How Would You Implement A Classic Mode?

[tman2000]

There's a strong push for the classic mode for Civ 7, and whatever your thoughts on the game or this subject, it seems that at least half of the former playerbase won't ever play this game without a classic mode, so whatever improvements could be made to 7, it seems that only a classic mode will repair the audience.

The question is, how in the world do you do it? This thread is for any discussion on this topic, including your own ideas. So, I have an idea, but I'll post it as a reply.

 

[tman2000]

My idea with 7 and classic mode is that you have to keep the general age structure because so much is built around it, but I think it can be softened very easily. However, the problem is if you can play any civ in any age, you have to ultimately change how age progression works.

I think you should have continuous research into the next age's tech, but at high cost. Once enough players have crossed a milestone, the "new age" is triggered and that tech becomes normal cost, while the last age's tech reduces in cost. This is a global rubber band that keeps all players on a similar cadence. Even after a new age triggers, players still have to conclude their progress in the old tech tree (now at lower cost) before they personally transition. When you personally transition to the new age, you may choose to switch civs.
There will generally be three considerations on civ-swapping:

1. You like the idea of cultural change over time and simply prefer to become a new civ
2. You are behind, and swapping to an age appropriate civ will be a big leg up
3. You want to play classically and always avoid civ switching if you can.

I have to explain this more in a moment, but one advantage of being a civ in the right age is you have direct access to research their civics. The other advantage is that there is an overbuilding bonus if you are an age appropriate civ over previous age buildings. There will be less of a bonus if you are a future age civ, and no bonus if you are an antiquity civ - for overbuilding that is. However, overbuilding will work differently.

You can see how with this simple set of changes, a classic mode could easily be implemented. There are two problems, however:

1. Age scaling is disrupted if you play a civ out of age, this means that tiered age scaling of yields needs to be removed. This also means that future age buildings cannot be different merely by existing as the higher scaled yield version of an earlier building.
2. If you're in the wrong age, you won't have access to the right civics. In some cases, those civics in an earlier age might even be overpowered or out of place.

I would solve this in the following way:

1. Smooth all yields so there is no longer age-based scaling. Something like any building only ever has +1 yield, maybe up to +5 max with all multipliers, policies, bonuses and adjacencies. I mean the base yield of a building or improvement.
2. Instead of a civics tree, civs will now have civics cards. 3-5 usually. Civ unique units and buildings will have to be built in the appropriate age, repeating some of the issues 7 was trying to solve, but the civics system should make up for it.
3. In the appropriate age, you can apply culture directly to research your civ's own civics cards.
4. Outside of the appropriate age, civics cards are gained by osmosis: proximity to other civs, trade, diplomacy or certain achievements.
5. The goal is to either build an eclectic set of polices that synergize somehow OR to stay within age-based civ switching to contiguous civilizations, which comes with sets of complementary policies designed to stack in some way. This difference, and the combination between the two, will be the entire flavor of the game. Permitting both classic alt-history scenarios, and sticking with the age paradigm of Civ 7.
6. Since buildings don't scale, instead the focus will be on them providing unique functions that create complementarities, synergies or asymmetries. It's an anything goes, Magic The Gathering kind of concept. Maybe there's a toll bridge now that softly taxes all players trading through those roads. Maybe there's a Mithraeum which creates corruption pressure and lets you secretly sabotage someone's religious progress. Maybe there's a Confucian Academy which makes your treasure ships have a higher gold yield, but makes them more attractive to pirate, with no effect on victory points.
7. In order to both give buildings more possible functions AND to deal with the "on-rails" complaint about legacy milestones as well as the repetitiveness complaint, I would move away from legacy paths altogether and instead have age based events.
8. Age based events are voluntary cadence governing mini-games that produce benefits, but are not related to victory at all. If you remember things like Civ IV World's Fair or even a World Congress. You go to the event menu and make contributions. Ideally, each age has two events, and they don't always have to occur in the same order.

For events I would give them all this basic pattern:

1. Use event related buildings to develop your power, explore a side of the event, etc.
2. After committing to a side or strategy, pour as many resources as you can into the event if you are trying to win.
3. After concluding, winning players will receive benefits that lock-in for the rest of the game.

