I have now played all three Civ Killers and none have

[Zoeff]

I really like having realistic sized people walking around but I also like a mountain sized person to represent a scout. Problem is that combining the two would break my immersion completely haha

 

[Tanel]

Ara feels like a spreadsheet would help. In my line of work that is not what I would call fun. So they have the balance too micro I agree.

Also interesting given the discussion somewhere on Civ7 units being too big on the map, the Ara choice of at-scale units and dragging icons around the map is an absolute immersion killer.

So two points of distinction in favour of Civ7 hopefully (no spreadsheet and units not icons).

Yea ARA really went the completely opposite direction with unit representation than Civ and it sucks. I've never had a problem with the way they are in Civ but I feel like there is a middle ground where you have more units in the squad but they are big enough to still be distinguishable without zooming in.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I wish it did. EL and especially ES have a very quirky charm that is completely absent from HK because heaven forbid history be fun.

I more or less enjoy the videos of HK and visuals like techs are quite good. At the moment it's my civ replacement and I have fun with the game. But I'm pretty sure it won't come near my hours spent in the real civ games.

 

[AntSou]

@Disgustipated Were you referring to this video?

Funny that it's specifically mentioned that it's not like Civ.

 

[uppi]

Sounds like it would help, but it's an approach to game design I'm seeing lots which baffles me.

Step one is to add lots of detailed game mechanics that model something on a low level of granularity. Step two adds an interface that hides all that, and lets the player interact with those systems at a larger scale by automating interactions with those low level systems. Which, IMO, is pointless? Why add the detailed simulation in the first place if you're going to hide them? Why not just abstract them away into a coarser-grain game system if that's all the player is meant to interact with anyway? The only differences I can think of to doing it this way is that: it takes up far more dev time to build, creates a system that's opaque to the casual player, and encourages the min-maxing player to do it all manually to eek out an extra advantage at the cost of enormous boredom. The point elude me.

I think there's a real fear of abstraction now in game design. I don't know if it comes from devs themselves who somehow think more detail == better game, or if being able to put large numbers of stuff makes for good marketing, but it's a real shame. If modelling things on that level of detailed ended up generating unexcepted emergent behaviour it might be cool, but the vast majority of the time it seems to just be adding more layers to systems just for the sake of there being more layers. Heaven forbid a AAA studio release a game in 2024 that doesn't have RPG-style skill trees, a crafting system, and a roll-to-dodge button...

I can think of two explanations. The first one is player expectations. There is certainly a player base which is always critical of abstraction and of everything that feels too board-game like. And to some degree I can understand the desire to use the possibilities of the medium to do something that board games cannot. But that does not always lead to good game design and sometimes I think that many players have trouble imagining the consequences of their demands on the game.

The second one is more specific to 4X: You want something to do in the first turns and not just press end turn 50 times until the macro-level decisions become meaningful. So the game gets micro, which is impactful in the first turns. Ideally that would seamlessly transition to macro in the mid-game, but that is extremely hard to pull off

 

[Siptah]

The second one is more specific to 4X: You want something to do in the first turns and not just press end turn 50 times until the macro-level decisions become meaningful. So the game gets micro, which is impactful in the first turns. Ideally that would seamlessly transition to macro in the mid-game, but that is extremely hard to pull off

And here is where the ages mechanic could potentially help a lot: imagine we had builders (I know they are not in 7) in the first age to have fun changing the map one step at a time, but later one, there are more abstracted ways to interact with the map. The same could have been done for exploration: you move around tile by tile in the first age, but the 2nd age requires you to send (expensive) expeditions to uncover a whole region of the world. I hope FXS had some good ideas in that regard, and we are going to see a few of them in the game.

 

[chaosprophet]

And here is where the ages mechanic could potentially help a lot: imagine we had builders (I know they are not in 7) in the first age to have fun changing the map one step at a time, but later one, there are more abstracted ways to interact with the map. The same could have been done for exploration: you move around tile by tile in the first age, but the 2nd age requires you to send (expensive) expeditions to uncover a whole region of the world. I hope FXS had some good ideas in that regard, and we are going to see a few of them in the game.

Your comment made me think one example for civ 7 that we can have an idea about from what was said: Resources in 7 will be a bit of micro, but we know some resources are age specific, which means at least we won't end up with a just bigger and bigger pool of resources to get us crazy to deal with at the end game. And it can have an easy reasoning for those who want one: Resources are supposed to represent something not very common to get that having access to would give one an edge. But as time passes some resources either aren't that valuable anymore that having a good supply of it isn't meaningful anymore, or that they're so easy to get that it doesn't make sense to represent them in the map anymore. Like some crops being rare in the past but now can be growth easily almost everywhere, some animals husbandry too, some metals that aren't rare but just were hard to extract in the past but not anymore, etc etc

 

[bladex1200]

And here is where the ages mechanic could potentially help a lot: imagine we had builders (I know they are not in 7) in the first age to have fun changing the map one step at a time, but later one, there are more abstracted ways to interact with the map. The same could have been done for exploration: you move around tile by tile in the first age, but the 2nd age requires you to send (expensive) expeditions to uncover a whole region of the world. I hope FXS had some good ideas in that regard, and we are going to see a few of them in the game.

This would also do well to simulate the nature of growing state bureaucracy. As you wield greater and greater power, you also are unable to effectively command smaller and more granular operations. Until you hit the modern era, when you can have special task forces at your beck and call, (but perhaps expensive or limited in number to prevent overly-tedious micro) you should be moving from granular control over small groups of units to less-fine control over larger and more influential groups.

