How many civs are needed, for the civ switching, to work well, for the general public?

[Australopithecine]

I think that civ switching gets increasingly better with more civs, since there are then more natural paths to traverse, though the ages.

When there are not enough options, you end up with an 'All civs lead to Buganda' situation or you have to make really tenuous jumps to get to get to where you might want to be.

It makes 'blob' civs and expansive empires more appealing, since they can 'hook up' in more ways than others.
European history is highly interwoven, so it is easy to establish chains there.
Other regions, like China, needs to be represented across multiple eras, and have a more linear history.

So, where's the tipping point?
How many civs would you need,for it to feel like you have, at least, equivalent value to previous incarnations?

And how strong must the ties between civs be, to not feel like a stretch?

 

[moysturfurmer]

Age 1 10 Base +15 DLC
Age 2 10 Base +15 DLC
Age 3 10 Base +15 DLC
Age 4 +12 DLC

 

[Leyrann]

For the general public?

Frankly I think 10 per era will be enough for the general public.

For the general Civfanatics public, you'd probably need something like 25 per era though.

In line with the above comment, I suspect that'll roughly be the starting and final amount of civilizations. Maybe a bit higher on the starting count.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'd say a minimum of 10 civs/Age with a likely release amount of 12-15 civs/Age.

There may not be complete parity between Ages. The Modern may have fewer civs, for example.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

To be honest, I think it depends both on how many Civs overall are available in the game, and also how many choices you have per Civ (or Leader).

IF you are given only a maximum of 2 - 3 choices per Civ, then you will need a lot of Civs with very distinct characteristics to keep the Replay potential high.

IF you have a wide variety of potential choices for each Civ, then Even If They Are Not Historical Choices the replay value will be much greater.

This is why I firmly feel that for the game to be as great as success as Civ VI was commercially, they have to include Options for, under certain circumstances, Any Civ to be chosen as a Succession for Any Other Civ.

Egypt 'historically' becomes Songhai or Abbasid? Fine, but there should also be an in-game circumstance for each that allows any other Civ to choose them in the right in-game circumstances. Following along from the Mongol example (3 Horse Resources), perhaps Songhai could be chosen by any Civ that has at least 2 cities with navigable rivers in their radius. Abbasids might have a Religious trigger (numbers of Altars?).

There should always be that 'third option' which is available under in-game circumstances, in addition to the 'fixed' historicalish options the game provides.

Given that application of the Succession Mechanic, I think a very Replayable Game could be made with as few as 8 - 12 Civs per Age. Given the unlimited potential of pairing Civs with Leaders, that gives me 64 choices to start as a minimum, which combined with starting map variety and future Age choices should keep most of us playing until the first DLCs come out.

I think any DLCs should concentrate not just on adding Antiquity Civs to provide more variety in Initial Choice, but also on adding Civs in the 2nd and 3rd Age to keep the variety of Succession Choices as high as possible as well.

 

[j51]

I love antiquity and hope for more new civs for that era, but in antiquity there is the 5 civ limit on standard maps. That could mean they could have less civs in antiquity than the other eras. But I dunno.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I love antiquity and hope for more new civs for that era, but in antiquity there is the 5 civ limit on standard maps. That could mean they could have less civs in antiquity than the other eras. But I dunno.

I would be very, very surprised if PCs, at least, didn't get larger sized maps in the very near post-release future - at least two larger sizes.

More importantly, even with a 5 Civ limit that doesn't mean the game should have no more than 5 total choices: choosing 5 out of 8 - 15 simply increases the variety of in-game situations you play with: pick the same Civ and Leader every time, and you can still get a variety of gaming experiences based on the combinations of Civs and Leaders you are playing against.

 

[j51]

No I just meant that for the same amount of variety antiquity could have say 12 antique civs in the base game but the other eras could have 18. Because antiquity seems to always be smaller than the later eras in a single game. I was by no means implying only 5 civs to choose from! That would be no fun.

 

[Xandinho]

Will we really only have the 5 civs limit on standard maps? Some people have said that this might only apply to Multiplayer and not Single Player.

 

[dagriggstar]

I guess each faction would need at least one lets say at least 10% plausible path. Rome to Normans for instance, well we could argue that part of the fall of the Romans was related to the migration of new peoples into the empire while the Normans were a people that became powerful after migrating into new areas that were previously (but not directly) occupied by the Roman empire.

For me down the line, I think we'd need 2 options that could be slightly plausible historically for each faction. Seems a bit weird to me to play as only one linear Chinese/Indian choice for example. I'm not as much a fan of Greece into the Normans for instance, but for the base game okay I guess there aren't that many slots.....

