Hotseat will not be available in Civ VII — A plea to FXS_Sar and Game Devs (POLL)

[criZp]

What does that last option mean?

After each turn you get out of your chair and do a jumping jack. Good for the circulation and allows for longer gaming sessions without feeling bad about yourself.

 

[pokiehl]

Not a ton of people use Hotseat but to those who do, it’s extremely important. I hope it comes back. A lot of couples and families use it. I liked to use it when I was in the same room as my friends.

 

[Vandlys]

What does that last option mean?

There are people that like to play on their own, but play multiple civs, so they use hot seat.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Not a ton of people use Hotseat but to those who do, it’s extremely important. I hope it comes back. A lot of couples and families use it. I liked to use it when I was in the same room as my friends.

Civ 5 did add it later, but it was and is still wonky so a post-launch does not give me hope.

 

[Cerilis]

That's very sad, I like playing single player hotseat in Civ6.

 

[Quintillus]

Moderator Action: Added an option equivalent to 0% at the end of the poll. Posts above this that refer to the "last option" refer to "I played the game hot seat but as a single player"

 

[pokiehl]

Civ 5 did add it later, but it was and is still wonky so a post-launch does not give me hope.

I may be misremembering but I thought Civ 5 online MP was wonky, not hotseat. I don’t recall any limited diplo actions or AI gimping like regular Civ 5 MP had.

Actually another thing I really preferred about Civ 5 hotseat is it didn’t have that extremely annoying “Please wait…” pop up between turns that Civ 6 hotseat has. I hated that screen.

 

[Quintillus]

I don't think I've ever played hotseat in Civ. Primarily because of the time it adds on to multiplayer games over simultaneous turns. Even if my friends and I are in the same location, and even if we're playing III or IV rather than VI, we'll do simultaneous turns.

I have played the equivalent of hotseat Total War this year, as not all iterations of that series (maybe not any?) support simultaneous turn multiplayer. It's not bad, if my friend has a long turn, I can do catch up on the mail or start the laundry.

Probably the biggest downside to not having it is the use case pokiehl mentioned. It's potentially a gateway to the series to youngsters or couples who see others playing it and can be brought on board that way.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I may be misremembering but I thought Civ 5 online MP was wonky, not hotseat. I don’t recall any limited diplo actions or AI gimping like regular Civ 5 MP had.

Actually another thing I really preferred about Civ 5 MP is it didn’t have that extremely annoying “Please wait…” pop up between turns that Civ 6 hotseat has. I hated that screen.

I mean MP in 5 was generally horrendous

But there were few issues that Hotseat had (glitched trade proposals being one of them), and honestly the whole human to human experience felt very shallow.

6 came in with Hotseat and it felt more rounded out, could even ask not to do certain things.

However, 5 hotseat was also poorly optimized, there is a glitch that if you switch views, the resource icons would not clear up meaning someone who discovered Iron but the next person didn't would see where Iron is from resource icons.

I also think there is a case where yield icons get corrupt and stop loading in making it difficult to see yields if the nations are nearby.

I don't think I've ever played hotseat in Civ. Primarily because of the time it adds on to multiplayer games over simultaneous turns. Even if my friends and I are in the same location, and even if we're playing III or IV rather than VI, we'll do simultaneous turns.

I have played the equivalent of hotseat Total War this year, as not all iterations of that series (maybe not any?) support simultaneous turn multiplayer. It's not bad, if my friend has a long turn, I can do catch up on the mail or start the laundry.

Probably the biggest downside to not having it is the use case pokiehl mentioned. It's potentially a gateway to the series to youngsters or couples who see others playing it and can be brought on board that way.

I play it, in 5/6 with 18 players, all me, just to enjoy the game and not have to have the extra stress off "If I don't do this now I'll lose". It allows me to not play optimally, but instead actually enjoy the game's mechanics and "roleplay" a little.

