How to repair the Age transition system -not a civ game- opinions and suggestions

[aelf]

I do think you could probably fake a "classic mode", where if you want to play a civ outside of their era, you basically get a generic civ. So no UU, no wonder, and maybe at most you get like a generic civics tree with like some basic/random bonuses. If you skip the UU/UB/UI part of things, the rest can be defined without any additional art components, so you could even slightly tailor the bonuses to the civ, at least to make sure that a modern are Maya is still like a science/jungle civ. Intentionally you'd have a "worse" civ since they're not set up for the era, but maybe some people would like that enough for the "continuity" sake that they could live with that.

I suspect a lot of players will be unhappy with this. A lot of people will resent their chosen civ being underpowered while also wanting to keep playing as one civ throughout.

I think there's no getting around the fact what people wanted is Civ 6 2.0. It wouldn't be good for the series in the long run, but it'd be just another instance of people driving something into the ground because they can't think beyond the past and present.

 

[Siptah]

I suspect a lot of players will be unhappy with this. A lot of people will resent their chosen civ being underpowered while also wanting to keep playing as one civ throughout.

I really don't know. I posed a similar question civ switching skeptics in these forums once, I can't remember whether before or shortly after release though. Many responses were: I don't care whether the civ X is underpowered and only has bonuses in one age, but I want to play X from start to finish. And I mean, people are used to this. Balance between late and early civs has been out of the window since civ 3. It's just that for someone like me, who likes civ 7 and how each civ is always filled to the brim with uniques and bonuses, loosing these for 2/3 of the game seems a giant step back. But for people that never played a civ game like that...

 

[aelf]

I really don't know. I posed a similar question civ switching skeptics in these forums once, I can't remember whether before or shortly after release though. Many responses were: I don't care whether the civ X is underpowered and only has bonuses in one age, but I want to play X from start to finish. And I mean, people are used to this. Balance between late and early civs has been out of the window since civ 3. It's just that for someone like me, who likes civ 7 and how each civ is always filled to the brim with uniques and bonuses, loosing these for 2/3 of the game seems a giant step back. But for people that never played a civ game like that...

People say that, but... I doubt it. Judging from the kind of complaints the game gets everywhere. A lot of them speak to people being impossible to please if they're already predisposed to be negative.

Previously, civ-switching wasn't an option, so you chose your civ with the understanding that it might only stand out in a specific period in the game. With civ-switching, you can stand out throughout the game if you switch civs. But if you don't switch, then tough luck, and I'm betting that many people who don't want to switch will feel shortchanged.

 

[_hero_]

I find it fascinating that some people are moralizing a game about building a global superpower because it could appeal to nationalists. This is a game where you can genocide other nations—a game where fascism is an ideology you can adopt—a game where one of the victory conditions encourages you to slaughter opposing ideologies and ultimately develop the technology for dropping atomic bombs on them. All these things are perfectly acceptable, but the possibility that someone might want to do so as a specific culture from the dawn of history, instead of just in the modern age, is what is morally unacceptable.

 

[Sagax]

I suspect a lot of players will be unhappy with this. A lot of people will resent their chosen civ being underpowered while also wanting to keep playing as one civ throughout.

I think there's no getting around the fact what people wanted is Civ 6 2.0. It wouldn't be good for the series in the long run, but it'd be just another instance of people driving something into the ground because they can't think beyond the past and present.

IMO you just made two strong assumptions that pigeonhole you into a single doom-and-gloom conclusion.

1. No, I don’t think we have any clear indication that people in favor of civ-keeping also demand equal power level with age-relevant civs. It would be great if that was possible, but is it really a deal-breaker if not? Could be a good idea for a new thread/poll.

2. Please define Civ 6 2.0. Looking at how Civ 7 is currently built, I can see a somewhat tangible concept where everything in this game is left as-is, but civ-switching is removed (yes, while keeping the age system as a whole AND the detached leaders). Would that be Civ 6 2.0?

 

[aelf]

IMO you just made two strong assumptions that pigeonhole you into a single doom-and-gloom conclusion.

1. No, I don’t think we have any clear indication that people in favor of civ-keeping also demand equal power level with age-relevant civs. It would be great if that was possible, but is it really a deal-breaker if not? Could be a good idea for a new thread/poll.

2. Please define Civ 6 2.0. Looking at how Civ 7 is currently built, I can see a somewhat tangible concept where everything in this game is left as-is, but civ-switching is removed (yes, while keeping the age system as a whole AND the detached leaders). Would that be Civ 6 2.0?

All I can say is I've seen a lot of complaints about the game on different platforms over the past few months. It doesn't fill me with confidence that anything short of absolute familiarity will do. Any pain point will be magnified be a few fold.