 

[AriochIV]

We already know of 26 civilizations (assuming there are 3 Chinese civs), and 10 of them are in the Exploration Age. If there are an even number of civs in each Age, that means at least 9 per Age (Shawnee is a bonus and so might not count).

Some of these may be wrong or in the wrong Ages, but this is about where we are:

Antiquity

1. Aksum
2. (Ancient China)
3. Egypt
4. Greece
5. Maurya
6. Maya
7. (Mesopotamia)
8. (Polynesia)
9. Rome

Exploration

1. Abbasids
2. Chola
3. (Exploration China)
4. (Inca)
5. (Khmer)
6. Mongolia
7. Normans
8. Songhai
9. Spain
10. Shawnee

Modern

1. (America)
2. Buganda
3. Britain
4. France
5. Japan
6. (Modern China)
7. Mughal

If there are 10 per Age, I think that will be a little thin but it will work okay. 30 civs on release is already unprecedented, so I don't think we can expect more, even though it will feel like half the usual 20 starting civs.

 

[Black Gate]

Ideally, every antiquity civ has a decently plausible throughline to the present, and vice-versa exploration and modern civs have a "good enough" antiquity choice. If they stuck to strict definitions of the boundaries of ages, that's going to be hard for many parts of the world so I suspect some areas will push "antiquity" much closer to the present than say, the Middle East. I agree that 10 per age probably fits a bare minimum that will feel more and more comfortable with DLC.

To be honest, I think it depends both on how many Civs overall are available in the game, and also how many choices you have per Civ (or Leader).

IF you are given only a maximum of 2 - 3 choices per Civ, then you will need a lot of Civs with very distinct characteristics to keep the Replay potential high.

IF you have a wide variety of potential choices for each Civ, then Even If They Are Not Historical Choices the replay value will be much greater.

This is why I think some of the "linear" civilisations like India, China, maybe even Japan, will probably end up with an extra civ probably in the Exploration Age. If you get tired of going Han -> Ming -> Qing every game, the insertion of the Tang or Song for the historically minded that doesn't wish to become the Aztecs out of the blue increases your replay value.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Ideally, every antiquity civ has a decently plausible throughline to the present, and vice-versa exploration and modern civs have a "good enough" antiquity choice. If they stuck to strict definitions of the boundaries of ages, that's going to be hard for many parts of the world so I suspect some areas will push "antiquity" much closer to the present than say, the Middle East. I agree that 10 per age probably fits a bare minimum that will feel more and more comfortable with DLC.


This is why I think some of the "linear" civilisations like India, China, maybe even Japan, will probably end up with an extra civ probably in the Exploration Age. If you get tired of going Han -> Ming -> Qing every game, the insertion of the Tang or Song for the historically minded that doesn't wish to become the Aztecs out of the blue increases your replay value.

It really depends on how many civs we see added to the game.

Personally, I would prefer split paths represent splits or unifications in polity. Like Japan could have Edo Japan and the Ainu coexist pretty comfortably before being unified in the Meiji era. Similarly, I would prefer we get Tibet alongside Ming, instead of the Tang as an extemporaneous evolution/predecessor of Han/Ming. I am not sure if this would be acceptable under current Chinese politics, given that it kind of flies against some propaganda they have been putting out that Tibet was annexed during the Tang dynasty, but I think it would make for a richer game and maybe not totally alienate China.

I think my big hope, which will probably be shattered, are some better interwoven paths for the Americas than just "Mississippian path." Ideally, I would like:

* Mississippian -> Shawnee or Taino -> Lakota or America or Cuba/Haiti
* Pueblo -> Navajo/Apache or Aztec -> Lakota or America or Mexico
* Muisca (almost Arawakan but we settle for what we got) -> Inca, Guarani or Taino (or Mapuche!?) -> Brazil or Argentina (or Gran Colombia)

I would also like some sort of Canadian equivalent if we can swing it, although I think the Cree likely are not appearing again given that their inclusion seemed to involve a lot of very special interactions with tribe members. Maybe Inuit -> Haida/Tlingit or Sakha/Yakut/Sibera -> Lakota or Canada or Russia, but that feels stretchy.

I do believe that if given enough DLC/expansions, the three era system could feel pretty solid, but I think it will take a LOT of additional civilizations to pull it off and that is a lot of faith to place in a franchise that really just wants to rattle off England/France/Spain/Germany/Netherlands/Russia/Egypt/Byzantium/Babylon again and again and again. A lot could go wrong; look at VI, which in my opinion only got about 3/4 of the way through its thesis before giving up and selling alternate leaders.

 

[Leyrann]

I love antiquity and hope for more new civs for that era, but in antiquity there is the 5 civ limit on standard maps. That could mean they could have less civs in antiquity than the other eras. But I dunno.

