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

[Luddify]

I have a really hard time understanding why they went the route of making leaders rather than civs the constant. This is immersion-destroying for me as I can't just get past the notion that Harriet Tubman will rule for thousands of years as the leader of, say, the Maya, Bulgarians and Qing China (or just as easily Khmer, Mongolia and Prussia)

Don't get me wrong, I love Harriet Tubman and her role in history, but I'm not as vested in her success as a 2000-year-old leader of Nepal as I might be in whether the Roman Empire survived to form a modern Italy. It would be so great to be able to choose Rome's leader each era rather than assign the immortal Harriet to yet another civilization with no real-world ties.

I so wish they would have called this "Leaders 1" and instead given us a true Civ VII with a focus on changing the direction of single civ throughout history.

 

[Gorbles]

I have a really hard time understanding why they went the route of making leaders rather than civs the constant. This is immersion-destroying for me

Not only have the developers explained this, you yourself have just explained your issue.

It's immersion-destroying for you. Immersion is a personal metric. It's subjective.

 

[luca 83]

I have a really hard time understanding why they went the route of making leaders rather than civs the constant. This is immersion-destroying for me as I can't just get past the notion that Harriet Tubman will rule for thousands of years as the leader of, say, the Maya, Bulgarians and Qing China (or just as easily Khmer, Mongolia and Prussia)

Don't get me wrong, I love Harriet Tubman and her role in history, but I'm not as vested in her success as a 2000-year-old leader of Nepal as I might be in whether the Roman Empire survived to form a modern Italy. It would be so great to be able to choose Rome's leader each era rather than assign the immortal Harriet to yet another civilization with no real-world ties.

I so wish they would have called this "Leaders 1" and instead given us a true Civ VII with a focus on changing the direction of single civ throughout history.

Why many people can't get away from the concept of a fixed leader nation - leader Elizabeth - England when history or. Evolution is much more. Complex the possibilities are almost infinite a sovereign dies possibility, revolution possibility, hariet tubman is just a leader to please a minority historically and irrelevant in world history, this is the era of the ai developers do not waste this possibility for the appetites of the masses

 

[Leucarum]

Not only have the developers explained this, you yourself have just explained your issue.

It's immersion-destroying for you. Immersion is a personal metric. It's subjective.

The devs have done a good job of explaining their testing and I can definitely see that it would be more confusing having a constantly changing avatar than switching civs.

But... The subjective element here I think matters when enough players find it disjointed or confusing.

There is also quite likely an difference between a player's connection to a civ and their connection to a leader. I suspect the former is usually way stronger even if switching the latter is more confusing. So to some extent leader switching could have been both more confusing and still a better choice... Despite the devs reasoning.

I am really enjoying Civ7, but also coming around to the idea that something dramatic has to change. Civ switching has been just too badly recieved to work if Civ 7 is going to last the long term IMO. Maybe leader switching or some sort of "cabinet" you add leaders to would be an alternative. Worth discussing at least IMO?

 

[Gorbles]

There is also quite likely an difference between a player's connection to a civ and their connection to a leader. I suspect the former is usually way stronger even if switching the latter is more confusing.

I'm not sure there is a measurable difference. Going to be hard to even gather that data.

I love the leader aesthetics, always have. I loved building my palace, and watching my leader and their advisors change as my Civ 1 games progressed.

So for me personally, it's the other way around. How do we begin to quantify this? By sticking leader switching in and seeing? I'd rather they focus their resource elsewhere. Lots of things need more polish, and systems need more content. These things will have broader appeal than rolling the dice on something that isn't even guaranteed to shift the needle.

 

[Leucarum]

I'm not sure there is a measurable difference. Going to be hard to even gather that data.

I love the leader aesthetics, always have. I loved building my palace, and watching my leader and their advisors change as my Civ 1 games progressed.