So in the Exploration Age, as you said, expeditions would be more time-efficient in uncovering huge chunks of the world and also more resource-expensive up front, but more importantly they also offer less granularity (you may have some tiles not uncovered, or you may have to overlap the uncovering radius if you want to be thorough in uncovering every tile) since essentially by this point in history you have to delegate exploration, you don't have the time nor the power to personally receive reports from explorers and direct them to specific parts of the map. Also would tie into the fact that in Antiquity Age you are focused on exploring your own continent where it makes logical, immersive sense to be able to more personally direct and receive reports from your scouts, whereas in Exploration Age you are sending expeditions overseas.

Changing control with era can actually both be a gameplay mechanic and also aid in immersion, if framed correctly.

 

[uppi]

And here is where the ages mechanic could potentially help a lot: imagine we had builders (I know they are not in 7) in the first age to have fun changing the map one step at a time, but later one, there are more abstracted ways to interact with the map. The same could have been done for exploration: you move around tile by tile in the first age, but the 2nd age requires you to send (expensive) expeditions to uncover a whole region of the world. I hope FXS had some good ideas in that regard, and we are going to see a few of them in the game.

Trade is supposed to be very different in each age, and I hope it is an example of this. In the first age, it could be fun to move a trader around and establish single trade routes. But I don't want to do this for 20 traders in the modern age. So I hope that trade in the modern age is more abstracted (like: I am sending 15 traders to France and 5 to Japan without setting up each route individually).

If done right, the ages system could be a great way to increase abstraction along with complexity.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I voted 7 but, as I'm far too jaded to feel anything above an 8 about anything in life anymore, that's pretty high for me.

You may have intended to post this in a different thread.

 

[Disgustipated]

Funny that it's specifically mentioned that it's not like Civ.

I wasn't expecting it to be like civ, I was just expecting it to be, you know, fun.

 

[Swissy]

I wasn't expecting it to be like civ, I was just expecting it to be, you know, fun.

ARA is the furthest thing from fun. Beyond the "spreadsheet" economic system, the lack of a coherent diplomacy system made me stop playing. It not fun to work at a good relationship with a neighboring leader and out of nowhere they declare war on you. I may go back to it in a year after the devs finish fixing all the systems in the game. For now I wait for February and hope Firaxis can actually deliver at launch.

 

[Pedro P]

I had never felt a game had UI and UX so bad it stopped me from enjoying it, until Ara. I love the game in concept, I definitely had fun with it and it does scratch my niche. But the effort it takes to play and remember all things is just bureaucracy, not even micro management since there is no decision making to clicking the upgrade button 40 times, or swapping ropes for gears, metal tools for industrial tools, etc.

I hope there are quality of life updates. Because of all other similar games it feels the most salvageable. There is something exciting about beating the tech lead at industrialization simply because you have the chain of production to electrify and motorize your cities way faster.

 

[borad]

It's the same concept that the boardgame community calls "Game X replaced Y".

The eternal leader is called Civ.

We’re about to enter Age 7.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Well, Cities Skylines "killed" SimCity so I guess it's possible...

 

[Kwami]

Well, Cities Skylines "killed" SimCity so I guess it's possible...

I think EA killed SimCity when they released that always-online, small map fiasco.

 

[Lebo44]

I think EA killed SimCity when they released that always-online, small map fiasco.

IMO there was more I think - f.e. Cities Skylines offered much more flexibility in placing roads and buildings. More realism/sandboxy vs oldchool grid system.

I think the real civ killer would left the grid/hexes off and just allow for full freedom in unit movement/building placement. Relying on Grid/hexes is sooo outdated IMO as it preserves the 'boardgamish' feel of the game. Moving away from turns to real time with active pause would also big a big shift.

I feel the biggest potential competitor for civ could be Paradox with their EU4 engine. Europa Universalis for many gamers dissapointed with Civ 5 and 6 offered similar experience to civ: you have different nations/factions, technology advancement, exploration, extermination, diplomacy, province development etc etc. If they made the game more sandboxy, with random maps, starting from 4000BC... it would be real contender.

 

[Siptah]

I feel the biggest potential competitor for civ could be Paradox with their EU4 engine. Europa Universalis for many games offers similar experience to civ: you have different nations/factions, technology advancement, exploration, extermination, diplomacy, province development etc etc. If they made the game more sandboxy, with random maps, starting from 4000BC... it would be real contender.

EU4 is fun and interesting because it starts with a historical map in a more or less historical setting. They have a random map (for the new world), and I don't think many players have played with it more than once. And having it start in 4000 BC would rob the game of many of its core elements. You don't even have to go back that far to see this. Take Imperator: Rome. After a very rocky launch it became arguably the best Paradox GSG to date mechanics-wise. But it is far from the best game, simply because 75% of the map plays generic: it doesn't matter much whether you play one-province Germanic tribe #2 or #289, they barely have any identity, no specific content, nor is their geographic/political placement on the map terribly interesting. If you go to 4000 BC, this is not true for only 75% of the map, but for 95%.
I played civ since II and EU since 3. I have played much more EU in the last 15 years compared to civ. Especially in comparison between civ VI and EU4, I have played the latter 4 times as much. So yeah, in a way, EU4 is *the* civ killer for me. Yet, they don't really scratch the same itch.

 

[Black Gate]

Well, Cities Skylines "killed" SimCity so I guess it's possible...

First, Simcity killed itself with tiny maps and always-online during an era and with a demographic where that was unacceptable. Cities Skylines swept up the ashes and is now demonstrating how hard it is to make an actual competent city-builder followup with CS2. The genre is cursed.

 

[sTAPler27]

Honestly I find myself going back to Humankind every couple of months. It really did do so much right, the government sliders, terrain elevation, unit tree. It just lacked a lot in terms of personality. Districts looked flat and were very basic and the infrastructure were just unseen modifiers. The late game just felt like placing districts turn after turn with no real meaningful choices or interactions. It really did nail that early game