 

[Kwami]

I think there's no getting around the fact what people wanted is Civ 6 2.0. It wouldn't be good for the series in the long run, but it'd be just another instance of people driving something into the ground because they can't think beyond the past and present.

I think that if we got Civ VI 2.0 (which would really be Civ V 3.0!), you'd just see a different set of people complaining that the franchise is stale and that Firaxis is ripping us off by charging so much for what's essentially the same game that we've already been playing for the last decade.

You can't please everyone. I'm glad that Firaxis made big changes and tried some new things. I couldn't possibly care any less about nationalism.

Most of the people complaining about this game's core systems seem to have very low post counts and haven't even played the game. So, eh.

 

[Siptah]

I find it fascinating that some people are moralizing a game about building a global superpower because it could appeal to nationalists. This is a game where you can genocide other nations—a game where fascism is an ideology you can adopt—a game where one of the victory conditions encourages you to slaughter opposing ideologies and ultimately develop the technology for dropping atomic bombs on them. All these things are perfectly acceptable, but the possibility that someone might want to do so as a specific culture from the dawn of history, instead of just in the modern age, is what is morally unacceptable.

Eh, it's not quite the same, I'd say. One is a choice, and players don't usually perceive themselves as the genocidal psychopaths when playing in a way that is... well, that of a genocidal psychopath. Promoting a worldview of monolithic cultures on the other hand is no choice for the player. It's the theoretical framework with which many games and some people's views operate, despite being not a very accurate one. Yet, without it, we would probably not know that much about history, as many of the campaigns and reasons why history was/is deemed important revolve around nation-building. And I'm pretty sure that without it, we wouldn't have the Sid Meier's Civilization franchise.

(But to be fair, things like fascism or democracy have always been caricatures in civ games - just like the civs themselves. It's hard to take them or for example civ IV's slavery seriously imho.)

 

[aelf]

I think that if we got Civ VI 2.0 (which would really be Civ V 3.0!), you'd just see a different set of people complaining that the franchise is stale and that Firaxis is ripping us off by charging so much for what's essentially the same game that we've already been playing for the last decade.

You can't please everyone. I'm glad that Firaxis made big changes and tried some new things. I couldn't possibly care any less about nationalism.

Most of the people complaining about this game's core systems seem to have very low post counts and haven't even played the game. So, eh.

I agree with you. But I think this is where the modern gaming landscape and digital culture as a whole have brought us.

In my line of work, I work closely with users. While earlier in the digital age, learning a new UI, for example, was just something you had to do, now the mantra is "Don't make me think (about what I don't want to think about)." Partly related to this is the concept of mental models. These concepts make for good design practice in general - you want to make it as convenient as possible for users to use a product. But applying this, shall I say, mindset to a medium of art brings a lot of undesirable consequences. And, unfortunately, "Don't make me think" (and, by extension, "Why fix what ain't broke") is what users/consumers have come to expect. Some of this can be overcome with better design (e.g. good, transparent UI), but I believe there's always going to be a surfeit of resistance purely due to the shift in user mindset.

(Of course, running parallel to this is the trend of ensh-ittification, which muddles things by turning the discourse into a binary conflict between cynical commercial exploitation and consumer rights. It's really more complicated than that.)

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I think that if we got Civ VI 2.0 (which would really be Civ V 3.0!), you'd just see a different set of people complaining that the franchise is stale and that Firaxis is ripping us off by charging so much for what's essentially the same game that we've already been playing for the last decade.

You can't please everyone. I'm glad that Firaxis made big changes and tried some new things. I couldn't possibly care any less about nationalism.

Most of the people complaining about this game's core systems seem to have very low post counts and haven't even played the game. So, eh.

Literally noone in this thread could care less about nationalism. You've latched onto a word used by someone for which English is not their first language. It's a game, not a political treatise.

I think the mistake really is trying to force out a sequel for the sake of it. They've had to justify a change that clearly wasn't ready to be released because they have to release a new game. Gamers don't need new games if the current ones are good enough. Look at AOE2, look at Skyrim, there are dozens of games across different genres that still get massive daily play counts from being quality, and still get support from their developers. Personally I don't think we need Civ VII or Civ VI 2.0

 

[aelf]

^ Case in point. And I don't mean this negatively at all. Just an illustration of what I was just talking about.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I think there's no getting around the fact what people wanted is Civ 6 2.0

Exactly, and i must admit, i‘m one of those peoples. I wanted a Civ6 with more realistic and even more beautiful graphics as in Civ6… this is clear to me now. So, your sentence is percent true in my case.

 

[CivKirk64]

Totally fine perspective, but from my perspective, why would I buy a civilization game for that experience when it's not what I load up civilization for, and wouldn't buy a game like it (skipped humankind completely, not my bag). By all means have fun with it, and no one's saying don't if you can't, but for those of us who just don't like it, and who don't buy the game just because it's a civilization brand game, this is the information we want to get to firaxis to make our purchase happen.

