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

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.
I will say that some legacy paths work well. The antiquity ones, the enlightenment one, and space race are all things you want to be doing anyway when playing an ordinary Civ game. They don't really roadblock as much

For me the problematic ones are the ones which effectively create a minigame. Relics/archaeology, railroads/treasure fleets... These are what you have to do to win the game and yet are a bit of a departure from how you would play normally... I guess this is shining the light on culture always being a minigame in other civ versions too but it's annoying when the culture and economic paths start off really fun.

The millitary ones add hoops onto something you'd already do too so it's not so bad... But the roadblocks are odd. For me they are in the middle.
 
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I will say that some legacy paths work well. The antiquity ones, the enlightenment one, and space race are all things you want to be doing anyway when playing an ordinary Civ game. They don't really roadblock as much

For me the problematic ones are the ones which effectively create a minigame. Relics/archaeology, railroads/treasure fleets... These are what you have to do to win the game and yet are a bit of a departure from how you would play normally... I guess this is shining the light on culture always being a minigame in other civ versions too but it's annoying when the culture and economic paths start off really fun.

The millitary ones add hoops onto something you'd already do too so it's not so bad... But the roadblocks are odd. For me they are in the middle.
I have two basic problems with the Legacy Paths in the game right now. The first is that too many of the Legacy Paths involve virtually no conflict or strife with any other element in the game other than your own priorities.

Examples:
Antiquity Science Path requires you to display Codexes in your settlements (cities). But you get most if not all of the Codexes from the Civics Tree, and short of completely conquering and eliminating you, there is nothing any other player can do to stop you from 'researching' enough Civics. The only 'conflict' is whether you want to build Markets and Lighthouses to use Resources before or after you build Libraries and Academies to display the Codexes - and whether you have enough cities (two, each with a Library and an Academy are enough to complete the Path) left.

Exploration Culture Path requires you to get and display Relics - this time in Temples primarily. But again, with the right Pantheon you can get 2 Relics every time you convert an opposing Capital for the first time. Unless you are playing a Duel game with only one opponent, 2 - 3 Missionaries will convert enough capitals to give you all the Relics you need - and it doesn't even matter if every one of the Capitals gets converted back later. Nor is there, as far as I can see, any mechanic in the game that affects Missionaries - they can trot right through armies, fleets, erupting volcanoes, nuclear weapons - build them and convert, later build a few Temples and the Path is done regardless of what anybody or anything else in the game does. I generally complete the path within 30 - 40 Turns anymore.

Similarly, the Exploration Science Path requires you to build up 5 Urban areas to 40+ adjacency/bonus points. Again, short of conquering the cities with those districts in them from you, there is nothing anybody else can do to stop you from getting them once you know enough about adjacencies in cities.

Finding Treasure resources, building Settlements and trading enough Resources to complete the Exploration Economic Path, or building enough railroads and Factories to complete the Modern Economic Path are both time-consuming but sort of related to what you should be doing in each Age, as you said.

The Treasure Fleet/Economic Path also suffers from my second Major Gripe with the game.

Which is that all of the Legacies are utterly Linear and therefore contribute to playing the game the same way every time. If the game is based on Narrative History, then they recognize only one narrative and more or less force you to retell that narrative every single time.

So, in Antiquity you gather Codexes, gather Resources, conquer AI Civ settlements, build Wonders. Each is connected to a single Legacy Path, and is the Only Way to complete that path. IPs and City States, Diplomacy, Exploration are all merely means to other ends and have no direct effect on any Legacy. Note that there are no Wonders related to Trade or Economics, and no matter how many City States you have under your belt, In No Age do they contribute directly to any Path.