So for me personally, it's the other way around. How do we begin to quantify this? By sticking leader switching in and seeing? I'd rather they focus their resource elsewhere. Lots of things need more polish, and systems need more content. These things will have broader appeal than rolling the dice on something that isn't even guaranteed to shift the needle.

I sometimes feel like I am one of the few who enjoyed the different leader costumes in Civ3. I am enjoying the game but I think I'd have my head in the sand if I tried to claim I was in the majority here...

I agree leader switching is one of the least likely routes firaxis might take to shake up the game but I don't think ruling it out as just a bad idea is very helpful. I have my suspicions that it would have been way less divisive but unless modding tools are pretty extensive I don't know that we'll find out any time soon.

I think we'll see if staying the course is the right choice very soon though when RTR is released. If it doesn't move the needle then Firaxis probably aren't going to be able to turn a profit by just refining the game and adding content. My expectation is that firaxis have made a very good game which unfortunately isn't what the majority of the audience wanted. Like serving beautifully cooked steak to a vegan.

One very good thing is that 7 appears to be very modular. If each age is a structured as different mod then it presumably would be considerably less work to make sweeping changes like a "single age" version - hopefully as one option among others so that players who like the ages have that choice still. Still a lot of work but I don't know if Civ7 will stand the test of time unless firaxis remove/redo some of the features which are sowing division. I don't know that I mind which sacred cow they slay but I hope they pick one and go for it.

And now I'm craving beef.

 

[luca 83]

I'm not sure there is a measurable difference. Going to be hard to even gather that data.

I love the leader aesthetics, always have. I loved building my palace, and watching my leader and their advisors change as my Civ 1 games progressed.

So for me personally, it's the other way around. How do we begin to quantify this? By sticking leader switching in and seeing? I'd rather they focus their resource elsewhere. Lots of things need more polish, and systems need more content. These things will have broader appeal than rolling the dice on something that isn't even guaranteed to shift the needle.

laziness of the players and developers what I wrote against the fixed leaders all against me, they attempted a change but halfway they didn't have the courage, until the end, in the end many people didn't like it it's not a modern cutting edge game with the technology of the ai of 2025

 

[GeneralZift]

I have a really hard time understanding why they went the route of making leaders rather than civs the constant. This is immersion-destroying for me as I can't just get past the notion that Harriet Tubman will rule for thousands of years as the leader of, say, the Maya, Bulgarians and Qing China (or just as easily Khmer, Mongolia and Prussia)

Don't get me wrong, I love Harriet Tubman and her role in history, but I'm not as vested in her success as a 2000-year-old leader of Nepal as I might be in whether the Roman Empire survived to form a modern Italy. It would be so great to be able to choose Rome's leader each era rather than assign the immortal Harriet to yet another civilization with no real-world ties.

I so wish they would have called this "Leaders 1" and instead given us a true Civ VII with a focus on changing the direction of single civ throughout history.

Not only have the developers explained this, you yourself have just explained your issue.

It's immersion-destroying for you. Immersion is a personal metric. It's subjective.

I don't get what you're supposedly correcting with this comment, when he talks about his opinion he says "This is immersion-destroying for me" and he doesn't say "This is strictly immersion-destroying"
He is valid in saying "I am not sure what the developers are doing, because it has ruined my experience"

You can read what the developers wrote, and disagree, it's valid, don't let anyone gaslight you.
Here it is for reference:

As they say, it's a package, and switching the leaders would be more confusing the switching the Civs. I can somewhat agree with this.
Of course, you wouldn't lose immersion or get confused if nothing switches, but that's a different thing entirely.

 

[Gorbles]

I sometimes feel like I am one of the few who enjoyed the different leader costumes in Civ3. I am enjoying the game but I think I'd have my head in the sand if I tried to claim I was in the majority here...

I've found myself liking something unpopular more than once. But at the same time, I also like popular things. Any individual's opinion is very hard (if not impossible) to extrapolate anything meaningful from, is my point. The same goes for majority and minority. More on that next.