In the Exploration Age, you might have a Religious Universalism event which is just the conversion of as many settlements as you can to your religion. A second event might be a holy war. The results of the first event might benefit you in the second event. With a crusades, you might be militarily weak, but your cultural success in the spread of religion gives you some military bonuses to help out in the holy war. If you win the religion phase, you might get a benefit that causes your religious buildings to never obsolesce.

Since the asymmetric abilities of buildings are now interconnected with events, then success in events determines whether some buildings will remain as your legacy, or whether you will want to overbuild them later. In this sense, your differently aged buildings will now truly reflect your legacy in terms of what events you were strong in during the course of history.

Ideally, there would be two events per age, and I believe there really should be 5 ages, looking like this:

1. Age of Antiquity (2000 BC - 700 AD). Events - World Wonders, Dawn of Literature
2. Medieval Age (700 AD - 1490 AD). Events - Religious Universalism, Wars of Religion
3. Age of Exploration (1490 AD - 1750 AD). Events - Colonialism, The Enlightenment
4. Age of Globalization (1750 AD - 1900 AD). Events - Dawn of Technology, Rise of Nationalism
5. Age of Technology (1900 AD - 2050 AD). Events - World War, Information Technology

Since this is a lot to ask for, I would say that the above 5 age structure should be Expansion number 1 fodder. Therefore, an abridged version of the above that excludes the Crusades, the Enlightenment, Nationalism and IT, retaining a three age structure, might be appropriate for an overhaul patch which implements classic mode.
There should be added depth to diplomacy and improved AI, and improved UI. I think that can all wait for the expansion, while the other features should be in a free patch.

This lays the groundwork for a second expansion. To lean into the main premise of these changes, I would add sub-yields to diversify the number of buildings you could have and create more synergies and asymmetries. Things like culture being split into art, music, faith, literature.

That can be fodder for the second expansion, which can add the following:

1. Better map generation to include a "land sea" steppe and three distinct centers of civilization.
2. An expanded bronze age as a sixth age, where Antiquity now corresponds to the Iron Age.
3. Expand the Medieval age with an early Medieval "age of the steppe" or age of trade.
4. A massively expanded cultural system with religious enrichments, but in the last two ages much more dynamism including the ability to found a movie studio and sell movies to other countries for economic and cultural effects.
5. A financial/corporation layer that interacts with culture, after the transition from the Industrial to Modern Age.
6. Deepened diplomacy with many different forms of alliances, where you can be another player's vassal, and later a NATO/Warsaw Pact/Non-Aligned alliance system.

On those heels, they could do a third full expansion which is a future age with Mars and Moon colonization but this time it interacts militarily and economically with your Earth map.

Since the core premise of this is to permit synergies and asymmetries, then there's plenty of room for new Civ DLC that goes bonkers. There will be countless instances of someone discovering a crazy synergy that breaks the game, and I think that's a good thing. Nerfing stupid good exploits and buffing worthless civs in patches, I think, is the bread and butter of this community. Being able to have endless variation to experiment with is what we like as well.

So that's my full idea.

 

[UWHabs]

While you claim to be keeping the age structure, I feel within the core function of the game, that wouldn't necessarily work. The game relies on an end point, and then being able to fully reset the map.

IMO, I think the "classic mode" will only end up being something that sort of snaps on top of the current system. I will preface this to say that I enjoy the current system, so not sure I would even play this mode. But I think it could work.
First, I think that all building yields and adjacencies should stay through the eras. Sure, you lose those little "+1 science on science building" bonus cards, and you may lose some of your civ bonuses. But it's annoying to lose all your adjacencies. To go along with that, though, I think I would add a few extra pieces to the overbuilding puzzle
1. A building that is overbuilt still applies some small base yield to the tile. So if I overbuild a library, I still get +1 or +2 science on that tile. That at least gives you a little bonus for having an older empire. Maybe half the base yield of the building.
2. The new buildings need some more ratings inflation. So maybe Library/Academy are base yields of 2 and 4, then the Observatory and University maybe are base yields of 6 and 8, and then Schoolhouse/Lab base yields would be like 10 and 15. Probably also you could scale specialist yields too - maybe in antiquity, specialists only give you the base +2 science/+2 culture, in exploration they give you half the adjacency of any current era building, and in modern they give you the full adjacency of any current era building. So you're still encouraged to build over the previous era buildings, but you could sprawl out and keep all the science buildings around.
3. Obviously heavy rebalance to costs.