And the Linear Nature of all the Paths contributes to play of the game being a series of random shots. Get a lousy map, and the Treasure Fleets are impossible (as in, No Resources on any land mass within range or all resources hidden inland behind other Civ's settlements, both of which have happened to me and others more than once). Since you don't know the configuration of the Distant Lands in Antiquity, that means you play the entire Antiquity Age and then, no matter how well you completed the Economic Legacy Path in Antiquity, discover that the map prevents you from completing the Economic path in Exploration regardless of what you do - basically, you are playing Brandenburg-Prussia in EUIV, where trying to get a colony in South America or the Caribbean as Brandenburg is an exercise in futility comparable to trying to complete Civ VII's Economic Legacy Path when the nearest Treasure resource is 20 tiles away and requires you to conquer at least one settlement from the AI before you can even start your first Treasure Fleet. Fergetaboudit.

As a result of the disconnect between in-game events and paths and the linear nature of the paths, Civ VII is already getting boring after 400 hours of play. In contrast, I played over 7000 hours of Civ V and 4500 hours of Civ VI without getting bored. This kind of 'progression does not bode well for the Civ VII game or the franchise.
 
I have two basic problems with the Legacy Paths in the game right now. The first is that too many of the Legacy Paths involve virtually no conflict or strife with any other element in the game other than your own priorities.

Examples:
Antiquity Science Path requires you to display Codexes in your settlements (cities). But you get most if not all of the Codexes from the Civics Tree, and short of completely conquering and eliminating you, there is nothing any other player can do to stop you from 'researching' enough Civics. The only 'conflict' is whether you want to build Markets and Lighthouses to use Resources before or after you build Libraries and Academies to display the Codexes - and whether you have enough cities (two, each with a Library and an Academy are enough to complete the Path) left.

Exploration Culture Path requires you to get and display Relics - this time in Temples primarily. But again, with the right Pantheon you can get 2 Relics every time you convert an opposing Capital for the first time. Unless you are playing a Duel game with only one opponent, 2 - 3 Missionaries will convert enough capitals to give you all the Relics you need - and it doesn't even matter if every one of the Capitals gets converted back later. Nor is there, as far as I can see, any mechanic in the game that affects Missionaries - they can trot right through armies, fleets, erupting volcanoes, nuclear weapons - build them and convert, later build a few Temples and the Path is done regardless of what anybody or anything else in the game does. I generally complete the path within 30 - 40 Turns anymore.

Similarly, the Exploration Science Path requires you to build up 5 Urban areas to 40+ adjacency/bonus points. Again, short of conquering the cities with those districts in them from you, there is nothing anybody else can do to stop you from getting them once you know enough about adjacencies in cities.

Finding Treasure resources, building Settlements and trading enough Resources to complete the Exploration Economic Path, or building enough railroads and Factories to complete the Modern Economic Path are both time-consuming but sort of related to what you should be doing in each Age, as you said.

The Treasure Fleet/Economic Path also suffers from my second Major Gripe with the game.

Which is that all of the Legacies are utterly Linear and therefore contribute to playing the game the same way every time. If the game is based on Narrative History, then they recognize only one narrative and more or less force you to retell that narrative every single time.

So, in Antiquity you gather Codexes, gather Resources, conquer AI Civ settlements, build Wonders. Each is connected to a single Legacy Path, and is the Only Way to complete that path. IPs and City States, Diplomacy, Exploration are all merely means to other ends and have no direct effect on any Legacy. Note that there are no Wonders related to Trade or Economics, and no matter how many City States you have under your belt, In No Age do they contribute directly to any Path.

And the Linear Nature of all the Paths contributes to play of the game being a series of random shots. Get a lousy map, and the Treasure Fleets are impossible (as in, No Resources on any land mass within range or all resources hidden inland behind other Civ's settlements, both of which have happened to me and others more than once). Since you don't know the configuration of the Distant Lands in Antiquity, that means you play the entire Antiquity Age and then, no matter how well you completed the Economic Legacy Path in Antiquity, discover that the map prevents you from completing the Economic path in Exploration regardless of what you do - basically, you are playing Brandenburg-Prussia in EUIV, where trying to get a colony in South America or the Caribbean as Brandenburg is an exercise in futility comparable to trying to complete Civ VII's Economic Legacy Path when the nearest Treasure resource is 20 tiles away and requires you to conquer at least one settlement from the AI before you can even start your first Treasure Fleet. Fergetaboudit.

