evonannoredars
King
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2024
- Messages
- 651
I've been thinking a bit about what is and isn't working in Civ 7 for me. Some games, I'll be nearing the end of Antiquity and then realise some element of fun is missing. Had this yesterday at the start of a China-themed Confucius Han>Ming>Qing run where the first attempt felt really bog-standard and dull, but the restarted Antiquity game was way more fun.
While wondering why that was, I think it occured to me what the specific cause is. In antiquity, I had this one specific spot where I was guessing would be a great culture adjacency, and spent ages trying to get there which required suzing a hostile IP, going through a mountain pass that turned out to be blocked by a cliff, then eventually having to go round the coast (shared it in the screenshots thread here). In exploration, I'm currently having a really fun time trying to make the longest Great Wall I can. In both eras, I've got unique objectives.
I.e. there's a goal I've got that I need to plan ahead for and work towards a solution, and it's a goal that's specific to the game I'm playing. The main reasons I can think of why I find it harder to have situations like this in Civ 7 compared to Civ 6 (even though Civ 7 has way more possible variety and depth between different civ/leader combos) are:
While wondering why that was, I think it occured to me what the specific cause is. In antiquity, I had this one specific spot where I was guessing would be a great culture adjacency, and spent ages trying to get there which required suzing a hostile IP, going through a mountain pass that turned out to be blocked by a cliff, then eventually having to go round the coast (shared it in the screenshots thread here). In exploration, I'm currently having a really fun time trying to make the longest Great Wall I can. In both eras, I've got unique objectives.
I.e. there's a goal I've got that I need to plan ahead for and work towards a solution, and it's a goal that's specific to the game I'm playing. The main reasons I can think of why I find it harder to have situations like this in Civ 7 compared to Civ 6 (even though Civ 7 has way more possible variety and depth between different civ/leader combos) are:
- The terrain being so balanced means each settlement can be approached in the same way. Desert and tundra settlements no longer need extra planning to be successful.
- There aren't as many civs or leaders with abilities that make gameplay significantly different. I expect this to change with time, civs tend to get more experimental as devs get more experience with how they can bend and stretch the game. At the moment there's only a few which make the experience significantly different, eg. Carthage, Bulgaria and the Ming.
- All legacy paths are approached the same in each game. Victories were always kinda repetitive in civ 6, but only once you were approaching the final victory, the path leading up to it could be more varied. Here however, your main objectives in each era are always the same. Sure, you can ignore them, but then the need for some other unique objective is greater.
- Crises also often lack impact and/or visual presence. I love the barbarian invasion crisis, but the others can usually be ignored most of the time, except for the happiness one if you happen to be doing badly happiness-wise already.