Have you SEEN these bonuses?

[ManoftheHour333]

Ok so a lot has been said about the three act structure and the civ switching...those are some big risks but they're very gameplay centric so it's all wait and see how the game feels and plays. I agree there is a lot of justified worry there alongside truly interesting ideas.

But no one seems to be talking about what I think is by FAR the biggest thing I've taken away from the civ spotlights/releases so far. I mean, have you seen the sheer number of bonuses that civs get!? For example, Egypt gets a unique ability (Nothing unusual here), THREE civic trees, THREE unique infrastructure buildings (Each with unique bonuses), a unique civilian unit (The Thjay...which has ten Commandante General-like bonuses!), AND a unique military unit. Oh and did I mention that now you've got a wonder (Has anyone said if these are locked to the civ or not?) to focus on too? Like oh my god that's a ton of unique attributes!

Now, more content is never a problem outright but if I remember correctly, the devs were really trying to streamline bonuses and REDUCE the paragraphs of ability texts from VI. They've apparently done that...but dividing the paragraph of unique bonuses up into multiple sentences! If anything, this has made each civ multiple-times more complex and different...which I see as, well, unideal. Especially in a game where you're 100% forced to choose new bonuses two more times!

And this is entirely separate from the leader bonuses which are totally different, seem to be just as complex (If not more due to stacking over ages), and likely synergize in differenty (Albeit probably cool) ways with different civs across each game. Because oh yes, each leader can be with any civ!

All in all, I see this as likely the more scary/ intimidating thing going into Civ VII. Like I get civ switching-I have reservations with it but I'm down to try it and see how it looks. But trying to get familiar with not only a ton of new systems but now 3x as many bonuses as previous civ gams had? Holy hell...it just seems very intimidating and makes me think like instead of reducing the things I need to be precisely planning/organizing, I'll be having to think about stuff even more. I can imagine the choice of which civ to switch to taking 10 minutes as I figure out how each of these things, alongside new leader bonuses and all that, will impact my empire or even development culturally/scientifically! Civs just truly influence every part of your gameplay...which makes me think that each civ is almost a game in of itself! Civs have always been "flavor" to maybe impact some decisions and not all of them...you could at least use your knowledge of the base progression of the civ game to get by. But when the core trees and even the wonders have moved towards being so civ-specific...the core mechanics of the game get obscured. Like, it's less about maximizing production regardless of the map or growing cities but rather using a very detailed lens to do progress through a specified game. This alone is something that I could see being super intimidating to newer players who often want to rely on at least a core base set of things that'll consistent for them to master. But now the name of the game is to master one civ and then the next civ...it doesn't matter how the actual game plays.

Putting aside what this does to any form of a "metagame", I just it also really, really incentivizes the game to be played individually by era. It's genuinely a lot to memorize and have to re-assess upon an era change to a point where the game may just grind to a halt. These bonuses just scream more of EU4 or Victoria 3 than of a game that is meant to change through time like Civilization. If the core gameplay isn't something that is continuous and the core bonuses are so complicated for each civ...might as well just end the game at the end of that age. And if I'm being honest, that's my biggest issue so far since I really am attached to wanting to play a game from the ancient era to the modern era all together but it literally just seems that things have specialized so much per each age that it makes it less appealing to play like that. And with the core gameplay being so civ-specific and complex, the amount of throughlines that can be applies across games is seemingly diminished. I know that may help with single player replay-ability maybe but in all my hours of Civ VI, the more enjoyable civs are the ones that are less specific as they allow more room for freedom and more diverse ways of playing...but that might be getting into a whole different conversation.

Anyways...just something I wanted to mention as I was dumbfounded and concerned at the amount of bonuses and things I'll have to remember about individual civs+leaders for this iteration of the game. Obviously I'll be waiting a bit before I sink money into the game so can reassess then but I just noticed that few people seem to be talking about how the structure of the civs themselves-rather than the game/ages-will be affecting the game as whole.

 

[AriochIV]

People who are worried about "the meta" five months before the game is even released are part of the reason that fun is draining from the gaming industry.

