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

[Crashdummy]

IMHO, it is equally ridiculous with a Leader lasting forever, but as Humankind proved, without some kind of personal identification with your played faction and opponents, nothing else in the game works, and we as humans are pre-programmed to recognize human faces better than anything else, so 'Leaders' is what works.

Doesn't mean I like it any better than continuous Civs, but the Perfect 4X Game for me would only deserve that title for me and me only, so there's no point in even talking about it.

Been thinking about this discussion this morning, and to be fair I don't think we are fundamentally in disagreement. I dislike the Civ switching and rigid Age transitions as both are implemented in Civ VII. I equally dislike continuous Civs for 6000 years with Immortal Leaders for 6000 years, but agree that at least they worked to play the game. Where I think we disagree is in the question of how to make the current game playable without starting over almost from nothing and thus leaving us playing checkers for the next several years waiting for a fix.

One point on the age/civ switch discussion, though. Ages/Eras have been part of Civ since Civ V - 15 years ago now. Civ Switching is brand new to Civ VII. I would suggest, then, that Ages as used in Civs V and VI were and are acceptable, but drastic changes between Ages/Eras are not and especially if they include a near-complete reset of your Civ in those same transitions.

IF that is an acceptable statement of your position and you assume that the 'core' of the franchise includes the Ages (which it has for the last 15 years) then how should the game implement and use Age changes in a way that is as acceptable as it has been since Civ V?

And even more importantly, I think, how does that game also include both the ability for play of the same (or similar) Civ continuously from start to finish with the possibility (NOT the requirement) of playing a 'morphing' Civ that changes nearly fundamentally from start to finish of game?

Because I do believe that both need to be included to reach all players, now that we have had a taste of both game styles.

And within that framework, how does the game maintain continuous identification of the gamer with his faction, whether it is a fantasy continuous Civ/culture since 4000 BCE or a set of Dynasties/polities of potentially wildly variable aspects in the same period. The Continuous Leader, as fundamentally idiotic as it is historically, at least works for that (see Humankind for a graphic example of what does not work). What might work as well or better?

Leaders are clearly not working

I dont think there is any way to fix Civ VII without removing Age transitions and Civ switching. I repeat, those are the problems, you cant fix them with a coat paint

Ages were merely timelines before, which changed almost nothing. When we talk about Age transitions here is the jump in time, the removal of the player from the game, making half the stuff suddenly obsolte without player interaction, upgrading units (both players and AI) without the proper investment, etc, etc. The whole transition introduced on Civ VII, that disrupts gameplay and breaks immersion needs to go

How the game include the ability for both? With a Classic Mode, which is what we have been asking. You get a Classic Mode and a Civ VII mode (whatever you want to call it), the ones that want Classic play pick one, the others pick the other

I dont believe both need to be included in future editions, and i thikn it would be a mistake to keep pushing this in Civ 8 and forward (if there is any forward)

We have had continuous identification with our civilization for 30+ years, the solution is to remove the new stuff that BROKE that. The problem didnt exist, it is present now due to the changes, and now you ask how to get rid of that problem...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Leaders are clearly not working

I dont think there is any way to fix Civ VII without removing Age transitions and Civ switching. I repeat, those are the problems, you cant fix them with a coat paint

Ages were merely timelines before, which changed almost nothing. When we talk about Age transitions here is the jump in time, the removal of the player from the game, making half the stuff suddenly obsolte without player interaction, upgrading units (both players and AI) without the proper investment, etc, etc. The whole transition introduced on Civ VII, that disrupts gameplay and breaks immersion needs to go

How the game include the ability for both? With a Classic Mode, which is what we have been asking. You get a Classic Mode and a Civ VII mode (whatever you want to call it), the ones that want Classic play pick one, the others pick the other

I dont believe both need to be included in future editions, and i thikn it would be a mistake to keep pushing this in Civ 8 and forward (if there is any forward)

We have had continuous identification with our civilization for 30+ years, the solution is to remove the new stuff that BROKE that. The problem didnt exist, it is present now due to the changes, and now you ask how to get rid of that problem...

The Leaders WERE clearly not working. They were (and are) a tremendous resource sink of animated graphics and voice acting, severely restricted the Civs that could be included in the game (because for many, we simply had no legitimate Leaders and/or no language. like Olmecs, Minoans, Harappans, Huns, etc).

They worked only in the sense that they provided instant visible cues to what/who we were playing and playing against,, and nothing else (cue Humankind, again) worked as well for that.