As for the civs, I think it depends on how much work they want to put into them, but I think as a base level, the easiest change would be that you can play any civ starting from the ancient era, but playing a civ outside of their zone would simply get a generic civics tree. I think my idea was a very simple tree based on the civ's traits - so America is Economic and Expansionistic, playing them in antiquity you would get a small tree of maybe 3 civics, and 3-4 "traditions". You don't get your civ's bonus, you don't get any UU or UB, but you get something towards your traits. So maybe expansionistic civs will have by default +2 settlement limit in the era, whereas other civs only get +1. An ancient era expansionist tradition might be +25% production to settlers, or maybe it's +1 food on river tiles, +10% production to warehouse buildings, etc.... An economic policy could be +1 gold on rivers, +1 gold on quarters, +1 gold on resources, +25% production on merchants, etc...
Basically you have a set of either bonuses or traditions, and each civ would get some of them. It's something so that's you're not playing a vanilla civ, but they would almost certainly still be worse than playing a civ who is actually from the era.


I think when you take both of those together, it gets you almost as close to a classic civ as you can, within the constraints of the current civ 7 system. With the buildings effectively keeping all their yields, you lose a couple points per building on the age transition, but you won't drop from like 1500 culture per turn to 350 when it resets. And with the overbuilding being a bit more generous, if you have the space you might sprawl, but if you're cramped, you can still make sure to get to the new buildings. And with the new buildings giving a solid yield upgrade, you are still incentivized to modernize, and you can't just rely on the old yields.

If you do that, with a little bit of rebalance to the legacy paths too, I think it might be amenable enough to more people who really don't like the current switching mode. It's still a reset, but much more of a soft reset, and less so if everyone keeps their same civs too.

 

[Crashdummy]

My idea with 7 and classic mode is that you have to keep the general age structure because so much is built around it, but I think it can be softened very easily. However, the problem is if you can play any civ in any age, you have to ultimately change how age progression works.

I think you should have continuous research into the next age's tech, but at high cost. Once enough players have crossed a milestone, the "new age" is triggered and that tech becomes normal cost, while the last age's tech reduces in cost. This is a global rubber band that keeps all players on a similar cadence. Even after a new age triggers, players still have to conclude their progress in the old tech tree (now at lower cost) before they personally transition. When you personally transition to the new age, you may choose to switch civs.

This is already wrong. No, you CANT keep the different Ages in a Classic Mode, it wouldnt be a Classic Mode

A Classic Mode need to have both civ switching AND Age transitions removed. There are NO Future Techs before you finish every single tech available in the game, because there is only one, big Tech Tree

From here on, since these assumptions are wrong, your whole post ends up being wrong too

People that are not the ones that want Classic Mode need to stop trying to redefine what we want and instead LISTEN TO US

Agres are removes, civ swithing is removed, you can play any Civ you want from start, tech, civis and all the trees are unified. Things like resource change based on research of technologies and NOT based on tiome. Legacy Paths are obviously removed since they have no purpose anymore, we just have victory conditions

 

[stealth_nsk]

Yeah, the core thing here is that currently "classic mode" is a buzzword, which have totally different meanings for different people.

The solution which would satisfy the most current haters - without any age reset or civilization switching - would require years of work and it's totally unrealistic to expect from Firaxis.

The solutions which are often seen are relatively simple (like the one used in "Enduring Empires" mod) won't satisfy significant amount of people who dislike ages. And also, bringing those things to the commercial game standards would still require a lot of work (those standards differ from mods by a mile).