 

[CrackerJack45]

As someone who disagrees with the "shorter bonuses are better" sentiment this is EXACTLY what I wanted, MORE unique bonuses AND new ones every era? Phenomenal

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Don't worry, we have another thread worrying about how the game will be less deep because builders are gone.

To be honest, I like this, but it is a fine line. There is a beauty in the simplicity of Civ 1 and 2, but we've been heading away from that for some time. I like the idea that each civ is truly unique, and that each will give me a genuinely different experience. I recognise, though, that less can sometimes mean more when it comes to strategic depth.

Nevertheless, I'm very much looking forward to getting stuck in.

 

[greenOak]

People who are worried about "the meta" five months before the game is even released are part of the reason that fun is draining from the gaming industry.

Or they're just people who enjoy strategy games for, shockingly, the strategy.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

THREE unique infrastructure buildings (Each with unique bonuses)

Every civ that has a unique quarter, will also have two other unique buildings. In fact, you need to build your unique buildings on the same tile to create your unique quarter.

a unique civilian unit (The Thjay...which has ten Commandante General-like bonuses!)

Yes, so far every civ has gotten their own unique civilian unit as well. Greece, so far, is the only other who gets specific named Great people too. I also believe it's the only way to get Great People, so not every civ will be able to.

Oh and did I mention that now you've got a wonder (Has anyone said if these are locked to the civ or not?) to focus on too?

Every civ has a unique civic tree that will unlock their associated wonder faster. So as Egypt you will get the chance to build the Pyramids faster than others. But everyone still has access to all the wonders.

 

[IdiotStyle]

I think the era is even allowing for later civs to have even more bonuses. Like if you'd compare the amount of bonus civs get from one era to another, they don't have to be fair.

 

[AntSou]

People who are worried about "the meta" five months before the game is even released are part of the reason that fun is draining from the gaming industry.

Can you explain how?

How did you even manage to pinpoint that part when he mentioned it in passing in an entire post which has barely anything to do with it?

 

[rocksinmypath]

As someone who disagrees with the "shorter bonuses are better" sentiment this is EXACTLY what I wanted, MORE unique bonuses AND new ones every era? Phenomenal

The problem with leader/civ bonuses in Civ 6 was mostly with how they were presented. They were wordy and sometimes downright confusing. I don't know why they didn't just use bullet points and instead used commas to list abilities.

Example for Jayavarman:

Holy Sites grant Food equal to their adjacency bonus, receive a +2 adjacency bonus from Rivers, grant +2 Housing if built next to a River, and trigger a Culture bomb when built, claiming surrounding tiles.

Does that mean Holy Sites need to be next to rivers to receive food from adjacency, +2 adjacency and +2 housing, or does that condition apply only to housing? It's so unnecessarily confusing.

From what I've seen, we won't have this same problem in Civ 7. Also, I think unique civic tree is a clever way of presenting abilities. Instead of saying, "Here are all of the abilities we're giving you right off the bat, do what you can with them", which I imagine can be daunting for newer players, you start with a smaller set of abilities and don't need to worry about the ones you don't have yet until you get them. If you later find out that your game plan doesn't really work with a new ability you gain, that's ok, because you can play again with a bit more familiarity than before. At the same time, experienced players will still try to carve out a plan before they start a game, and they'll have more to play around with because there's so much more content for each civ.

 

[Disgustipated]

I don't mind the bonuses, there seem to be enough to warrant playing each civ multiple times.

My main concern at the moment is the meta of culture. Is anyone out there NOT going to prioritize culture? It seems like every civ has their own unique culture tree, and you are going to have to prioritize culture to get through it in time it appears. Perhaps gone are the days when we put everything into science and neglect culture.