In almost every other aspect, they were a burden on the game. What's not working now is that we are still stuck with them and all their negatives, but they are more general and so do not work as well as specific indicators for the Civ(s) we are playing.

And that brings up the idea that "the problem didn't exist" until Civ VII. There were problems, and the problems are in greater focus now that we've seen alternatives. The continuous Civ you identified with is, frankly, garbage. There is no legitimate way to make any even semi-historically-based Civ valid for the entire span of 6000 years, because there is no Civ or culture that existed for that entire time. Your 'Uniques' will, therefore, be largely made up and artificial or you will be playing a generic Civ for most of the game.

And that is the primary argument for Civ Switching: it keeps your Civ relevant throughout the game.

That is not, by the way, an argument that Civ VII does it right. The arbitrary switch at arbitrary Age transitions done by deus ex machina out of sight of the gamer is just about as bad a method as they could have used, but it does not invalidate Civ Switching as a better way to keep the civ playable throughout compared to the continuous fantasy Civs that are all we had before.

Basically, you do not like the new broken system. I agree: it was badly done and is only marginally playable..

You want to go back to the old broken system in future Civs because you apparently cannot see any other way to play the game.

I disagree completely.

 

[Nokturno]

The Leaders WERE clearly not working. They were (and are) a tremendous resource sink of animated graphics and voice acting, severely restricted the Civs that could be included in the game (because for many, we simply had no legitimate Leaders and/or no language. like Olmecs, Minoans, Harappans, Huns, etc).

What the team did in Civ 7 was certainly not the only way to solve that problem. (And I'm pretty sure there is a good leader to be found for the Huns, and very likely at least a mythological one for the Minoans. We don't need the Minoans with the old Civ roster anyway. They are Greeks!).
They could consult with anthropologists and create a fictional leader for civs that don't have any, or just toss the leaders out of the window. I recently played Civ 2 after a very long time and you don't really get to see leaders, only symbols and heralds.
The former solution is not "historical"? Sure, let's have Ben Franklin leading whatever antique civ into the Ming into the British, as happened with the last Civ 7 game I've been playing. That's surely better and more logical.

Going back to the topic, and my last game. Something happened which did not when I first played Civ 7, the vanilla 1.0 version.
Basically, both the AI and myself were super focused on legacy paths, most of which (all except the science path I believe) don't really require progression through the tech tree.
So, transition criteria were met both times while both myself and my opponents barely made it through the half of the tech tree. Explorations ended with most AI civs still using Cogs!

I think, *at the very least*, they need to give up this idea that everyone needs to progress at the same time. It is causing way more harm than good and can be easily removed without breaking the game as it is now.
Get the legacy paths for bonuses, sure, but progress seamlessly when you actually reach the tech boundary - like in (vanilla) Civ 6.
With that, and more civs and an option to force historical progression, 7 can at least keep me playing occasionally until we get a proper 8, hopefully rebuilt from the ground up and abandoning 5's board game model.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I personally am of the school of thought that this game isn't meant to be super serious, and I'm all up for my aboriginal Civ have kangaroo horsemen fighting the ancient American cavalry, but maybe that's just me

I'm not looking for custom, I'm looking for specific (arguably OTT) flavour because it's fun and feels fitting with a game where you (used to) be able to start out the American empire or launch spaceships as egypt

This is clearly what the majority of the playerbase wants, so you are’nt winning them back without that

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Basically, both the AI and myself were super focused on legacy paths, most of which (all except the science path I believe) don't really require progression through the tech tree.
So, transition criteria were met both times while both myself and my opponents barely made it through the half of the tech tree. Explorations ended with most AI civs still using Cogs!

There was this idea of tech bottlenecks, and the next "Age" was just a new branch of techs being open for research to all civs but,

1) No single civ could snowball past a tech bottleneck alone . in game This would have been translated to some kind of invention resource limited, or great person limited, which by design, the MAP generator would spread equally. Via exploits, like conquering a city with a required Great person, which had to be a unit! and brought into your empire, to finish the bottleneck tech research.

2) Once this tech is researched, everyone can now research it and "advance" to the next "age"

At the time of this proposal it was mocked for being "too hard on players" .
I implied papyrus research needed papyrus resource AND an alchemic scientist-high priest to unlock writing revolution, or Ancient University...

I guess no-one foresaw what was coming...

This is still borderline taboo mind you... the point is complex.

3) The bottleneck is a non-eurocentric idea. It's the whole world that needs to trade, or else advance wont happen.
This might be reduced to one or two bottlenecks effectively... Ancient University revolution and Scientific revolution.

