I have now played all three Civ Killers and none have

[Solver]

The whole "this game could be the Civ killer!" thing is clickbait used in article and video titles for views. It's silly and in the end does everyone a disservice.

Civ dominates the historical 4X space to such a massive extent that any other historical 4X with basic features like playing as historical empires, building cities, advancing through eras and waging war is immediately called a Civ competitor. Paradox announced Millennia and every article was along the lines of "Paradox announces a Civ competitor". Humankind, which had a big budget, was portrayed even more as a Civ competitor. And now it's especially weird with Ara. I haven't played it but from all I've seen, Ara clearly places its focus elsewhere, it's a city-builder with multiple cities and an emphasis on resource management, but the game looking similar to Civ when zoomed out is enough for all the "new version of Civ" articles.

I noticed with Old World, which doesn't even have the main feature that made Civ famous (playing through all of history), many video creators feel they have to put "Civ" in their video titles, like "something something in Old World (game like Civ)". I get why they're doing that but I think in the long term everyone would be better off if it was recognized there's a whole genre, not just Civ.

 

[ombak]

I agree with this idea that calling these things a Civ killer does a disservice to them. World of Warcraft is probably the best example of this. So many WoW killers folded under that pressure. But there is a healthy space for competition. FFXIV today does really well alongside it. They are different communities, with some overlap.

I could see myself playing these other games (I have played HK) and enjoying them (I did enjoy HK, briefly). I could even see myself playing one of them more than Civ during a give period (something like a month or more, not just one random week). But even if one of them surpassed Civ for me eventually (not likely in my case at this time, but for others this may be the time when that happens) I'd likely go back to Civ for a patch, or an expansion or just nostalgia at some point.

The games market is saturated, the 4x space slightly less so, but it doesn't need a Civ killer to grow or thrive, it needs more games that stand on their own and it continues to see more of those and that's good.

It's due to the nature of how we talk about things that we constantly compare, but the "X killer" comparison always seems like more of a jinx than anything else.

 

[pokiehl]

I agree that calling these games that is unwarranted but the comparison is also natural for a genre in which there is precisely one super successful heavy hitter (Civ).

 

[Kev1916]

I agree with this idea that calling these things a Civ killer does a disservice to them. World of Warcraft is probably the best example of this. So many WoW killers folded under that pressure. But there is a healthy space for competition. FFXIV today does really well alongside it. They are different communities, with some overlap.

I could see myself playing these other games (I have played HK) and enjoying them (I did enjoy HK, briefly). I could even see myself playing one of them more than Civ during a give period (something like a month or more, not just one random week). But even if one of them surpassed Civ for me eventually (not likely in my case at this time, but for others this may be the time when that happens) I'd likely go back to Civ for a patch, or an expansion or just nostalgia at some point.

The games market is saturated, the 4x space slightly less so, but it doesn't need a Civ killer to grow or thrive, it needs more games that stand on their own and it continues to see more of those and that's good.

It's due to the nature of how we talk about things that we constantly compare, but the "X killer" comparison always seems like more of a jinx than anything else.

Totally , it's also rather silly and a bit juvenile how about enjoying other games like Old world or AOW .

Jinx - said it before the only one that will "kill" Civ is probably a version that so changes it's core foundations and dilute's it game play that well its just another 4x wannbe

 

[chaosprophet]

While part of it is definitely the media trying to portray as such, I think that many fans also tend to have that view too. Ara, being the one that was very close to release and still before the point of release to see where it will fall with the fans, for example, I saw being mentioned many times here and there on civ 7 forums when people were comparing this from civ 7 versus something from ara, ara isn't doing x, etc etc. So at least some of it's fans who are members here also saw it as something to compare with civ to.

Never liked the "Civ Killer" rhetoric, as if killing Civ is a desirable or good thing. It also does a disservice to these games; yes, they're all having a go at historical 4x, but they each have interesting ideas of their own, some that work and others that are less successful.

Agreed! The more good strategy and tactical games released the better especially now that always improving graphics make it really hard to get cool full conversion mods for civ...

In the end, I suppose it comes down to that "one more turn" loop that Civ has historically nailed. That's the magic that is so hard to capture. Hopefully it's still there in VII, I don't see why not at this stage.