They read these forums, as poor as they are at communicating with us right now I'm reasonably confident they are listening, crying a bit over how on earth they are going to bodge back in the old school experience that they've lost half their playerbase from ditching, and grafting to work it out.

I'm 90% confident they're going to mess it up and still won't get my purchase based on what I've seen of their delivery standard around the product they actually wanted to make though, so I'm not exactly optimistic about a compromised version they force back in 7. So for me this is about influence for 8 when I hope to hop back in the franchise

I still don't understand the position.

You still are still trying to carry your civ all the way through beginning to end, you just evolve along the way.
You always have something relevant to play with, that isn't obsolete in 30 turns. I've played hundreds of games where I've rolled through my advantage and just been Mr. Vanila Civ the rest of the game or worse the Waiting till modern age to finally use my super airplane against AI player that doesn't build airplanes.

If its between Eras and the old way, I don't really want to go back unless they have a new quasi-unique system, where say Economic civs get Markets+ to tide them over until they get their real bonus. And/or a bonus system unlocked by leaning into the civ advantages to carry you the rest of the game.

 

[Arcaian]

Literally noone in this thread could care less about nationalism. You've latched onto a word used by someone for which English is not their first language. It's a game, not a political treatise.

The entirely point of this thread is nationalism. The entire thesis is "every civ should get a unique path from the antiquity through to the modern age, because the majority of players (except India and China) around the world can't see their own civilization stand the test of time". The two assumptions here - the first that all modern players should have a nation through which they define themselves and which can be traced back in time to antiquity by connection to one culture/group of people; the second is that India and China already have this. Both of these are fundamentally nationalist. Nationalism is not inherently bad - though it can certainly easily be used badly, and I argue we have too much of it in most parts of the modern world - but it's not an insult, it's just a true statement about what is fueling these arguments. Functionally all modern states are made up of a patchwork of peoples, and a national identity has been created through which to unify the people of the state. Belief in that identity is not inherently wrong, but projecting it back in time to before it existed is where you very easily enter into dangerously incorrect arguments that are used to fuel modern-day violence, which is the (at least my) primary issue with this argument. As an example, "French people" as a concept did not really exist until nationalism invented the category - the Basque people in the southwest of France, Occitainia in the southeast of France, Burgundy along the eastern border of France, Brittany in the northwest, the areas around the royal domain, and Normandy in the north were all clearly distinct groups without a clear unifying identity. This began to develop in some way after the Hundred Years War, but realistically it wasn't until after the time of the French Revolution or even Napoleon that there was a clear national identity, and many of the groups I mentioned above still don't identify as strongly with that national identity as with their regional one. And this is in one of the countries in which nationalism has been present the longest! Because of that, projecting the modern French identity backwards and trying to say "these people were the French of the exploration era" or "these people were the French of antiquity" is just not something you can do with any accuracy - for example, some people living in France around the Pyrenees would rather have something like Celtiberian -> Aragon -> Catalonia path, Bretons might want a [some sort of Celtic group] -> Kingdom of Brittany -> France path, and Normandy might go for a Norse -> Norman -> French path, instead of the presumed "accurate" nationalist version of something like Frankish -> Medieval France -> Modern France. Saying that the last one is the correct one and should be in game relies on projecting the nationalist identity of "French" backwards in a way that is not grounded in history, but grounded in belief in that unified French identity. It is nationalist, definitionally.

 

[MutilationWave]

The entirely point of this thread is nationalism. The entire thesis is "every civ should get a unique path from the antiquity through to the modern age, because the majority of players (except India and China) around the world can't see their own civilization stand the test of time". The two assumptions here - the first that all modern players should have a nation through which they define themselves and which can be traced back in time to antiquity by connection to one culture/group of people; the second is that India and China already have this. Both of these are fundamentally nationalist. Nationalism is not inherently bad - though it can certainly easily be used badly, and I argue we have too much of it in most parts of the modern world - but it's not an insult, it's just a true statement about what is fueling these arguments. Functionally all modern states are made up of a patchwork of peoples, and a national identity has been created through which to unify the people of the state. Belief in that identity is not inherently wrong, but projecting it back in time to before it existed is where you very easily enter into dangerously incorrect arguments that are used to fuel modern-day violence, which is the (at least my) primary issue with this argument. As an example, "French people" as a concept did not really exist until nationalism invented the category - the Basque people in the southwest of France, Occitainia in the southeast of France, Burgundy along the eastern border of France, Brittany in the northwest, the areas around the royal domain, and Normandy in the north were all clearly distinct groups without a clear unifying identity. This began to develop in some way after the Hundred Years War, but realistically it wasn't until after the time of the French Revolution or even Napoleon that there was a clear national identity, and many of the groups I mentioned above still don't identify as strongly with that national identity as with their regional one. And this is in one of the countries in which nationalism has been present the longest! Because of that, projecting the modern French identity backwards and trying to say "these people were the French of the exploration era" or "these people were the French of antiquity" is just not something you can do with any accuracy - for example, some people living in France around the Pyrenees would rather have something like Celtiberian -> Aragon -> Catalonia path, Bretons might want a [some sort of Celtic group] -> Kingdom of Brittany -> France path, and Normandy might go for a Norse -> Norman -> French path, instead of the presumed "accurate" nationalist version of something like Frankish -> Medieval France -> Modern France. Saying that the last one is the correct one and should be in game relies on projecting the nationalist identity of "French" backwards in a way that is not grounded in history, but grounded in belief in that unified French identity. It is nationalist, definitionally.