If Someone KILLS the great Person, everybody is stuck untill a new one is born...
For this concept to work there must be a mixture of complex trading network and espionage solutions available from early
stages... it's the same as if your civs needs iron to build its golden age unit and don't have access to it...
YOU NEED TO FIGHT TO OBTAIN IT.

Instead everyone thought it was a bad idea and that everybody would lose and be unhappy...
What can I say...

The idea is here, sticky.... It won't go away... I put it here...

 

[Monene]

The idea is here, sticky.... It won't go away... I put it here...

Well, as a general rule, most people don't contribute to science or culture. Very few have achieved this after facing the conservatism of the masses. I believe that if an empire grows too large, it stagnates, or if it achieves a golden age, it stagnates, because the population doesn't contribute, and that would be a race between the leader who seeks to civilize and the very human nature that is being shaped.

 

[Monene]

And those bottlenecks, as I understand it, were the scientific method, the Enlightenment, humanism, and supremacism.

 

[Skojardu]

The Leaders WERE clearly not working. They were (and are) a tremendous resource sink of animated graphics and voice acting, severely restricted the Civs that could be included in the game (because for many, we simply had no legitimate Leaders and/or no language. like Olmecs, Minoans, Harappans, Huns, etc).

I may be too old-minded, but why couldn't Civ VII wow us with dozens of civs and leaders, but with still image leader pages? I agree that either the art team nailed their brief while nobody else did, OR that art was prioritized over gameplay to a sinful degree.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I may be too old-minded, but why couldn't Civ VII wow us with dozens of civs and leaders, but with still image leader pages? I agree that either the art team nailed their brief while nobody else did, OR that art was prioritized over gameplay to a sinful degree.

Sigh. We've been talking about the Leader resource sink of fully animated Leaders with 'native' language voice actors for over 10 years on these Forumsm and how there are alternatives that would probably work as well for a fraction of the effort.

The response to all this has been - crickets.

And now, in Civ VII, we have equally-expensive in resources leaders who are figureheads only and in many cases never real political, military, cultural or science leaders of any civ at all. This is not necessarily a bad idea, but it doesn't address the problem of the massive cost of the leaders and only slightly addresses the problem of finding leaders appropriate for some Civs complete with attested languages: and that includes some frequently-requested Civs like the Minoans and Olmecs (Neither of which, admittedly, would be easy to find leaders for with or without their dead languages, because we have no names for any of their leaders of any kind - the Minoan leader 'Minos' was probably a Title rather than a personal name, so no luck there)

When other games 'get away' with simple head shots, animated or not, and the Mods have largely used still shots of the leaders for at least 15 years now and no one seems to have had any problem remembering who they are playing, you have to wonder about priorities in the game.

Yes, the animated leaders are or have become a Trademark of the franchise, but we are paying a heavy price in limited leaders and compromised gaming options for that trademark,

 

[stealth_nsk]

Animated leaders are kind of problem of marketing. Civilization franchise is the leader of 4X strategy games, the only AAA game among them. It gives some advantages - when new people come to the genre, Civilization games are always first in the recommendation list. But it has it costs and animated voiced leaders are part of the things you need to have to keep this position. For the same reason Civilization uses real instruments (and Civ7 even orchestral recording), that's just part of the package.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Well, as a general rule, most people don't contribute to science or culture. Very few have achieved this after facing the conservatism of the masses. I believe that if an empire grows too large, it stagnates, or if it achieves a golden age, it stagnates, because the population doesn't contribute, and that would be a race between the leader who seeks to civilize and the very human nature that is being shaped.

It's a secondary problem. The Hellenes was never an Empire, but an Alliance of city states. Civ has always been about building empires, imagine running ten cities each one with a different government. Old world has gone maybe too far with the leaders and specialist concept, whilst in Civ 6 the choice was always the same 6 governors. It's not easy peasy for sure. It's only a ruff guideline.

 

[Monene]

Imagine running ten cities each one with a different government.

In many cases, cities don't have the same type of terrain or provide the same types of yields (except, of course, when at a high level it doesn't matter as much), nor do they have the same needs or strategic value, and it would be the same with a different type of government in each city. Like a religion that gives more or less yields to something.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

In many cases, cities don't have the same type of terrain or provide the same types of yields (except, of course, when at a high level it doesn't matter as much), nor do they have the same needs or strategic value, and it would be the same with a different type of government in each city. Like a religion that gives more or less yields to something.