It's also just a fundemental aspect of a Turn Based game and I judge any game that leaves it out (looking at you Humankind)

 

[pokiehl]

Probably the biggest downside to not having it is the use case pokiehl mentioned. It's potentially a gateway to the series to youngsters or couples who see others playing it and can be brought on board that way.

Yep…hotseat is actually how I got into the series. Some of my fondest memories of Civ involve hotseat. I hate to think others won’t be able to have those experiences.

 

[Vandlys]

Yep…hotseat is actually how I got into the series. Some of my fondest memories of Civ involve hotseat. I hate to think others won’t be able to have those experiences.

Same for me. And I love people saying we play simultaneous turns when together, but honestly I don't always find the space for multiple computers and screens...

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I chose 100%, but then the actual playtime of hotseat as a percentage of my entire playtime (multi+single player) would be a mere 1-5%

 

[aieeegrunt]

This is like 343 removing splitscreen and couch Co Op from Halo

The entire vibe of this reveal, right down to the discussions around it, are giving me a tremendous Fallout 76/Halo Infinite vibe where a franchise throws it’s core identity under the bus to chase trends and online multiplayer monetization.

Hotseat/Split screen is a great canary in the coal mine for that attitude, because to a corporate monetization muppet someone playing hot seat “is a lost sale”.

If there is a common thread in these design decisions, it’s making the game more online multiplayer streamlined. I see they are already using the S-word as well.

 

[Takfloyd]

Hotseat has never worked in Civ because it makes it so only one player gets to see what the AI is doing.

Instead of removing the mode entirely though, I would have liked it to be fixed. Make the world map fully visible without fog of war for hotseat, then it would work, even if at the cost of a major appeal of the game.

 

[fossar_]

Im probably close to 2k hours across Civ 5 and 6. I have played hotseat once; on a laptop, in the back of a car, with my mate while we were driven by a friend through some Norwegian mountains.
Needless to say that is a very small part of my gameplay.
Needless to say there's no other way we could've done it.
Hopefully needless to say we had a lot of fun doing it.

 

[Atlas627]

I play solo hotseat quite frequently, to get around the atrocious AI and also the ludicrous AI bonuses, both of which make the game feel horribly unbalanced. If they get rid of it, I'll just spend more time playing other things.

 

[Liksomkatt]

Oh, no! This is very disappointing to me too. I have primarily played previous Civ games with a friend, sitting on the sofa together, drinking beers and having fun. My current Civ friend and I always play as allies (team), so we don't have to worry about hiding information from each other.

Hot seat is my absolute favourite way to play Civ. I've never enjoyed hanging out with people remotely over voice chat / video chat, as it's never the same enjoyment as meeting and talking in person.

This might lead me to not play Civ VII at all, which is a letdown, considering how promising I think it looks.

 

[Thormodr]

I haven't used hotseat for many years but I remember playing Civ I with hotseat a lot. So fun!

I hope they add this in. I think it is wonderful that couples and families use it.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I'm actually very upset about this, playing hotseat with myself, roleplaying each nation is still one of my favorite ways to play the game, I don't want a half-baked version of this in 7.

Same here. Roleplaying your world, attributing wonders to each civ rather than being in a race for it, carefully balancing what is done, creating History...

Especially in Civ 7 where the storytelling aspect of it (through the Ages, building your civilization through hardship...) seems so emphasized.

Well, we'll see if the rest of the game is enough...

 

[Olleus]

I've had the same history with the series as the OP, except I don't think I've ever played hotseat. Still, I think not having it is stupid.

Some people obviously like it, it's a natural thing to have, and there's no reason not to have it.

The implementation of it ought to be close to trivial: save game, edit save file to change which player is playable, load save file - just add a screen off the main game menu to set it up. You could probably even write a script that does it manually even if it's not in the game, as long as the save file isn't encrypted. Hell, I wrote my own 4X game for fun a few years back (in python of all stupid decisions I've made), never finished it, but I still had a hot-seat game mode in it. It's that easy to do.