So, I believe, the only solution for classic mode is:

1. Introduce scenarios to the game (this has to be done in any case).
2. Expose as many game components as possible to modding.
3. Wait for modders to create some sort of classical mode. If enough modders will be interested in it, this could actually end up in something fun.

 

[britesparc]

As one of those who's not buying the game because of the Civ-switching/Age transitions, it's very interesting to read all the analyses and possible tweaks they could make to satisfy those of us who are (for want of a better word) boycotting. But I have to say, there's nothing they could do to entice me that didn't have the following:

- pick any Civ from any era at the start of the game
- at no point do I or my opponents ever change Civ
- Age transitions do not reset anything

I accept none of that may be possible, whether from a technical or financial point of view. That's fine, hopefully they will offer that in Civ 8.

I can get into my reasoning, but for me the type of gameplay I've described is literally what I consider to be "Civilization". Without that, it's just another possibility-intriguing 4x derivative that I might play if it winds up on Game Pass.

 

[Crashdummy]

Yeah, the core thing here is that currently "classic mode" is a buzzword, which have totally different meanings for different people.

The solution which would satisfy the most current haters - without any age reset or civilization switching - would require years of work and it's totally unrealistic to expect from Firaxis.

According to who?

Why are people talking about how long it would take to implement it? I think it can be done by a very small team of people in less than a year, Firaxis hasnt said anything about being impossible or how long it would take

Wait for modders to create some sort of classical mode. If enough modders will be interested in it, this could actually end up in something fun.

So its impossible for Firaxis, but modders can do it?

As one of those who's not buying the game because of the Civ-switching/Age transitions, it's very interesting to read all the analyses and possible tweaks they could make to satisfy those of us who are (for want of a better word) boycotting. But I have to say, there's nothing they could do to entice me that didn't have the following:

- pick any Civ from any era at the start of the game
- at no point do I or my opponents ever change Civ
- Age transitions do not reset anything

I accept none of that may be possible, whether from a technical or financial point of view. That's fine, hopefully they will offer that in Civ 8.

I can get into my reasoning, but for me the type of gameplay I've described is literally what I consider to be "Civilization". Without that, it's just another possibility-intriguing 4x derivative that I might play if it winds up on Game Pass.

We have been telling them this for months, but the ones that are not the ones that want Classic Mode think they know better than us what Classic Mode is....

 

[stealth_nsk]

According to who?

I honestly don't understand how it can not be seen by anyone who ever touched any software development, not necessary gamedev. The work required to make full classic mode includes:

1. Total rebuild of tech and civic trees, because currently they are designed for ages.
2. Total rework of the buildings system, because currently it's designed for buildings becoming obsolete and overbuilt.
3. Total rework of all civilization bonuses, including rebuilding assets.
4. All this need to went through multiple gameplay testing iterations and QA
5. etc.

From gameplay standpoint it's a rebuild from scratch with only engine and some assets being reused. Firaxis shown a playable prototype of Civ7 with ages to 2K 6 years ago and the gameplay is still lacking.

Why are people talking about how long it would take to implement it? I think it can be done by a very small team of people in less than a year, Firaxis hasnt said anything about being impossible or how long it would take

Of course you can't expect from Firaxis to comment on it, especially like "we would like to do it, but don't enough resources"

So its impossible for Firaxis, but modders can do it?

1. Modders don't have the same standards for stability. Even most developed mods like Vox Populi for Civ5 still crash.
2. Modders don't have the same standards for hardware compatibility. If mod doesn't work on your device - it's your problem, not the modder's.
3. Modders don't have the same standards for assets. They could totally use static pictures instead of leaders, no sounds, etc. while Firaxis is still being actively criticized for Revenge model not fully represent historical one
4. Modders don't have the same standards for game balance
5. etc.

Modders could build something interesting, they can't build the feature up to commercial game standards.

We have been telling them this for months, but the ones that are not the ones that want Classic Mode think they know better than us what Classic Mode is....

In this very thread I already see every pro-classic persons having their own definition and I've seen many more before. I don't have my own definition, of course, because I don't thing it's a reasonable goal, I'm just looking at the posts by others.