Very much agreed. Here's an example- me. I live in the US. Our national identity hasn't been great, even claiming that we won world war two when the Russians lost 22 million people compared to our 450k. As of right now our national identity is in the toilet. And our history of genocide and slavery isn't great to put it mildly.

Instead of a US flag, I fly the flag of my state, West Virginia. Although we have our problems with poverty, drug addiction, racism, and anti-intellectualism to name a few, we have an amazing history. From breaking with Virginia to join the right side in the civil war, to John Brown my hero even though I'm not religious, to the incredible difficulties labor went through to combat capitalist greed. To the point where laborers went to war and were literally bombed by early airplanes.

Racially I have roots in Native people, African slaves, and Irish and German immigrants. I don't identify with any of that as race is just a social concept anyway. So I identify more strongly as West Virginian than I do as US American. The majority of my family were coal miners crushed by a greedy boot, and that is an important identity to remember.

 

[Xur]

If we can't have nationalism in a game about civilizations and history, then they might as well just stop selling the games and close the studio. I'm sorry, but that is the dumbest thing I've heard so far on this site.

 

[MutilationWave]

If we can't have nationalism in a game about civilizations and history, then they might as well just stop selling the games and close the studio. I'm sorry, but that is the dumbest thing I've heard so far on this site.

The problem here is that there are different definitions of nationalism and people are talking past each other. Yes it is a core concept in Civ, one that should never be removed.

But for some people they hear nationalism and they immediately think Nazis. Therefore the word will always have a negative connotation to it.

Right now in the real world nationalism is being used to justify horrific things in China, India, the US, Israel, and elsewhere. So people are conflating this with the historical definition of the term. Nationalism is incredibly powerful and will always induce debate.

 

[Arcaian]

If we can't have nationalism in a game about civilizations and history, then they might as well just stop selling the games and close the studio. I'm sorry, but that is the dumbest thing I've heard so far on this site.

I don't think anyone has said we can't have nationalism; it obviously would be almost impossible to remove it entirely from the series, given the core premise of the series. The core objection that is being had here, at least by me, is justifying the introduction of a civ purely by projecting the constructed national identity created by nationalism backwards in history to a period of time in which it did not exist. It is historically incorrect, and is used to justify some pretty terrible things - so it shouldn't be the reason we advocate for specific civs to be added. If you want to advocate for the addition of a Briton civ (or maybe Iceni, and go a bit more specific) civ because they're interesting historically and you've got a cool idea for how they could work, that's absolutely great. But if the primary reason you have that the Britons should be there is because "Briton -> England -> Great Britain" is the 'correct' path to get to Great Britain, then it's both a boring reason to add a civ in terms of gameplay (you don't think it has interesting historical things? there's no fun game design? there's no niche available here?), but it also is directly parroting the arguments that only certain people get to count as British in the modern day, which is used to justify all sorts of harm. It is bad game design, and it is buying into harmful nonsense - there's no reason to do it, and the game doesn't need to have paths constructed around modern national identities. If there's an interesting idea for a Byzantine civ, but no obvious Modern civ to tie it into that would be worth including by its own merit, for example, then we can just include the Byzantines without a modern national successor, and that's fine.

 

[Kwami]

The problem here is that there are different definitions of nationalism and people are talking past each other. Yes it is a core concept in Civ, one that should never be removed.

But for some people they hear nationalism and they immediately think Nazis. Therefore the word will always have a negative connotation to it.

Right now in the real world nationalism is being used to justify horrific things in China, India, the US, Israel, and elsewhere. So people are conflating this with the historical definition of the term. Nationalism is incredibly powerful and will always induce debate.

The premise of this thread is that we need to have a full path for each civilization in the game. That promotes the idea that there's always a correct path, that the people there now are the correct people who have always been there, and that there's no value in including people who didn't quite make it to the present day. So, maybe that's not Nazis, but it's not far off from a lot of what they promoted.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Both of you have misread the original post. Nowhere has OP talked about a single "correct" path, they've presented several "or" based transition options. You're straw manning this whole thread into something it isn't.