I noticed this in Carl's Rome gameplay reveal. I don't want to have to focus on culture when I want to be conquering. But we'll see how it plays out in 6 months. It may be possible to do both effectively.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

More bonuses, unique buildings, unique units etc are great. Each civ feels much more unique and developed in civ7. My only "concern" would be balance. With all the civ bonuses, unique buildings, unique wonders, legacy bonuses, adjacency bonuses, narrative event bonuses, celebration bonuses, unique civics, techs, social policies, leader bonuses, promotion trees for leaders, promotion trees for army commanders, pantheons, that is a lot of different bonuses for Firaxis to balance. The sheer amount of bonuses is insane. Or maybe they don't try to balance things. I could see some super OP combos if bonuses stack.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

More bonuses, unique buildings, unique units etc are great. Each civ feels much more unique and developed in civ7. My only "concern" would be balance. With all the civ bonuses, unique buildings, unique wonders, legacy bonuses, adjacency bonuses, narrative event bonuses, celebration bonuses, unique civics, techs, social policies, promotion trees for leaders, promotion trees for army commanders, etc that is a lot of different bonuses for Firaxis to balance. The sheer amount of bonuses is insane. Or maybe they don't try to balance things. I could see some super OP combos if bonuses stack.

Comboing is likely to be insane, by the time you layer Civ bonuses, leader bonuses, policy bonuses and resource bonuses.

I doubt the dev team will be concerned about this. "Win your way" is still likely to be their objective, and utiliziing OP combos is fun for a large segment of gamers. Any individual bonuses that prove too effective on their own may get nerfed in patches, but bonuses that are only OP because they synergize well with others are much less likely to be touched.

 

[Thormodr]

A lot of people ioved yield porn in Civ VI.

They seem to have cut back on that in 7 but have redistributed it to Civ bonuses.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

These are all valid points you bring up, OP. I was pretty shocked by the sheer depth of stuff each Civ gets now. You said it perfectly- each Civ is like their own game!

And that kind of worries me.

Like, will it be awesome to play as the Greeks and recruit individual Greek great people to use on my unique quarters and buildings and whatever? Yes! Will it be fun to gather Culture and progress down unique culture trees for unique bonuses? Absolutely. It will really make you feel like your Civ.

But that intricate level of detail and stuff to explore within a Civ quickly gets overwhelming. Back when I first started with the series 4 years ago (yes, I'm one of those people who joined from VI ) one of my favorite things to do was look at Civ designs to see how they translated history to mechanics. And sure, that magic is gonna fade over time, but with this release Civs I find I'm not so much excited as I am intimidated. Each Civ reveal is its own reading session and mental workout trying to put together the pieces laid out in front of me.

And with leader-less Civs being a thing (removing the most production-value intensive part of a new Civ), it's potential we could get more new Civs than ever before. They already plan on outnumbering Civs to Leaders and that means a LOT of bonuses for us to keep track of.

Granted, the amount of effort they're pouring into each Civ will probably stop them from going as crazy as they did over Civ VI's almost decade-long run. I think it ended with something like 50? Could you imagine 50 Civs of this level of detail???

It'd be really cool when you're playing the one or two you know but the level of overchoice would hit hard.

There's another problem you brought up:

This alone is something that I could see being super intimidating to newer players who often want to rely on at least a core base set of things that'll consistent for them to master. But now the name of the game is to master one civ and then the next civ...it doesn't matter how the actual game plays.

In a lot of Civ games, Rome (or some other simple expansionist base game Civ) is the suggested Civ for new players since they teach you a trusty strategy that's usually easy to understand. Claim land, defend it with Legions.

Civ VII- due to Age switching and decoupled Leaders alone- kind of forces new players to get a grip on the game before they can do a playthrough. You have to pick a Leader (practically blindly), and a starting Civ with its cavalcade of bonuses. And just as you're getting a grip on how the game actually plays, whoops you have to switch games and pick a new suite of bonuses. Hope you brought your reading glasses because this is gonna happen one more time!

The decisions they're making in this installment seem great for us returning players (those that weren't put off by Civ-switching, anyway). If there were ever an installment for Fanatics and our love of complexity and discussion, it'd be this one. The emphasis on narrative seems great too.

But, at least on paper, almost all of these decisions raise the barrier to entry in a genre that is already infamously hard to get into. That worries me.