I do think many games has that feeling, which I prefer calling "one more objective" rather than one more turn, as it is a feeling I also get in real time strategy games like paradox ones, and I think it better describes what is really behind the feeling: You want to keep playing more turns or more time until you get to an objective you're aiming at (like, let me just keep until I finish that wonder), but while you're in the middle of achieving that objective, new ones are likely to appear, so you keep going without wanting to stop/pause.

There is probably many reasons that made civ a successful series, but if there is one that comes to mind while comparing to other games, is the recognition that for it's scale, it should abstract a lot and shouldn't get too detailed to avoid becoming too much cumbersome. Each civ tend to end up with some micromanagement, but generally never too much, and the creators tend to hear it and work to reduce previous games micro in the new games, even if it always result in a portion of the player base who liked it being frustrated with the changes, like transports to embarking, workers to builders to none now with 7, etc.

From trying to play a bit and from what I saw of Ara, it weakest point to me, at least to achieve a wider audience instead of being a cult game for some people who likes / can tolerate a lot of micro, is that it try to be both a history 4x (spawning tons of eras, multiples cities in a large map while facing of against other AI players) while also being very heavy on detail on resource management, crafting and the like. It may be a game I may want to play without any AI or with the minimum possible when I just want to build things in a way that looks good rather than trying to think about painting the world map, competing with other civs, etc.

 

[Siptah]

Ozymandias is great for a quick version of a 4x. And a challenging AI!

It has a good AI, as in all even (faction, terrain, no bonuses), a skilled player will always win but a starter won’t. The challenge is greatly helped by the „we take TSL seriously“ approach that in practice means some starts are a walk in the park while others seem impossible (because then one AI will take the very easy start und just win before you get going). Playing Canaanites on Near East is not just difficult due to limited space and terrible terrain, it‘s also hard because Egypt can just run away within few turns.

I don‘t think Ozymandias was compared seriously that much to civ. It was given as a reference: here‘s a one-age, streamlined, pure strategy, quick version of civ. It‘s not a competitor or killer, but a textbook example how far few simple interacting mechanics can carry a game.

Btw, the story is horrible! That‘s my main critique of the game. Good thing it doesn‘t matter outside of the tutorial.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Humankind and Millennia sucked. Old World is good but it's definitely more in the territory of Crusader Kings with its dynasties. Could use a bit more replayability, I think.

Ara looks very good on paper but I agree that it's a Civ-tinged Anno, more than an Anno-tinged Civ. UI looks like a mess, but nothing the devs there shouldn't be able to fix. I will definitely buy it and play it once it goes on sale.

But ultimately none of these games are going to prevent me from trying Civ VII as well in due time. If it's a bad game (and I have seen no true indication of that), then so be it. But then Firaxis and 2K have only themselves to blame for their failure.

 

[bladex1200]

I'm enjoying Millennia right now and hoping it continues to receive love and care from the devs, but it's definitely no civ-killer and I don't think it ever aspired to be given its significantly lower budget. Humankind had severe balance problems despite getting a lot of love and attention from an artistic and aesthetic standpoint, and Old World of course is very narrow in scope despite being a very good game.

Concurring with the other posts here, Civ-killer is a huge misnomer and puts a lot of pressure on games in this genre that, frankly, is unearned and undeserved. If anything "kills" a video game dominating in a space it's more typical that it's the dominating franchise itself screwing up and opening up opportunities for other franchises to iterate and do it better. WoW was never taken down from the outside, it was taken down by lackluster reaction to its own expansions and the general shrinking of the MMO market in-general

 

[Disgustipated]

I remember the days when Call to Power was the Civ killer. Okay I don't remember if people actually called it that, but it was getting a lot of initial hype. And hype is the important word here. Humankind had all that initial hype, and it turned out to be overblown. I learned my listen to not buy into the hype.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I just hope Civ VII doesn’t turn out to be the REAL civ killer.

I think they've built a franchise that will stand the test of time.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Tried Millenia and found it mediocre. Didn’t have to try Humankind, the civ switching mechanic made it an automatic no. From what I’ve seen Ara looks like micro hell, so that’s another solid no

 

[Big J Money]

My thoughts on Civ-killer...

On YouTube, yes it's mostly hype. Content creators get clicks by calling any civ-adjacent game a potential civ-killer even if it wouldn't qualify.