As a result of the disconnect between in-game events and paths and the linear nature of the paths, Civ VII is already getting boring after 400 hours of play. In contrast, I played over 7000 hours of Civ V and 4500 hours of Civ VI without getting bored. This kind of 'progression does not bode well for the Civ VII game or the franchise.
I can agree with the lack of diversity in legacy paths, though they have said they will add more legacy path options, so I doubt that'll be an issue forever...

The non-interactivity could be improved if you could swipe great works and disrupt trade routes a bit better... How they did Treasure fleets without piracy I'll never understand...
 
Hopefully they add religion paths, then exploration can get a path actually based on culture instead of production. (Meaning, the current path becomes the religious path and they give us a new Culture Legacy)

What other paths could they add? Happiness/celebration path (i.e. the We Love the Monarch Path)? That would be 6 per age... not bad
 
I can agree with the lack of diversity in legacy paths, though they have said they will add more legacy path options, so I doubt that'll be an issue forever...

The non-interactivity could be improved if you could swipe great works and disrupt trade routes a bit better... How they did Treasure fleets without piracy I'll never understand...

If you're at war you can steal a treasure fleet by reducing it to zero health. It becomes yours with very low health.
 
I have two basic problems with the Legacy Paths in the game right now. The first is that too many of the Legacy Paths involve virtually no conflict or strife with any other element in the game other than your own priorities.

Examples:
Antiquity Science Path requires you to display Codexes in your settlements (cities). But you get most if not all of the Codexes from the Civics Tree, and short of completely conquering and eliminating you, there is nothing any other player can do to stop you from 'researching' enough Civics. The only 'conflict' is whether you want to build Markets and Lighthouses to use Resources before or after you build Libraries and Academies to display the Codexes - and whether you have enough cities (two, each with a Library and an Academy are enough to complete the Path) left.

Exploration Culture Path requires you to get and display Relics - this time in Temples primarily. But again, with the right Pantheon you can get 2 Relics every time you convert an opposing Capital for the first time. Unless you are playing a Duel game with only one opponent, 2 - 3 Missionaries will convert enough capitals to give you all the Relics you need - and it doesn't even matter if every one of the Capitals gets converted back later. Nor is there, as far as I can see, any mechanic in the game that affects Missionaries - they can trot right through armies, fleets, erupting volcanoes, nuclear weapons - build them and convert, later build a few Temples and the Path is done regardless of what anybody or anything else in the game does. I generally complete the path within 30 - 40 Turns anymore.

Similarly, the Exploration Science Path requires you to build up 5 Urban areas to 40+ adjacency/bonus points. Again, short of conquering the cities with those districts in them from you, there is nothing anybody else can do to stop you from getting them once you know enough about adjacencies in cities.

Finding Treasure resources, building Settlements and trading enough Resources to complete the Exploration Economic Path, or building enough railroads and Factories to complete the Modern Economic Path are both time-consuming but sort of related to what you should be doing in each Age, as you said.

The Treasure Fleet/Economic Path also suffers from my second Major Gripe with the game.

Which is that all of the Legacies are utterly Linear and therefore contribute to playing the game the same way every time. If the game is based on Narrative History, then they recognize only one narrative and more or less force you to retell that narrative every single time.

So, in Antiquity you gather Codexes, gather Resources, conquer AI Civ settlements, build Wonders. Each is connected to a single Legacy Path, and is the Only Way to complete that path. IPs and City States, Diplomacy, Exploration are all merely means to other ends and have no direct effect on any Legacy. Note that there are no Wonders related to Trade or Economics, and no matter how many City States you have under your belt, In No Age do they contribute directly to any Path.

