I know it's too early to tell but I think Humankind's culture shift mechanic may've been the better implemented method

[Kev1916]

The biggest problem of the idea is that it's not a newbie friendly way. Most of newbie players don't understand what civ will be a good choice for the starting environment they faced. The traditional way - just choose the civ & leader to play and get an automatically generated map - is easier to them.

Maybe thou as the game is now split into 3 , will it make that much difference? add in a hard re-set with what I presume will be a limited set of choice's for your dark age .
Your leader is the only the main constant choice you will need to think about .

 

[gdr_willter]

Moreover, choosing civ after getting map will also cause the re-rolling problem, when the map generator is still bad. If we get only a few styles of map, we'll be forced to choose a few civs which are good to those.

Optimizing map generator is better for this problem. We can freely choose the civ & leader that we want to play, and will get a map adjusted to them.

 

[gdr_willter]

Maybe thou as the game is now split into 3 , will it make that much difference?

That's exactly why I don't agree to the choose-civ-later idea. We still have second and third chance to choose civs to overcome the obstacles we faced - including the bad starting point. And this choice will come when the gamers experienced enough the system and circumstances in the on-going game.

But the first civ choice at the start of the game is more hard problem, many players could be frustrated when they asked to "Analyze the starting point and foresee the perfect civ & leader, without any clue about the game that you're not really understand yet".

I still think it's much easier and better way that choosing civ & leader then get an optimized map for them.

 

[RedCourtJester]

That's exactly why I don't agree to the choose-civ-later idea. We still have second and third chance to choose civs to overcome the obstacles we faced - including bad starting point. And this choice will come when the gamers experienced enough the system and circumstances in the on-going game.

But the first civ choice at the start of the game is more hard problem, many players could be frustrated when they asked to "Analyze the starting point and foresee the perfect civ & leader, without any clue about game that you're not really understand about".

I still think it's much easier and better way that choosing civ & leader then get an optimized map for them.

I think you do raise good points, but I still think there is a valid counterargument that, with a little tutorialization, it might be better to just let noobies start with a leader. That way, even if they settle in a suboptimal location, the game can say "well, HATSHEPSUT (*hard, judging look*), you didn't settle near a river, but that's okay, because we see those grasslands over there and can recommend the Han, or that mountain over there might work with Maurya."

This may also be why leaders have no starting biases or terrain preferences. EDIT: They do, but that may just help them settle their preferred civ better and still doesn't really point one way or another.

 

[Zaarin]

This may also be why leaders have no starting biases or terrain preferences.

Most leaders do have starting biases in Civ7.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Most leaders do have starting biases in Civ7.

Yeah I had to go check quickly, edited!

 

[gdr_willter]

I think you do raise good points, but I still think there is a valid counterargument that, with a little tutorialization, it might be better to just let noobies start with a leader.

I don't trust the usefulness of tutorials in the civ franchise. It can't provide enough vision about the game, or it's too much loud to accept. And the lack of the opportunity is still there as far as we get the map first. "I chose Hatshepsut to play Egypt, and there is no navigable river? Aghh, restart."

And I don't want to be forced to optimize myself to the given map at the very first step of the game. I prefer to force the map generator to optimize to me, and this is exactly what Civ 7 has done. Of course I'll optimize my second and third civ choice to the circumstances I faced in the on-going game, but "Starting the game based on my own desire" is different matter.

 

[RedCourtJester]

I don't trust the usefulness of tutorials in the civ franchise. It can't provide enough vision about the game, or it's too much loud to accept. And the lack of the opportunity is still there as far as we get the map first. "I chose Hatshepsut to play Egypt, and there is no navigable river? Aghh, restart."

And I don't want to be forced to optimize myself to the given map at the very first step of the game. I prefer to force the map generator to optimize to me, and this is exactly what Civ 7 has done. Of course I'll optimize my second and third civ choice to the circumstances I faced in the on-going game, but "Starting the game based on my own desire" is different matter.

Again, I think we just don't have enough information to tell whether VII felt the need to pivot this direction. I think proper map generation could facilitate either approach, and I think some tutorialization is inevitable, if not widely contemplated, by Civ's status as a major title in an increasingly casual-competitive market.

It's too early to tell, but I'm prepping people for potential realities we may see. The fact that leaders are separate does at least leave open the design space to not force players to simultaneously choose their civ when they start a game.

EDIT: I do see in the antiquity stream that Augustus did not have to choose a civ, so at least as of now indications seem to suggest you do select both at the beginning.

 

[gdr_willter]

EDIT: I do see in the antiquity stream that Augustus did not have to choose a civ, so at least as of now indications seem to suggest you do select both at the beginning.

You can find more about starting game with Antiquity Age from the gameplay showcase stream.

There are 3 steps to start the game before map generating - Select Leader, Select Age & Civilization, and Confirm. That's why all civs and leaders have their starting biases.

 

[gdr_willter]

Again, I think we just don't have enough information to tell whether VII felt the need to pivot this direction. I think proper map generation could facilitate either approach, and I think some tutorialization is inevitable, if not widely contemplated, by Civ's status as a major title in an increasingly casual-competitive market.

I said that choose-civ-later is not more casual neither more enjoyable.