I agree leader switching is one of the least likely routes firaxis might take to shake up the game but I don't think ruling it out as just a bad idea is very helpful. I have my suspicions that it would have been way less divisive but unless modding tools are pretty extensive I don't know that we'll find out any time soon.

I think ruling anything out is often a bad idea, but at the same time we have no information on what is or isn't ruled out. We know the developers considered this, we don't know exactly in how much depth or for how long. So at the same time, ruling out the notion that they seriously explored this is also a dangerous assumption.

A lot of the guessing around what happened in development is, imo. All we can do is judge the product as-is and where it goes from here. And on that, I don't think leader-switching will do much good. I think it'll weaken the associations r.e. immersion for more players. Kind of a "sanding down a rough edge but taking out what makes it memorable" kind of thing. A lot of the problems with VII stem from the state it was released in. That's where I think the developers should focus their efforts. Put more effort into the UI. Release the modding tools. Both of these things they've committed to. Things I think they should specifically target on top of that (and with a similar priority) are:

• Crisis tuning (design / balance / impact).
• Exploratory and Modern pacing (we're seeing some of the former already).
• Narrative immersion / signposting. Some of this is UI work & consistency, but I believe with better UX and a more refined Crisis design, the Age transitions will affect players less negatively (to varying extents) across the board.

I don't get what you're supposedly correcting with this comment, when he talks about his opinion he says "This is immersion-destroying for me" and he doesn't say "This is strictly immersion-destroying"
He is valid in saying "I am not sure what the developers are doing, because it has ruined my experience"

They said they were struggling to understand. I was explaining, in the hope of pointing out why they're struggling to understand.

Immersion is the reason.

You can read what the developers wrote, and disagree, it's valid, don't let anyone gaslight you.

Nobody at any point said anyone had to agree with the developers. I certainly didn't. Running to words like "gaslight" don't really aid a good faith, constructive conversation (on any subject), imo.

Understanding something, and agreeing with it, are two very separate things.

 

[AD1730]

I don't get what you're supposedly correcting with this comment, when he talks about his opinion he says "This is immersion-destroying for me" and he doesn't say "This is strictly immersion-destroying"
He is valid in saying "I am not sure what the developers are doing, because it has ruined my experience"

You can read what the developers wrote, and disagree, it's valid, don't let anyone gaslight you.
Here it is for reference:
View attachment 731649

As they say, it's a package, and switching the leaders would be more confusing the switching the Civs. I can somewhat agree with this.
Of course, you wouldn't lose immersion or get confused if nothing switches, but that's a different thing entirely.

Yeah, this lends credence to my theory that Firaxis adopted the mentality of a minority of extra-engaged fans, while the less-engaged majority identifies more with civs. Even if the player has an easier time recognizing leaders as who they are playing against, I believe Firaxis reached the wrong conclusion.

I believe that it is far more important that the player identify with who they play as (the civs), rather than who they play against (the leaders, if you subscribe to Firaxis' view). Who you are playing as is the protagonist of your game's story. Destroying the ability to identify with the main character through civ switching and ages was a critical error.

I don't see how they concluded that mixing and matching would "make sure you maintain a strong sense of identity for your empire". It can only do the opposite.

 

[Gorbles]

Yeah, this lends credence to my theory that Firaxis adopted the mentality of a minority of extra-engaged fans

Yeah . . . this doesn't bode well for anyone in CFC in that regard, assuming you want our opinions to be heard by the developers

(tongue-in-cheek, in case it wasn't clear)

 

[cbum]

IMHO, the ideal solution would be to simply completely open up the choice of leaders AND civs for each age. You could offer recommendations, e.g. for historical plausibility etc., but leave it to the user to pick and choose - and discover the best combo's for each age and play style.
In the end, I'm (just speaking for myself) not identifying with the leader - I'm identifying with myself wearing the hat of various leaders.