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, the core thing here is that currently "classic mode" is a buzzword, which have totally different meanings for different people.

The solution which would satisfy the most current haters - without any age reset or civilization switching - would require years of work and it's totally unrealistic to expect from Firaxis.

The solutions which are often seen are relatively simple (like the one used in "Enduring Empires" mod) won't satisfy significant amount of people who dislike ages. And also, bringing those things to the commercial game standards would still require a lot of work (those standards differ from mods by a mile).

So, I believe, the only solution for classic mode is:

1. Introduce scenarios to the game (this has to be done in any case).
2. Expose as many game components as possible to modding.
3. Wait for modders to create some sort of classical mode. If enough modders will be interested in it, this could actually end up in something fun.

Yeah, completely removing the ages I'm pretty sure is a non-starter from a design perspective. I mean, sure, it's not impossible to just chain together the tech and civic trees, for example, and probably to have 9 tiers of units instead of 3x3. But you'd have to redesign the whole overbuilding system, add in resources appearing or disappearing somehow, never mind figuring out how that completely different game from the classic game balances with the classic view, including making sure each civ's unique trees make sense and show up at the right time (you'd need to make sure the American Rail Yard doesn't get unlocked 20 turns into the game, obviously).

 

[Siptah]

What I like about OPs post is that they thought their idea through and presented it in detail.

I also like that it doesn’t require to have two game modes, but allows to have optional switching or transcendence. I think this is the only realistic option: a single game modes that allows both.

But I think OPs rework is too much work, too many consequences that require further changes, including two expansions in the thought process. That - to me - shows that the solution is too complicated and too far from the game‘s structure. It‘s also a strange mid-way between having ages and then not.

I personally think that Enduring Empires is the right approach - or the slightly simpler switching à la Humankind. Hence, making switching optional, transcending worth a thought, and keeping eras in place. With an optional setting that the AI doesn‘t switch ever. I know it‘s not the solution some are hoping for (but no solution is). Yet, it is elegant, economic, and realistic. It may never end up as official nonetheless, but maybe a widely played mod.

 

[McSpank01]

Classic mode is a myth. It will never happen, and it cannot happen.

Put simply, the entire game is structured around the concept of Ages. Attempting to remove that concept is just a gargantuan task that would pretty much break the game. The entire balance of the game (which even now is not very good) is predicated on the concept of an age, with a start and end point. If you consider all the things that are literally baked into the game at the point of transition, things such as overbuilding, changes to resources, changes to City States, changes to the tech and civic trees, balance to yields, units that are suddenly available, adjacencies.. I could go on, you would need to build all of that again, completely redesign how it all works, rethink it all again.

That also doesn't even take into account the concept of civ switching altogether. In a classic mode you are simply left with a bunch of vanilla faceless civs that do next to nothing for 2/3rds of the game (unless you want to completely redesign every single one of them to make them relevant in all ages.. which of course is another massive task). Honestly I cannot imagine anyone finding that fun.

I think the main point however is that Civ 7 is not simply Civ 6 with Ages and Civ Switching. It is a completely different game, if you remove those two elements all you are left with is an incredibly basic and bare bones version of Civ 6, with debatably better graphics. It has so little of the mechanics from Civ 6, it would have less going for it than Civ 6 had on release, never mind after all the DLC.

 

[Leucarum]

Yeah, I think the goal would have to be to work within the existing framework to get as close as possible. So I'd focus in on Age Transitions and civ switching.

Age Transitions
Age transitions are a problem regardless of whether we have a classic mode or not. Unless Firaxis can fix modern in particular, this game's core design philosophy is a wreck. Players have to want to play all 3 ages, but Firaxis have made a modern age which seems to be universally slated... And an exploration which has at best halt-hearted support. The problems exist on a lot of fronts; jarring transitions, out of control yields, too much micromanagement later on.

But the big question is snowballing. The age system has exacerbated snowballing since the AI suffers from it far more than the human, and far too many players players seem to absolutely loathe it. The argument that you could solve this with AI is true, but seems unlikely that Firaxis will pull off to me I.think the answer is that they need to move away from using the age system to try and reset players and look at adding more constant "brakes". Reducing yield explosion is also part of it, but I don't think it solves everything by itself.