But I don't have a problem with the term in-and-of-itself. The word "killer" is a bit extreme language, I guess. It's the same concept that the boardgame community calls "Game X replaced Y". It simply means that a new game comes out which is similar enough to a well-known game, and so good, that it makes people not feel a need to play the old game anymore. It's really not a big deal or a bad thing when a new game replaces an old game, that's just the way of things. But I don't know of any games that qualify as potential civ killers (in my opinion). Millenia is pretty close, but I still think it deviates in its design too much to replace enough of the fun elements in Civ. And even if it did qualify, it just doesn't have the level of quality that recent civ games have.

I really want to like Millenia, but I think it has some balance issues the devs don't agree with on, and for some reason the graphics really burn my eyeballs. I play a lot of ugly games, but for some reason Millennia gets under my skin in a way that others don't.

 

[RandV]

I'm enjoying Millennia right now and hoping it continues to receive love and care from the devs, but it's definitely no civ-killer and I don't think it ever aspired to be given its significantly lower budget. Humankind had severe balance problems despite getting a lot of love and attention from an artistic and aesthetic standpoint, and Old World of course is very narrow in scope despite being a very good game.

Concurring with the other posts here, Civ-killer is a huge misnomer and puts a lot of pressure on games in this genre that, frankly, is unearned and undeserved. If anything "kills" a video game dominating in a space it's more typical that it's the dominating franchise itself screwing up and opening up opportunities for other franchises to iterate and do it better. WoW was never taken down from the outside, it was taken down by lackluster reaction to its own expansions and the general shrinking of the MMO market in-general

Yeah If anything Millennia is trying to be a 'Civ IV-killer', or at least an alternate.

Pretty random but all this talk about the term "Civ-killer" I wonder how much that relates to how uncreative genre naming is these days. Souslike, Rougelike, Metroidvania. If we didn't already have the term "4X" the genre on the Steam page would be "Civlike".

 

[AntSou]

Having played the heck out of Imperialism games in their day, sorry to disappoint, but ARA isn't like it. Think a PDX grand strategy game like EU, with the heavy resource management and production chains of Anno.

That description makes me more interested in the game than the game footage.
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Humankind is beautiful but I think it ultimately failed to pull off the civ-switching element, which was its main thing.
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As for Millennia, I don't even care how good the game might be, I'm not touching that.

They really went out of their way to test the "graphics don't matter" hypothesis, jesus. It looks like they're testing the waters, so I'll wait for Millennia 2.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I remember for a while every new FPS got labelled a “Halo Killer”

That’s just Games “Journalism” being garbage as usual

 

[Zaarin]

Yeah If anything Millennia is trying to be a 'Civ IV-killer', or at least an alternate.

From the footage, feels more like a Civ3-killer at best.

 

[chaosprophet]

If we didn't already have the term "4X" the genre on the Steam page would be "Civlike".

I never thought of that, but you're completely right. I guess the only reason it didn't end up with that name may be, surprisingly, because it pretty much started a genre? For example, Metroidvania, both Metroid and Castlevania didn't start the platform genre, but started a specific change of direction / type of those games that they became the example of an already established genre. I'm not that knowledgeable on games history, so if I'm talking out of my ass here, please correct me

 

[Dale]

Pretty random but all this talk about the term "Civ-killer" I wonder how much that relates to how uncreative genre naming is these days. Souslike, Rougelike, Metroidvania. If we didn't already have the term "4X" the genre on the Steam page would be "Civlike".

I never thought of that, but you're completely right. I guess the only reason it didn't end up with that name may be, surprisingly, because it pretty much started a genre? For example, Metroidvania, both Metroid and Castlevania didn't start the platform genre, but started a specific change of direction / type of those games that they became the example of an already established genre. I'm not that knowledgeable on games history, so if I'm talking out of my ass here, please correct me

Reach for the Stars in early 80's is the first 4X game, though the term was first used to describe Master of Orion in '93 in Computer Gaming World.

Civ whilst influential, was not a "genre starter". That honour goes to the likes of Reach for the Stars, Cosmic Balance II, and Imperium Galactum.

 

[Tanel]

Yea dubbing everything XYZ-killer all the time is stupid. It's actually pretty rare for a new game coming out to completely dominate the genre so much that it eclipses the previous genre leader. Also the expectation that every new game coming out should be one is stupid. There is room for more than one game to exist in a genre in parallel to each other.

 

[Arcaian]

I wonder how much that relates to how uncreative genre naming is these days. Souslike, Rougelike, Metroidvania

The terms Rougelike and Metroidvania both date back to last century. If they're reflective of uncreative genre naming, I think you could probably just say "how uncreative genre naming always has been in video games".