And the Linear Nature of all the Paths contributes to play of the game being a series of random shots. Get a lousy map, and the Treasure Fleets are impossible (as in, No Resources on any land mass within range or all resources hidden inland behind other Civ's settlements, both of which have happened to me and others more than once). Since you don't know the configuration of the Distant Lands in Antiquity, that means you play the entire Antiquity Age and then, no matter how well you completed the Economic Legacy Path in Antiquity, discover that the map prevents you from completing the Economic path in Exploration regardless of what you do - basically, you are playing Brandenburg-Prussia in EUIV, where trying to get a colony in South America or the Caribbean as Brandenburg is an exercise in futility comparable to trying to complete Civ VII's Economic Legacy Path when the nearest Treasure resource is 20 tiles away and requires you to conquer at least one settlement from the AI before you can even start your first Treasure Fleet. Fergetaboudit.

As a result of the disconnect between in-game events and paths and the linear nature of the paths, Civ VII is already getting boring after 400 hours of play. In contrast, I played over 7000 hours of Civ V and 4500 hours of Civ VI without getting bored. This kind of 'progression does not bode well for the Civ VII game or the franchise.

I think having some legacy paths as "solo player adventures" and some as "compete/conquest" types makes sense. But yeah, I don't think they're quite there on the balance.

As mentioned, the antiquity science and econ paths are 100% solo, the only caveats on those are whether you have to spend too much time on other things or run out of time. I don't think they are terrible though, other than the econ path being way too dependent on camels, and just too easy as long as you're not totally out of luck with your layout of the land. But yeah, for both cases, there's just nothing you can do to stop or interact at all with your opponents in it.
The wonder race is a challenge since it does take a little time to get wonders, and some games the AI are really aggressive at them.
Other than balance issues, though, early game there's enough to do, I don't think it's really a bad thing that those aren't like overly competitive. Arguably you could maybe have a few more interesting decisions - like maybe you could give each suzerain IP a point towards the culture path, each dispersed IP a point towards the military path, so you kind of have a little decision on which way to take things. And then add in more ways to steal codices with influence, or sanction resources with influence, and have alliances count somehow towards the econ path, and now influence has a few possible options for how it's used as well.

Exploration, I think the biggest problem is the relic race really isn't a race, because you can always just get a pair of missionaries, walk them around to wherever you want to convert, use one charge from each, and you have a 100% chance to flip a city. Doesn't matter if they flip it back immediately, you just need to convert them once. If you want the legacy to be based on religion, I'd much rather it be a counting value like the RR Tycoon path - give me 1 point per turn for each converted settlement, maybe +1 points per turn for each foreign settlement, and +1 points per turn for each settlement in distant lands, and count up to 200 or 500 or whatever. At least there, you basically have to spread and keep religion to fight for your points.

Treasure fleets too if there was a bit more piracy at play at least that would force you to fight with a bit more of a navy, rather than just settling the lands and praying that the era doesn't end too soon. Or people have suggested other options where maybe you can get some points towards the legacy by doing other actions - maybe each trade route to a settlement in distant lands with a treasure resource can count for 1 point, so at least even if you can't settle them yourself, you can get some points by at least establishing an empire and being friendly enough with other civs.

If you make both of those a little more competitive, then I don't mind the science path being about turtling up and packing in your specialists. Again, not everything needs to be competitive, but you don't want all the paths to be too passive.
 
For the Relics, I think a good counterplay might be...

1. using one of the conversion charges takes Influence (using up all the charges causes the missionary to reappear in the Holy city after a time..like a Commander)
2. the Influence needed would be dependent on "passive pressure" of your religion v the other religion there/the other civs religion
3. policies+diplomatic actions would affect that spread, and a religion that was there already would build up pressure

Then have the Relics based on counting up turns you have a foreign settlement (maybe 5 free turns for first conversion)... so early is still good, and you still have to display them, but the Relics then act a little bit more like Treasure Fleets. (but you get to choose what is your "Treasure")


Definitely agree on Treasure Fleets should be obtainable through Diplomacy...maybe a DL civ can send you a Treasure Fleet as part of an Endeavor.
 