No, multiplayer is limited to 5 players in antiquity.

That does not have to mean:
-that the total number of civs, including AI-controlled, is limited to 5.
-that the game-wide total number of civs (including other continents) is limited to 5.
-that the singleplayer number of civs is limited to 5.
-that the map size in singleplayer is limited like the map size in multiplayer might be.

I would be extremely surprised if a singleplayer game has a limit of 5 civs in antiquity. I'm expecting a regular 12 civs on a huge map, with perhaps 7-8 of those on the old continent (although perhaps you can have a 3-continent game in setup as well?), and for an antiquity-era only playthrough they might even have separate limits, allowing you to play with 12 civs on a single continent for the antiquity era. And that's ignoring the potential for adding extra players on a certain map size - in Civ VI, the limit without mods is 16 civs if I remember correctly.

 

[AriochIV]

No, multiplayer is limited to 5 players in antiquity.

That does not have to mean:
-that the total number of civs, including AI-controlled, is limited to 5.
-that the game-wide total number of civs (including other continents) is limited to 5.
-that the singleplayer number of civs is limited to 5.
-that the map size in singleplayer is limited like the map size in multiplayer might be.

I would be extremely surprised if a singleplayer game has a limit of 5 civs in antiquity. I'm expecting a regular 12 civs on a huge map, with perhaps 7-8 of those on the old continent (although perhaps you can have a 3-continent game in setup as well?), and for an antiquity-era only playthrough they might even have separate limits, allowing you to play with 12 civs on a single continent for the antiquity era. And that's ignoring the potential for adding extra players on a certain map size - in Civ VI, the limit without mods is 16 civs if I remember correctly.

Well, even a single-player map with AI opponents is going to be limited by the smallest number of available civs in a particular Age. I don't expect that to be much more than 10 in the initial release.

 

[Krikkit1]

Will we really only have the 5 civs limit on standard maps? Some people have said that this might only apply to Multiplayer and not Single Player.

I’m pretty sure that is MP only

 

[chaosprophet]

This is why I firmly feel that for the game to be as great as success as Civ VI was commercially, they have to include Options for, under certain circumstances, Any Civ to be chosen as a Succession for Any Other Civ.

Isn't that confirmed to be the case? The AI will always pick the historical path if available (maybe there would be an option to deactivate that but no confirmation so far), but the player can pick any civ on the next age if they meet that civ unlocking requirements.

Well, even a single-player map with AI opponents is going to be limited by the smallest number of available civs in a particular Age. I don't expect that to be much more than 10 in the initial release.

At least from blurred images on the discussion here seems like at least 13 antiquity civs on that build, which may not even be the final.

 

[j51]

I just meant that it sounds like in a full game there will always be less civs on the map in antiquity compared to exploration. Therefore the game could have a smaller selection of antiquity civs overall and still get a similar random selection in each era. That is if antiquity always does have less civs than the subsequent exploration era AND if the added civs in exploration are only spawned ex nihilo during the transition to exploration. But I don’t know if that’s how it works.

 

[Arent11]

I think that civ switching gets increasingly better with more civs, since there are then more natural paths to traverse, though the ages.

When there are not enough options, you end up with an 'All civs lead to Buganda' situation or you have to make really tenuous jumps to get to get to where you might want to be.

It makes 'blob' civs and expansive empires more appealing, since they can 'hook up' in more ways than others.
European history is highly interwoven, so it is easy to establish chains there.
Other regions, like China, needs to be represented across multiple eras, and have a more linear history.

So, where's the tipping point?
How many civs would you need,for it to feel like you have, at least, equivalent value to previous incarnations?

And how strong must the ties between civs be, to not feel like a stretch?

Maybe you would need to define several civilizations (Western, Middle East, African, Asian, Middle American) and then define at least 3 for each.

That would still be pretty ahistorical, but at least we wouldn't have Chinese burning down Firaxis Headquarters because they are ruled by Mongols or Egypt becoming Buganda.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Isn't that confirmed to be the case? The AI will always pick the historical path if available (maybe there would be an option to deactivate that but no confirmation so far), but the player can pick any civ on the next age if they meet that civ unlocking requirements.

Exactly.
My quibble is that we have not seen unlocking requirements for any Civ that is part of a Historicalish path, like Songhai/Abbasids for Egypt. I think there should be in-game unlock for ALL Civs, so that if they are not picked in a 'historical' path they are available to others that meet the requirements.

That would break the progressions wide open, at least potentially: you could still, and the AI as a default would be coded to, pick a designed 'historical' (sorry, but I can't bring myself not to put historical in quotes given the choices we've seen) but would also have the possibility of picking whatever is still available and you have the requirements for.