The best anti-snowball mechanism they have in Civ7 is the settlement limit. I don't think it's the best but as a starting point I'd build on that:

• I'd make the penalties for going over harsher (include empire-wide yield % penalties), and make cities take up 2 settlement limit.
• You'd need something like a vassal or occupied city option which give minimal yields but take up no/less settlement limit and still let militarists do their goals.
• Probably for exploration you'd need something similar for the distant lands as a "colony" which gave reduced yields but took up less settlement limit.

In the long run, Civ5 showed that they can make a game where constrained growth is the optimal way to play. I don't think settlement limit is the best place to end up, but it's what they currently have so I'd build on that while adding more speed limiters. If you constrain how hard and how fast players can grow you can keep the late game interesting.

You'd definitely still need to curtail yeild growth though...

If you slow the snowball you can probably expand what carries over between ages more and more while letting modern be semi-interesting, which gets us incrementally closer to a classic-esque mode

Civ Switching
I've mostly thought about Civ Switching - that's the feature in 7 which grinds my gears the most.

I very much agree with @Siptah that Enduring Empires is the model to use to fix Civ Switching. Having Civs from later eras playable earlier is going to create a headache, but letting civs "transcend" feels very plausible. And I believe everything here looks do-able with mods?

• UI and Yields can get age scaling without too much difficulty. Let things still be built from previous eras.
• For UUs transfer their buffs/maluses onto the units of the same class in the next age - e.g. Aksumite ships can make trade routes in Exploration.
• You can take a similar approach for civics which affect a specific building or unit - e.g. Mayan +1 Science Adjacency on Altars can transfer to Temples and City Parks in later ages.
• The only civilian unit which goes obsolete between ages is the missionary - so while the other civilian UUs can just transfer without an issue, either the special missionaries disappear, or they become archaeologist replacements with the same abilities.

The big question is traditions, since too many leaders and other features trigger off them. So we need a way to give Civs which transcend some sort of Civic trees in each age. I do like the idea of some generic ones, maybe keyed off civ or leader traits (e.g. expansionist, scientific), and once you pick one you're locked into that one for the age similar to ideologies. This is really where I think having Firaxis' official stamp would be important, while everything can be done with mods, getting alternate trees legitimized by the source would be very nice. Personally I think it would be very fun if each tree had an alternative way to progress a legacy path - that would really let you shake up gameplay between runs based on which you chose, but it would be a lot of work.

If you wanted to extend this backwards, the big problem is that while it's plausible to imagine older UIs still being built in later eras - we build plenty of architecture to evoke the past, and it's easy to imagine buildings being repurposed - it gets a bit tougher to imagine the Nepalese building a Power Station in Antiquity... And many UUs don't have an equivalent class until later in the game. I'd say, it's probably a problem better avoided until the game is in a better state.

 

[Haig]

Just an option to let player to keep their civ at the first and second age change.

I would accept that

 

[SammyKhalifa]

"Classic" mode= no unique anythings. No culture, no differences between civs except player color. The way nature intended CivI style.

 

[Crashdummy]

I honestly don't understand how it can not be seen by anyone who ever touched any software development, not necessary gamedev. The work required to make full classic mode includes:

1. Total rebuild of tech and civic trees, because currently they are designed for ages.
2. Total rework of the buildings system, because currently it's designed for buildings becoming obsolete and overbuilt.
3. Total rework of all civilization bonuses, including rebuilding assets.
4. All this need to went through multiple gameplay testing iterations and QA
5. etc.

From gameplay standpoint it's a rebuild from scratch with only engine and some assets being reused. Firaxis shown a playable prototype of Civ7 with ages to 2K 6 years ago and the gameplay is still lacking.


Of course you can't expect from Firaxis to comment on it, especially like "we would like to do it, but don't enough resources"

1. Modders don't have the same standards for stability. Even most developed mods like Vox Populi for Civ5 still crash.
2. Modders don't have the same standards for hardware compatibility. If mod doesn't work on your device - it's your problem, not the modder's.
3. Modders don't have the same standards for assets. They could totally use static pictures instead of leaders, no sounds, etc. while Firaxis is still being actively criticized for Revenge model not fully represent historical one
4. Modders don't have the same standards for game balance
5. etc.