 

[Kev1916]

Yeah, this lends credence to my theory that Firaxis adopted the mentality of a minority of extra-engaged fans, while the less-engaged majority identifies more with civs. Even if the player has an easier time recognizing leaders as who they are playing against, I believe Firaxis reached the wrong conclusion.

However and why they came up with the idea of mix and matching , what is 100% sure is , if the game was well received and player counts were as high as civ 6. ( no laughing at the back )
Then for sure they would have made a killing in selling DLC's , forget about Civ's there are tens of thousand's of leaders they could spawn out .

What I find laughable ( and I doubt this version will last two years ) , is they are selling Civ's without Leaders ie Carthage and selling leaders without there "Civ" ie Simon .

Were there planning to say sell of Simon in Dlc One ? and then his Civ in Dlc 5? and Maybe flog Hannibal in Dlc 4 or maybe sell random packs or a game pass idea were for the best "combo" you can farm for your next leader ?

 

[Leucarum]

I've found myself liking something unpopular more than once. But at the same time, I also like popular things. Any individual's opinion is very hard (if not impossible) to extrapolate anything meaningful from, is my point. The same goes for majority and minority. More on that next.

I think ruling anything out is often a bad idea, but at the same time we have no information on what is or isn't ruled out. We know the developers considered this, we don't know exactly in how much depth or for how long. So at the same time, ruling out the notion that they seriously explored this is also a dangerous assumption.

A lot of the guessing around what happened in development is, imo. All we can do is judge the product as-is and where it goes from here. And on that, I don't think leader-switching will do much good. I think it'll weaken the associations r.e. immersion for more players. Kind of a "sanding down a rough edge but taking out what makes it memorable" kind of thing. A lot of the problems with VII stem from the state it was released in. That's where I think the developers should focus their efforts. Put more effort into the UI. Release the modding tools. Both of these things they've committed to. Things I think they should specifically target on top of that (and with a similar priority) are:

• Crisis tuning (design / balance / impact).
• Exploratory and Modern pacing (we're seeing some of the former already).
• Narrative immersion / signposting. Some of this is UI work & consistency, but I believe with better UX and a more refined Crisis design, the Age transitions will affect players less negatively (to varying extents) across the board.

They said they were struggling to understand. I was explaining, in the hope of pointing out why they're struggling to understand.

Immersion is the reason.

Nobody at any point said anyone had to agree with the developers. I certainly didn't. Running to words like "gaslight" don't really aid a good faith, constructive conversation (on any subject), imo.

Just going to start by saying that I appreciate this sort of polite debate.

I definitely agree that there is some general polish and balance which has to happen and that is essential. To some extent I was discounting it as it already seems slated to happen. I think the point where we disagree is how much of the reception is down to dislike over new features versus game polish.

There was some actual sentiment analysis on the old player stats thread and it does seem to suggest that ages and civ switching were major components of negative reviews if I recall correctly - I believe that thread is gone. And also the various efforts to polish the game thus far have not turned things around in terms of player number. Hence I am doubtful that it is just an unpolished launch that has hurt civ. Though doubtless that did not help. RTR should make it clear if polish is what is holding the game back

Assuming it is Xt I definitely hope the developers are ready to try sweeping changes. The fundamental changes to Civ7 (removing builders, commanders, city/town split, resources, updated diplomacy) are amazing, and I see complaints about them very rarely. I suspect they just need to whack some of the controversial features built over top of those (ages, legacy paths, civ switching) and they can win folks back, but I don't see it happening if they just continue to refine what exists.

Understanding something, and agreeing with it, are two very separate things.

Understanding is a three-edged sword...

 

[Gorbles]

There was some actual sentiment analysis on the old player stats thread and it does seem to suggest that ages and civ switching were major components of negative reviews if I recall correctly - I believe that thread is gone. And also the various efforts to polish the game thus far have not turned things around in terms of player number. Hence I am doubtful that it is just an unpolished launch that has hurt civ. Though doubtless that did not help. RTR should make it clear if polish is what is holding the game back

I don't doubt these things have contributed negatively in various contexts. But I don't see it as dissimilar to previous major changes in the franchise.