Yeah. But the AI doesn't seem to ever generate enough treasure fleets for you to plunder and I've never seen it pursue mine even at war... So I guess this is theoretical at best.
Well that is a matter of AI needs to be better.. the counterplay is there, but not used well.
 
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'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.
the whole transition of the eras must be redone from the causes: wars, revolutions, peace treaties, coups d'état, it has been explained many times: the player is not an absolute god, he cannot control everything and everyone. Certain events arise by chance or for a series of reasons, the Sarajevo attack in 1914 for example created a series of events.
 
the whole transition of the eras must be redone from the causes: wars, revolutions, peace treaties, coups d'état, it has been explained many times: the player is not an absolute god, he cannot control everything and everyone. Certain events arise by chance or for a series of reasons, the Sarajevo attack in 1914 for example created a series of events.
The Slavic tribes for example. They evolved, moved, separated, united over time. You can't put the Russians for example as a people already united and formed, a mistake already said about the Bulgarians.
Slaves_dans_l%27Empire_romain_%28680%29.jpg
 
Relating to Relics . . .

Does anybody else think it is strange that in a Legacy Path entirely built around Religion and acquiring religious Relics, only Missionaries have any effect?

I mean, the Exploration Age also has Temple structures and a long list of religious Wonders, but except for a few Wonders with slots to house Relics, none of them have any effect on your religion or the acquiring of relics.

So, some thoughts on 'expanding' the Legacy path and religious mechanics to include some of the features already in the game but stunningly under-utilized.

1. Temples require conversion or converting to a new religion. In other words, a missionary arriving at a city with a Temple must use one charge to 'convert' the Temple and its denizens before it can use any Charge(s) to convert the City/Settlement. AND if the Temple is the 'Mother Temple' that started/founded a Religion, it requires 2 Charges to convert.

That means, any settlement with a Temple will take at least 2 Charges to convert to your religion, and a city with the Mother/original Temple will require 4: 2 for the Temple, 1 each for the Urban and Rural elements of the city - because, by definition, it will already have a religion in it. That means 1 Missionary, unless 'augmented', cannot convert that city (and get any Relics out of it).

2. Temples will exert a 'conversion influence' on the city. Once converted, a Temple will start toi convert the rest of the city, but conversion to a new religion will be much slower than converting back to the original religion the Temple was built for. That means maintaining the 'old religion' will in the long run be much cheaper than converting to a new religion - natural conservatism applies here to the population of the city or settlement. - And again, until fully converted, the city does not hand over any Relics.

3. Certain Wonders also have a Religious Component in the Exploration Age:
Borobudur
Brihadeeswarar Temple
Hale o Keawe
Notre Dame
Rila Monastery
Serpent Mound
Shwedagon Zedi Daw

Each of these acts as a Temple for whichever Religion is in the city when it is completed. That means, if the city also has a regular Temple building, it requires yet another Missionary Charge to convert.
The 3 Relic slots now found in El Escorial, Hale o Keawe and the House of Wisdom are now in the above Wonders only and are 2 Relic slots each.

The point of all this is to require a certain degree of 'specializing' in religion to claw your way through the Cultural Legacy Path in the Exploration Age: Temples, Missionaries, Wonders will all have to be built to get and display the Relics, which will no longer fall into the hands of the first missionary who ambles through the city gates.
 
Ok Luca, we got it...
Let me try to explain you in simple terms what the context is here: Age transition loss of coherence.
The actual proposal being discussed try to focus on ways to fix this kind of randomness, that derails the core gameplay so immersion is lost.
Civilization introduced culture swap, revolution like events, in Civilization V. Rome colony founded on a distant continent like America could trigger a revolution, then a
temporary City state, and finally a new civilisation, with American traits.
It is an interesting concept, but you need to extract that context, and try to merge it into Civilization 7 in a way that everybody can understand.
You would like to expand the last Age transition or all of them?
Do you think that a revolution is better than the current crisis Age switch system?
In what it would be different?
Would it imply new civilisations are created?
You would like the game to switch civilizations after each Age Switch? Don't get in a hurry, take your time...
Try to make a point 1-2-3 examples for your hypothetical best game you would like to play... what would happen?
Use spacing, finish one chapter, then start the next on a new line.

