info that Fandom has.

 

[MutilationWave]

We were all new to Civ7. There were a lot of new mechanics etc to learn for Civ7 but I started off playing it for probably 60 hrs a week pre release so i learned quickly. I don't have a problem using external sites as i can look them up on my tablet while playing on PC, but it would be great if the Civilopedia had the detailed info that Fandom has.

I just think most people aren't going to bother with looking things up. Do they know fandom exists? Do they know how to use a search engine? And no I'm not being silly here, many people try to talk to a search engine instead of using search terms.

I think a lot of us here come from a generation or generations where we had to really get to know things about computers. There was no internet. Then when it came out, using it was not simple so we had to learn our way through it. We built these skills over the years. Someone who generally uses touch screens from birth, playing civ on a switch (no offense, I have a switch and love it), is just unlikely to be willing to do this extra stuff to learn a game.

Maybe I'm way off-base here. I'm using my experiences with my nephews and niece to go by, they aren't children and they actually have computers with a mouse and keyboard.

 

[CliffCo]

I just think most people aren't going to bother with looking things up. Do they know fandom exists? Do they know how to use a search engine? And no I'm not being silly here, many people try to talk to a search engine instead of using search terms.

I think a lot of us here come from a generation or generations where we had to really get to know things about computers. There was no internet. Then when it came out, using it was not simple so we had to learn our way through it. We built these skills over the years. Someone who generally uses touch screens from birth, playing civ on a switch (no offense, I have a switch and love it), is just unlikely to be willing to do this extra stuff to learn a game.

Maybe I'm way off-base here. I'm using my experiences with my nephews and niece to go by, they aren't children and they actually have computers with a mouse and keyboard.

I believe lots of players of Civ6 used Fandom, i used it religously but i love doing stuff on my computer and online in general. While i can stream TV, i generally only watch an hr or so of TV a day, the rest of my spare time is spent on the computer or tablet. I've been a computer/internet addict for as long as i can remember. While i love spending time online i miss seeing kids playing and having fun in the days before we had it.

i'd guess a large majority of the very old or young either don't spend much time online and if they do it's probably on their phones and not related to gaming. If you're a serious gamer there's really only 2 choices these days, learn as you go or look things up online, the days of buying a game that came with a paper manual are unfortunately long gone.

 

[Gori the Grey]

While i love spending time online i miss seeing kids playing and having fun in the days before we had it.

I was on a walk and saw two young kids sitting on a front porch, looking down. I thought, "how charming, they're watching ants or something." As I got closer, I saw that each of them had a device (phone or gaming) between their legs and it was that they were looking at.

 

[Kwami]

The first thing you deal with as a new player when you start a game of civ 7 is the Advisor/notification system. Its there all the time. It walks you through all sorts of important info. How to do X. What Y means. X is happening. How to fix Z issue. Getting that working well for new players and remaining useful even for more experience players is important. As important as the civilopedia is, it doesnt compare.

And indeed, the tutorial information for this game is far superior to the information in previous games.

The civilopedia needs work, but that's not related to the event happening tomorrow.

 

[CliffCo]

I was on a walk and saw two young kids sitting on a front porch, looking down. I thought, "how charming, they're watching ants or something." As I got closer, I saw that each of them had a device (phone or gaming) between their legs and it was that they were looking at.

I feel like it's a sad world that kids are growing up in these days, but the world around us never stops evolving, i'm just glad i grew up in the early 70s. People either forget or don't realize how good kids had it back then.

 

[MutilationWave]

I feel like it's a sad world that kids are growing up in these days, but the world around us never stops evolving, i'm just glad i grew up in the early 70s. People either forget or don't realize how good kids had it back then.

I grew up in the 80s. I was one of the last fully analog kids. Sure we had games eventually but they were simple and you didn't carry them in your pocket. Riding bikes was just as fun if not more. Culturally my nation, the US, has changed so much it's incredible. I feel like if a group of kids was out roaming around having fun maybe getting in a little trouble, someone would call the police. Maybe even their parents would get brought up to child protective services. It is sad. I am lucky to have had an analog childhood and digital adulthood, but I'm not old enough to have benefitted from the incredible post-Vietnam economy and general peace.

EDIT- And yes, kids today have it very very bad. They might have expensive toys but the future for them seems quite dark.

 

[Gorbles]

Here's the thing though - a player needs a detailed description of the rules to the game in order to play. That needs to be documented clearly in a manual or in the civopedia. How can anyone be expected to learn to play without the rules being clearly defined somewhere? I buy a boardgame, I expect the rules to be printed in a manual or hell - on the back of the box. The rules are what defines the game. How is this not a top priority for this company? I just dont get it...

You should be able to play a game by playing the game. The game itself should teach you.

Manuals / the Civopedia are important and should not be neglected (I've been playing the 2016 Doom, and there's something similar to Mass Effect's codex that you populate as you go), but they should not be how you learn the game itself.

If that's how you work, that's cool. But I'm not sure that's how most people figure out how a game works. Otherwise the need for tutorials wouldn't have developed into the aspect of gaming that it is (some games have overt tutorials, other games softly on board you by introducing you to mechanics over time.