The older games exist, and people still play them in (honestly amazing) numbers. This is because each major iteration seems to have something that draws a measurable demographic back to that iteration, over all others that come after. Obviously there are also players that play every one, and players that play more than one.

But I don't think that just because something is perceived as being unpopular, that it therefore needs to go. Each game needs a niche. This isn't me saying "I'm happy where VII is performing". But I do like the core design, and Ages are a fundamental part of that in my opinion.

Assuming it is Xt I definitely hope the developers are ready to try sweeping changes. The fundamental changes to Civ7 (removing builders, commanders, city/town split, resources, updated diplomacy) are amazing, and I see complaints about them very rarely. I suspect they just need to whack some of the controversial features built over top of those (ages, legacy paths, civ switching) and they can win folks back, but I don't see it happening if they just continue to refine what exists.

I'm less concerned about Legacy Points. I can live without them. In the transitions I've done, honestly, they seem too strong. They contribute to a snowballing start in the next Age, but at the same time serve as a part of immersive buffer to the player who feels like they're losing too many things at once.

Ages and civ-switching are pretty core to the design, and being open to sweeping changes doesn't to me make it any easier to undo the parts of the game that revolves around them.

I want to be radical and say: if Age-switching itself is what puts you off VII, then Firaxis shouldn't chase you (generic you, not Leucarum you). Anyone who feels this way is completely right to do so, but I don't think Firaxis should Ship-of-Theseus the game on the chance it brings this demographic back specifically. Civ-switching I don't feel as strongly about. I think if I had to rank them Ages are most important, the evolving civs is secondary (but still pretty high), and buffer mechanisms like Legacy Points a distant third.

 

[Xur]

It's not that I'm opposed to leaders being the focus, it's just that Firaxis can't make a system that works for all ages and all government systems for it to be interesting and make sense to me. A leader with pre-defined agenda and pre-defined attributes is not interesting to me. They would have to make a system that is even more wild than that of CK3 if it should interest me - until then, I prefer the focus being on the civilization and not the leader.

My bigger issue is how Firaxis handles leaders in general. They feel shallow, often ahistorical, and overly influenced by contemporary identity politics. It's less about representing history and more about ticking boxes - and worse, they’re clearly designed as DLC bait. Ironically, they make even less sense than the old "immortal leader" model. How is a 2000 year old better than a 6000 year old?

 

[misesfan]

I want to be radical and say: if Age-switching itself is what puts you off VII, then Firaxis shouldn't chase you (generic you, not Leucarum you). Anyone who feels this way is completely right to do so, but I don't think Firaxis should Ship-of-Theseus the game on the chance it brings this demographic back specifically. Civ-switching I don't feel as strongly about. I think if I had to rank them Ages are most important, the evolving civs is secondary (but still pretty high), and buffer mechanisms like Legacy Points a distant third.

I agree with this. They made their design decisions and they are being forced to deal with the inevitable outcomes. The game is cooked. I read alot about how more DLC and expansions will 'fix' things with the game. It won't - it can't. The game is broken at a fundamental design level. They should have never gone with the concept of 'building something to believe in' and instead renewed their focus on 'building an empire to stand the test of time.'

 

[Leucarum]

I want to be radical and say: if Age-switching itself is what puts you off VII, then Firaxis shouldn't chase you (generic you, not Leucarum you). Anyone who feels this way is completely right to do so, but I don't think Firaxis should Ship-of-Theseus the game on the chance it brings this demographic back specifically. Civ-switching I don't feel as strongly about. I think if I had to rank them Ages are most important, the evolving civs is secondary (but still pretty high), and buffer mechanisms like Legacy Points a distant third.

I enjoy Civ7 so they certainly shouldn't be chasing me. They could add more content and I'd be happy. I just don't see that winning players back, which ultimately means the game won't last.