 

[Trengilly]

So let me get this straight . . . now we are complaining that there is too much good stuff for each civilization?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

But no one seems to be talking about what I think is by FAR the biggest thing I've taken away from the civ spotlights/releases so far. I mean, have you seen the sheer number of bonuses that civs get!?

I agree 100% with what you wrote, it's very weird the way they are simplifying core mechanics but really complicating the Civs.

 

[BuchiTaton]

More bonuses, unique buildings, unique units etc are great. Each civ feels much more unique and developed in civ7. My only "concern" would be balance. With all the civ bonuses, unique buildings, unique wonders, legacy bonuses, adjacency bonuses, narrative event bonuses, celebration bonuses, unique civics, techs, social policies, leader bonuses, promotion trees for leaders, promotion trees for army commanders, pantheons, that is a lot of different bonuses for Firaxis to balance. The sheer amount of bonuses is insane. Or maybe they don't try to balance things. I could see some super OP combos if bonuses stack.

To me CIV is mostly a singler player game where usually AI is not a big deal so you can roleplay freely. So, I dont see balance as a big problem for the franchise.
But talking about balance and have a lot of uniques brings me to mind more competitive games like AoE with an example of why more is not always better or more popular.

In AoE3 each civ have a lot more uniques and complex personalization than AoE2. There was a transition from AoE2's civs having 1 or 2 unique units and 1 unique technology (2 unique technologies and in few cases some unique building in the Steam revival HD+DE) plus the variations of available regular technologies and units, to the AoE3's civs having regional game mechanics, selectable age transition bonuses, around 5 unique units, multiple unique techs, tens of unique homecity cards some of them unlock even more unique units and technologies, revolutions with their own uniques, map dependent mercenaries and native allies with their own uniques and technologies.
So AoE3 is full of flavor and lots of options to mix bonuses and different gameplay, but even with all of that AoE2 is still a more popular and acclaimed game.

So let me get this straight . . . now we are complaining that there is too much good stuff for each civilization?

Dont take me wrong, I love content, flavor and complexity (also like both AoE2 and AoE3 in their own way) neither I am saying that CIV7 would be the same as AoE3, but looking to the AoE community many people actually think AoE2 is better with its simpler and homogeneous civ designs.

 

[Xandinho]

I really love that civs have a lot of unique bonuses and elements, as it allows each civ to have its unique flavor. Civ6 was the moment they finally made civs distinct enough, and I'm glad they've delved into that even more in Civ7. Obviously, there will be balance issues, but that's something they can easily address in updates.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

More asymmetry and uniqueness between civs is absolutely needed. I never feel like I’m playing as a fully-flavored civilization; I always feel like I’m playing the exact same game ad nauseum, albeit with just a dash of Greece or a pinch of Rome.

Switching to new civs each Age might alleviate that slightly, as might the more varied visual stylings. But the core problem likely remains.

This will be especially so if all the many civ specific abilities are just a long list of minor yield bonuses that don’t actually affect gameplay meaningfully, as seems to be the case.

The best civs from VI had one Big Idea that fundamentally changed the way you played the game. Babylon forced you to work around Eurekas. The Māori let you start in the deep Ocean and take a few turns to find the perfect spot to settle.

I’d much rather civs designed like that than ones with bonuses to yields that you’d never notice unless you’re min-maxing.

 

[dagriggstar]

There’s also the events system seemingly being tied to leader choice as well to consider from a bonus perspective…..

I agree that, for me, there is an overwhelming amount of bonuses that I’d have a really hard time explaining to my casual friends. But also, it always felt like the most popular mods were of the “add more stuff” variety, so I guess they are just giving people what they want.

One thing I was worried about was whether factions would actually have weaknesses or if they all have 30 different uniques each but they all play the same way because they all have access to similar sets of bonuses. From what I’ve seen so far it seems more like each bonus builds on a bonus you already have though, so I guess design wise it’s like you start with your bonus and the bonus gets stronger as you lean more into your faction’s identity.