You said that the choose-civ-later will free us from the re-rolling issue. But it is not a good solution. I can't feel any difference between both restarts caused by bad starting for the civ I chose and the civ I want to choose.

Only the improvement of the map generator can solve the problem. Success of your idea also depends on the map generator issue, but it's not even needed if we have proper map generator.

 

[RedCourtJester]

I said that choose-civ-later is not casual neither more enjoyable.

You said that the choose-civ-later will free us from the re-rolling issue. But it is not a good solution. I can't feel any difference between both restarts caused by bad starting for the civ I chose and the civ I want to choose.

Only the improvement of the map generator can solve the problem. Success of your idea also depends on the map generator issue, but it's not even needed if we have proper map generator.

I don't agree with your conclusion that it is not casual nor more enjoyable, nor do I think it a bad solution. We've already tried to convince each other and still haven't, but I personally think saying outright that it is neither casual nor more enjoyable is a bit...projecting.

Also, I have admitted to reviewing the antiquity stream and do admit that signs point toward later antiquity civ selection not being the case in VII.

As I said, both approaches are facilitated by better map generation, using that to argue one or the other is fairly meaningless.

 

[gdr_willter]

I don't agree with your conclusion that it is not casual nor more enjoyable, nor do I think it a bad solution. We've already tried to convince each other and still haven't, but I personally think saying outright that it is neither casual nor more enjoyable is a bit...projecting.

It because you didn't answer about the question that "Why I can't choose my civ from my interest?" I'm pretty sure about that many players want to select their starting civ freely and get proper map for it, rather than forced to choose one of the recommended for the decided map.

 

[RedCourtJester]

It because you didn't answer about the question that "Why I can't choose my civ from my interest?" I'm pretty sure about that many players want to select their starting civ freely, rather than forced to choose one of the recommended for the starting point.

I don't really see how interest is diluted much between choosing civ at the start of the game, or 1-5 turns later, so I don't think it's really much of a question to address, and/or I already addressed it.

If that still isn't enough for you, sorry, I think that's where the argument kind of peters out and we just admit to different preferences.

 

[gdr_willter]

I don't really see how interest is diluted much between choosing civ at the start of the game, or 1-5 turns later, so I don't think it's really much of a question to address, and/or I already addressed it.

Then you didn't understand the point of the order between the choice and the map generation.

For example, let's suppose that I want to play Aksum with Tecumseh. When I select those two first and start the game, the map generator will consider all of their starting biases and will provide the optimized starting point with rough, coastal, plains and grassrand tiles.

However, when I start the game only with Tecumseh, the map generator will consider only the biases for him, then I can't properly get a starting point for Aksum. Now I have only plains and grassland. I must give up to play Aksum, or restart the game until it provide the coastal tile. You may say just accept the map without coast as Aksum, but then it becomes the same condition with former series.

 

[gdr_willter]

And about the casualness... You're saying the game should be more casual by letting players to choose their civ after analyzing the given map and listening to AI recommendations. I'm curious about that you're really think about it's more casual than just selecting interesting civ and leader from starting menu. If the map generator is good enough, "Just select them and start to play" is the most casual way.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

And about the casualness... You're saying the game should be more casual by letting players to choose their civ after analyzing the given map and listening to AI recommendations. I'm curious about that you're really think about it's more casual than just selecting interesting civ and leader from starting menu. If the map generator is good enough, "Just select them and start to play" is the most casual way.

For me, at least, the critical point is "If the map generator is good enough".

To put it bluntly, it never has been in previous Civ games. As far back as I can remember, starting positions have only sporadically made any sense in relation to the Civ being played - or being attempted.
In Civ VI, for instance, I could never rely on a coastal start for any 'naval' civilization, whether it was military naval like the Norse or trade naval like Portugal or general naval like Britian. In fact, the only terrain I could count on getting was Tundra when playing Russia: that was the only Civ-Terrain combination that actually came up more than half the time.

I would love to be proven utterly wrong, but until I actually see the map generation in effect in an actual game I will remain skeptical based on long, long years of experience with Civ iterations.

 

[gdr_willter]

For me, at least, the critical point is "If the map generator is good enough".

Yes, of course. But bad map generator will spoil the choose-civ-later way also, because it will not give various map to fit all available civs and reduce our choice. So it will not be a good news for all of us.

I'm waiting the new map generator hopefully, based on the information I've got - now it will generate biased starting point first and then build rest of the map. It seems a big change as compared to the former ones which generated whole map and located players by biases.

 

[gdr_willter]

In fact, the only terrain I could count on getting was Tundra when playing Russia: that was the only Civ-Terrain combination that actually came up more than half the time.

Leaving the civ design aside, it also could be changed because there are multiple ages and multiple starting biases from civ and leader.

As long as we know, most of Antiquity civs haven't the tundra biases. Even if you started with tundra biased civ, there is still the biases from leader, so the map generator can adjust it enough.

 

[gdr_willter]

It seems that this conversation about game starting mechanism and the map generator has to be treated as a separated topic for a new thread. Could I ask Mods to consider this?

 

[Zaarin]

It seems that this conversation about game starting mechanism and the map generator has to be treated as a separated topic for a new thread. Could I ask Mods to consider this?

If someone wants to start a topic on start conditions, that would be fine.