Honestly, If they want to, I think they can almost remove ages without doing much at all. Add more options for how much carries over so players can customize what travels between ages, and suddenly players who don't like the age resets pretty much don't have age resets. Add the ability to carry civs over from a previous era (albeit losing era-specific uniques) and you've almost got classic civ right there - entirely optional so those who like Civ7 don't lose anything either.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I agree with this. They made their design decisions and they are being forced to deal with the inevitable outcomes. The game is cooked. I read alot about how more DLC and expansions will 'fix' things with the game. It won't - it can't. The game is broken at a fundamental design level. They should have never gone with the concept of 'building something to believe in' and instead renewed their focus on 'building an empire to stand the test of time.'

The phrase they used was actually "build something you believe in", but Civ VII doesn't allow you to build something you, the gamer, believes in, only what the designers believe in. They removed too many decisions from the gamer and locked too many parts of the game into rigid paths they called Legacies - which, I suppose, sounded better than Yellow Brick Straitjackets.

Playing counter to their rigid and one-dimensional vision is possible, but requires you to ignore most of the game. After doing that a few times, you might as well go play a different game entirely - which is exactly what a great many gamers are doing, it seems.

 

[UWHabs]

It's not that I'm opposed to leaders being the focus, it's just that Firaxis can't make a system that works for all ages and all government systems for it to be interesting and make sense to me. A leader with pre-defined agenda and pre-defined attributes is not interesting to me. They would have to make a system that is even more wild than that of CK3 if it should interest me - until then, I prefer the focus being on the civilization and not the leader.

My bigger issue is how Firaxis handles leaders in general. They feel shallow, often ahistorical, and overly influenced by contemporary identity politics. It's less about representing history and more about ticking boxes - and worse, they’re clearly designed as DLC bait. Ironically, they make even less sense than the old "immortal leader" model. How is a 2000 year old better than a 6000 year old?

It's a bit of a weird mix how it was handled. I understand the immortal leaders, since if I were playing multi-player, I'm playing against "Mike" for the entire game. So playing against "Mike as Isabella" makes sense. And having the leaders constant, you get those big matchups possible. But then, a lot of the leaders are not the big personality leaders.
But then to add on, in most cases, the leaders aren't nearly as personalized as the civs. It's the civs who have their own culture trees, traditions, etc... Leaders get a couple bonuses, and a few over-arching traits.
It's a weird dichotomy, where on the one hand the design direction really reads like all the leaders should be the top 20 of history. Every game should be Napoleon vs Victoria vs Genghis vs Gandhi, and then you sprinkle in a few wildcards like Machiavelli here or there. But also, because leaders and civs are split, it's much more of a chance to give some unknowns a glimpse, and have more of the non-traditional leaders involved.

I enjoy Civ7 so they certainly shouldn't be chasing me. They could add more content and I'd be happy. I just don't see that winning players back, which ultimately means the game won't last.

Honestly, If they want to, I think they can almost remove ages without doing much at all. Add more options for how much carries over so players can customize what travels between ages, and suddenly players who don't like the age resets pretty much don't have age resets. Add the ability to carry civs over from a previous era (albeit losing era-specific uniques) and you've almost got classic civ right there - entirely optional so those who like Civ7 don't lose anything either.

I'm sure some aspects of the age transition they can't get around, just in the basics of how they have designed things. But yeah, I don't think it would be THAT hard necessarily to, say, figure out how to get buildings and adjacencies to copy over to the next era, then do a little balance on that to make sure the new tier are truly worth it to overbuild. Combine that with unlimited unit carry-over and keeping your cities, and then basically the era transition just acts as a science/culture tree reset, a reset of policies, a slight shift in resource/map attributes, and then you get to use the accumulated legacy points. If you also add a basic way to keep your civ if you want without the uniques, then yeah, it's not wholesale different from classic civ.