The problem with a City State type of unit such as the Hellenic in game terms is not the variation in resources artificial and physical amongst the various cities, but their utter lack of cooperation except in extreme circumstances and their constant internecine warfare amongst themselves. Only when, in Hellenistic times (post-Alexander) did the Greek cities begin forming Leagues among themselves and their cities actually start cooperating in a political or military sense that the game more or less requires as the standard Civ action.

Prior to that, the idea of an Athens and a Sparta being part of the same political unit would be considered nonsense by most Greeks. Even when faced with an existential threat, like the Persian invasions, half the Greek cities joined the Persian side or sat out the entire affair as neutrals. And when any Greek city wanted to attack a non-Greek group, they were on their own: to model a Greek city-state Civ with any accuracy, if they declared war on any non-Greek IP or Civ only one Greek city should be able to build military units or send them against the enemy - every other city would be neutral. Even the most cosmopolitan and well-educated Greek simply could not conceive of anyone, Greek or non, not born in his own city as being his equal or having any civic rights, so they were quite incapable of making the intellectual leap required to form any larger political unit than their own city and the immediate countryside: everyone else were foreigners to be conquered or ignored.

 

[Monene]

they were quite incapable of making the intellectual leap required to form any larger political unit than their own city and the immediate countryside: everyone else were foreigners to be conquered or ignored.

Exactly. That would mean that at the beginning of the game, you're just another city in the crowd until you develop your civilization further (like the game I believe was called Spore) and its many layers that hold it together, not an empire that's always the same and becomes tiresome by the end of the game. Just because someone shares your culture, territory, nation, or religion doesn't mean they're part of your civilization, and in the same way, they can be part of your civilization without having much in common. For example, what held the Arabs together was their religion, and for the Americans, it was their system of government, but they could vary in everything else.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Exactly. That would mean that at the beginning of the game, you're just another city in the crowd until you develop your civilization further (like the game I believe was called Spore) and its many layers that hold it together, not an empire that's always the same and becomes tiresome by the end of the game. Just because someone shares your culture, territory, nation, or religion doesn't mean they're part of your civilization, and in the same way, they can be part of your civilization without having much in common. For example, what held the Arabs together was their religion, and for the Americans, it was their system of government, but they could vary in everything else.

Not exactly. When you form an Alliance in Civ you don't take control over the other civs. The same way you didn't in the Vassalage system in C5. What I was trying to say is that there should be a revised multi-civ government system for the latter argument to work.

 

[Monene]

There should be a revised multi-civ government system...

Something like ideologies? Where being part of one you must fulfill common goals against other ideologies.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Exactly. That would mean that at the beginning of the game, you're just another city in the crowd until you develop your civilization further (like the game I believe was called Spore) and its many layers that hold it together, not an empire that's always the same and becomes tiresome by the end of the game.

Civ VII is especially limited in the way it handles governments and government-types: all they are is some minor bonuses during Celebraions, with no other meaningful effect in the game.

In reality, there is strong evidence that some of the earliest cities were only physically cities. That is, there is no archeological evidence in the sites of any heirarchy - nobody was in charge - so that as soon as even a minor crisis came along, the city simply disintegrated back into family/clan groups.

There is other evidence from somewhat later that many, if not all, of the early cities in Mesopotamia were all city-states. That is, there is no really early evidence that there was any political unity above the city, even though they shared many aspects of culture and language: they might all be Sumerians (just as later the Greeks were all Greeks) but politically, they were Lagashians, Urukians, - no loyalty beyond the city.

IF all of this was to be included in the game, it would require a distinct 'Trigger' for a Civ/group to advance beyond the individual city to 'empire' in any form at all. The problem then is that every player will beeline for the trigger, because remaining a single city is not likely to be any more optimal than it was in real life. That makes it a waste of game design, since there is no real gamer decision involved.

 

[Monene]

IF all of this was to be included in the game, it would require a distinct 'Trigger' for a Civ/group to advance beyond the individual city to 'empire' in any form at all. The problem then is that every player will beeline for the trigger, because remaining a single city is not likely to be any more optimal than it was in real life. That makes it a waste of game design, since there is no real gamer decision involved.

The player's decision will be when and how. Many civilizations have had different ways of progressing, almost always a leader had to impose himself on the other members of his culture and could do so in 2000 BC or in the 12th century. Obviously, the more you expand your culture, the more cities you will have to recover. And it also depends on what you choose as the cornerstone of your civilization (Religion, exploitation system, charisma, legalism, xenophobia, climate). Or is not everyone forced to learn to write? It doesn't matter how or when, what matters is the style you have.