Modders could build something interesting, they can't build the feature up to commercial game standards.


In this very thread I already see every pro-classic persons having their own definition and I've seen many more before. I don't have my own definition, of course, because I don't thing it's a reasonable goal, I'm just looking at the posts by others.

You dont need to rework tech trees, you group all of them in one and maybe you have to touch a couple of techs, thats not a great amount of work

Buildings can go obsolete and overbuilt doesnt need to be removed. When you research University, Library goes obsolete and University overbuilds Library. It isnt that much of a problem. This system remains almost untouched

Civ bonuses is quite possible the biggest work, yes, it isnt impossible

I am a developer, not game developer but a developer, you list is insignificant in terms o work.Its not a rebuild from scratch, at all

Modders dont have the same standards, they also dont have the same amount of resources, both in terms of amount of people and time, since they have their own jobs, etc

Classic Mode IS POSSIBLE, its false that it cant be done

 

[Siptah]

Just an option to let player to keep their civ at the first and second age change.

I would accept that

Have you tried the Enduring Empires mod? It lets you keep your civs, and you even get a new civic tree in the new age.

Steam Workshop::Enduring Empires - Base Game

steamcommunity.com

 

[j51]

You dont need to rework tech trees, you group all of them in one and maybe you have to touch a couple of techs, thats not a great amount of work

Buildings can go obsolete and overbuilt doesnt need to be removed. When you research University, Library goes obsolete and University overbuilds Library. It isnt that much of a problem. This system remains almost untouched

Civ bonuses is quite possible the biggest work, yes, it isnt impossible

I am a developer, not game developer but a developer, you list is insignificant in terms o work.Its not a rebuild from scratch, at all

Modders dont have the same standards, they also dont have the same amount of resources, both in terms of amount of people and time, since they have their own jobs, etc

Classic Mode IS POSSIBLE, its false that it cant be done

I think this could work as a single age scenario. Its balance will probably be off but if firaxis put it out as a scenario they could just not worry about that. Anything more than that would be like making a new game for them and they should really focus on making the very different game that is Civ VII play well as it’s been envisioned.

 

[tman2000]

If you do that, with a little bit of rebalance to the legacy paths too, I think it might be amenable enough to more people who really don't like the current switching mode. It's still a reset, but much more of a soft reset, and less so if everyone keeps their same civs too.

What you're describing seems a lot like Civ 7 with Enduring Empires, but that's a good example of one argument for how to implement a classic mode.

You also just reminded me about specialists and I think they definitely have to go. In my opinion, specialists represent the pinnacle of Civ 7's banal yield chasing game. I think the whole emphasis on little yield stacks and adjacencies and the balancing set up to accommodate it are at the heart of what makes the game boring.

 

[tman2000]

This is already wrong. No, you CANT keep the different Ages in a Classic Mode, it wouldnt be a Classic Mode

This is a good perspective, and troubling for Civ 7, but valid. But then, now we're just saying "Civ 8".

 

[tman2000]

Yeah, the core thing here is that currently "classic mode" is a buzzword, which have totally different meanings for different people.

The solution which would satisfy the most current haters - without any age reset or civilization switching - would require years of work and it's totally unrealistic to expect from Firaxis.

The solutions which are often seen are relatively simple (like the one used in "Enduring Empires" mod) won't satisfy significant amount of people who dislike ages. And also, bringing those things to the commercial game standards would still require a lot of work (those standards differ from mods by a mile).

So, I believe, the only solution for classic mode is:

1. Introduce scenarios to the game (this has to be done in any case).
2. Expose as many game components as possible to modding.
3. Wait for modders to create some sort of classical mode. If enough modders will be interested in it, this could actually end up in something fun.

This is fine for dedicated fans seeking classic gameplay who also like Civ 7, but it's a recipe to never sell much more DLC.