Example:

I want to start as Carthage, then Ottomans, and then Turkey.

I think that when Antiquity Age end, Carthage should face a civil war, with all cities revolting, and then the lost cities, should form a Berber tribes civ, or joins the Arab civ. Etc.

Ciao.
 
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You have to decide what is meant by era! The age is not decided by the era but by events. The Enlightenment was born with the Italian and then French philosophers who influenced the elite and the people and then after a series of events, the French Revolution until after 1750, torture, the death penalty and corvee were normal for the peasants, the nobles managed the law and the courts and the nobles owned the peasants. Eras are decided by events, the dilemma is as a player, even if powerful, how much do you influence the environment and history? For example, Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, crucified Christ and contributed to the history and de
Ok Luca, we got it...
Let me try to explain you in simple terms what the context is here: Age transition loss of coherence.
The actual proposal being discussed try to focus on ways to fix this kind of randomness, that derails the core gameplay so immersion is lost.
Civilization introduced culture swap, revolution like events, in Civilization V. Rome colony founded on a distant continent like America could trigger a revolution, then a
temporary City state, and finally a new civilisation, with American traits.
It is an interesting concept, but you need to extract that context, and try to merge it into Civilization 7 in a way that everybody can understand.
You would like to expand the last Age transition or all of them?
Do you think that a revolution is better than the current crisis Age switch system?
In what it would be different?
Would it imply new civilisations are created?
You would like the game to switch civilizations after each Age Switch? Don't get in a hurry, take your time...
Try to make a point 1-2-3 examples for your hypothetical best game you would like to play... what would happen?
Use spacing, finish one chapter, then start the next on a new line.

Example:

I want to start as Carthage, then Ottomans, and then Turkey.

I think that when Antiquity Age end, Carthage should face a civil war, with all cities revolting, and then the lost cities, should form a Berber tribes civ, or joins the Arab civ. Etc.

Ciao.

finition of an era. Of a series of events, but these evolved until 313 AD, the Edict of Constantine and Christianity as a free cult. For peoples, there are politics and peoples. Peoples are united or separated for many reasons: economic, political, religious, even in this case by events, they cannot exist. Automatically Byzantine - Turkish, they are different peoples of the same family as the Goths or the Mongols, that a series of events: migrations, conversion to Islam, wars have brought these peoples to the Middle East and then to Turkey to found the Sultanate of Rum and then inherit the role of Byzantium,: if there had not been the Turks there would probably be today a Greek - Latin Mediterranean Christian - Orthodox state heir of Byzantium or evolution another example is Italy: who is the heir of the Roman Empire in Italy? The Vatican state? Culturally yes there have been many states over the centuries. Which could unite Italy: the Normans, Florence, Venice, the Borgias with Valentino, the Neapolitans of the Bourbon dynasty, the Medici of Florence in the end the most rude were the Savoy with intrigues and political waltzes
 
Eras are decided by events, the dilemma is as a player, even if powerful, how much do you influence the environment and history?
It's what we got in c7.
Eras has been defined by unlocking a tech in past games.
Different cultures techs discovered in one part of the world and never learnt in another.
I don't understand how anything that you've written can have an impact in the Age transition switch and reset mechanic...
a single revolution or a birth of a prophet do not dictate an Age switch, it's more like a number of civs in various part of the world
reach a certain tech threshold and society as a whole need to advance... It's still a simulation game so even complex
concepts needs to be reduced to possibly a single trigger mechanism easy to implement.
 
Screenshot 2025-05-17 at 23.28.06.png
 
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