How Would You Implement A Classic Mode?

[Crashdummy]

I've said it before, I don't think we are that far from agreement.

In the above statement, for instance, I think you are more than half right: Age transitions and Age-mandated Civ switching needs to go: Civ switching itself should be Optional and subject to the gamer's decision based on what is happening in his/her specific game with his/her specific Civ.

I think the game needs not Just a 'Classic Mode', but the Option to play a continuous Civ from start to finish OR transition to another Civ under varying conditions - NOT including an invisible and Mandatory switch hidden behind an Age transition that is arbitrary in that it occurs regardless of how your game is going and is equally disastrous to everybody regardless of how well or poorly your Civ is doing.

IF all we get is a reversion to Civ IV/V/VI, then the franchise is truely Dead: turning Civ into a Retro game is a dead end design-wise, IMHO.

A game with both could be marketed as giving the gamer their choice of play: fight to maintain your Civ through Hull and High Water, or find ways to build a Civ that is, in the end, a medley of several Civs/cultures that went before.

How difficult something like that would be to Code, I haven't a clue - the last computer language I learned officially was FORTRAN, which I think counts as Paleolithic Programming these days. No matter how difficult, though, it's worth at least exploring, because I think the result would be worth playing for the maximum number of gamers.

Its a fallacy to call it a revert to Civ IV/V/VI. Its a revert to the soul of the franchise, what made it great, only in that aspect, there are plenty of changes Civ VII brought and that can be done in the next Civs that dont fundamentally change the core of the franchise

The Classic Mode also requires you to be able to start the game with any Civ, so yes, it should be a new game mode, because the current mode requires Civs to be aplit in Ages and Classic Mode requires everyone to be available from start. For Civ VII, it should be a new Mode, picked before the game for that reason

I think Civ VIII wont have age transitions and civ switching at all, doubling down on these mechanics will certainly mean the franchise will die, like Halo did when they went sandbox. Civ switching might work in another franchise, it will NEVER work in the Civilization franchise because it goes against what the franchise is all about

 

[tman2000]

As people keep saying, they are in no danger of closing the studio down. 8 will still happen

SimCity is dead. Kerbal Space Program is dead.