I played the [pick 30+1 civs mindgame] ... and it made me forgive the developers a bit for some of their choices

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I don't agree with you on that. I mostly play 5 and I mostly don't do diplomacy. For the large part it's extra clicks for very little value. In game, my biggest interaction and perception of other civs is their colour on the map, their city names, their building styles and their units, ie. The civilization, not the leader. I only really get exposure to leaders when they declare war on me, and if you were to ask me to categorise them, I'm probably group them into warmongers, and generic. There's no perceptible difference between Shaka and Montezuma to me besides flavour in screens I generally lower the settings on to be stills so I can get through them quicker.

 

[Arcaian]

Honestly, I'm hesitant to call that the saving grace. There's clearly a lot of civs which are ready to go, and I'd rather them be in DLC than not at all... But it feels like firaxis are milking their cash crop rather than supplying a fully featured game at launch.

They're a company so I can't really fault them for seeking profit, and if anyone is gonna give them money it'll be us fanatics but it feels mildly... predatory.

Realistically, they're doing ~50% more civs than they've ever done at launch while also having each civ require considerably more work than previously. I don't know how much more we should reasonably expect them to be doing here, to be honest.

 

[gdr_willter]

I only really get exposure to leaders when they declare war on me, and if you were to ask me to categorise them, I'm probably group them into warmongers, and generic. There's no perceptible difference between Shaka and Montezuma to me besides flavour in screens I generally lower the settings on to be stills so I can get through them quicker.

It sounds you even don't care about the rival civs themselves also :/ Well, carry on your conquest.

 

[Leucarum]

Realistically, they're doing ~50% more civs than they've ever done at launch while also having each civ require considerably more work than previously. I don't know how much more we should reasonably expect them to be doing here, to be honest.

With just 10 civs per age, while on paper this is true, in practice I suspect it's going to feel like there's a lot fewer civs than ever before. I'm sympathetic to the amount of work needed, but at least based on experience from humankind, it's going to feel very repetitive until DLC expands the roster. Pushing some civs into DLC available right after launch feels predatory, when they could have gone into making the base game more complete.

And it feels worse that I'm still going to give firaxis my money, even knowing this. Maybe if Larian hadn't just given the industry a masterclass on treating your customers well it wouldn't feel so galling.

 

[kaspergm]

The civilizations are shown as the territorial areas on the map, but the leaders are shown as the each person who have their face. If we want to interact with the other factions, we open the diplomatic screen and meet the leaders. I think this isn't symmetric. We need the each faction's long living face, the leaders.

I actually acknowledge this point, but I don't see it as something that can't be overcome. If each Leader is shown along with an emblem showing the symbols and colours of their Civ, I can't see it be too much of a problem. I'm not saying remove the leader face completely like Humankind did, but a combination of civ emblem and leader face should be recognizable.

 

[gdr_willter]

If each Leader is shown along with an emblem showing the symbols and colours of their Civ, I can't see it be too much of a problem.

We know that the distinguishable colors are not so many for human eyes, especially when we try to pick them from the symbolic colors for each civ. Emblems are good, but only when we can identify the similar ones like a lot of lions, suns, flowers.

I still consider the leaders are the best solution, because human brains -as the social animal- are really good at recognizing someone else's face.

 

[chaosprophet]

We know that the distinguishable colors are not so many for human eyes, especially when we try to pick them from the symbolic colors for each civ. Emblems are good, but only when we can identify the similar ones like a lot of lions, suns, flowers.

I still consider the leaders are the best solution, because human brains -as the social animal- are really good at recognizing someone else's face.

Not only that, but you can see that with newer civs, especially 6, they have been giving more character to the leaders, both in their animations and the like. While it is obviously not the case for everyone, for many players the leader that humanize the AIs you're fighting against.

 

[kaspergm]

Not only that, but you can see that with newer civs, especially 6, they have been giving more character to the leaders, both in their animations and the like. While it is obviously not the case for everyone, for many players the leader that humanize the AIs you're fighting against.

I still don't really see this as a real argument against changing leaders. There would still be a leader you would fight against - the leader would just change with the age.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

It sounds you even don't care about the rival civs themselves also :/ Well, carry on your conquest.

Its not conquest so much as build, and it's not for lack of desire to engage with leaders so much as lack of implementation. Can you tell me some personality types of leaders that are differentiated in some way? The only standouts to me are Gandhi because of his out of game meme, and Shaka/Montezuma/Attila, the rest all basically behave the same to me

 

[FishFishFish]

I'd actually say Civ V is the game where the leaders were the most unique from each other.

Each leader had unique rates for forming relationships, loyalty to agreements, likelihood of backstabbing, and more.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I'd actually say Civ V is the game where the leaders were the most unique from each other.

Each leader had unique rates for forming relationships, loyalty to agreements, likelihood of backstabbing, and more.

And yet they still felt more bland to me than the flavour provided by civilizations on the map

 

[chaosprophet]

I'd actually say Civ V is the game where the leaders were the most unique from each other.

Each leader had unique rates for forming relationships, loyalty to agreements, likelihood of backstabbing, and more.

A big problem with systems like these is that, iirc, they're hidden stats, so something the player would have to look up outside the game to now.

 

[gdr_willter]

Can you tell me some personality types of leaders that are differentiated in some way?

What are you even talking about, I'm not saying about the character of AI leaders. I'm saying about the distinguishablity of the rival factions in the ongoing game.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

What are you even talking about, I'm not saying about the character of AI leaders. I'm saying about the distinguishablity of the rival factions in the ongoing game.

The whole reason for this chain of comments between us is you advocating that leaders are more significant to players than civs. I don't really know what you mean by factions in this context, but everything prior to this that we've been replying to each other about has been exactly to do with whether leaders of civilizations are more significant to the player experience with their opponents.

 

[gdr_willter]

The whole reason for this chain of comments between us is you advocating that leaders are more significant to players than civs. I don't really know what you mean by factions in this context, but everything prior to this that we've been replying to each other about has been exactly to do with whether leaders of civilizations are more significant to the player experience with their opponents.

Remember this whole conversation started from the quote from the dev diary: "We were convinced that swapping leaders would be particularly confusing to understand who you were playing with."

For example, let's suppose that you tried to be friend with someone in the game - not because of their AI personality (it even can be a multi player game) but only because of their positions and strengths. When some other player suggested to joint attack against the one, you must recognize them and refuse it in that case. Like this, you have to distinguish the rival players, and this is the unchanged feature in this series regardless the civ changing. We just always met them as the fixed combination of the civs and leaders, so it was not a big problem.

But now we got the age system, and you'll face the discontinuos rivals. I mentioned them as the faction, because the common word "civ" is not working for the civ-changing case. There can be two cases: the continuous leader with a new civ, and the continuous civ with a new leader. So, what case will be more distinguishable?

This question is what I'm always talking about in this thread. Not simply about "the player experience with their opponents." Please don't be stuck in your own idea, try to catch the point what the others want to talk about.

 

[Maniac]

27 civs. Enough room left to add a region of your choice.
I moved France to the Exploration Age. I see the European Union as their good evolution, and a secondary choice for all other European civs.

Canada could be added as a path for both France and England. That way Maya, Celt and Rome are assured a path in games they're all three present. And it will be good for sales of course.

Chinese nationalists don't like to think of it, but China was controlled many times by foreign powers. I have no issue with exploration age China being represented by Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty. I guess the Mongols could also evolve to Russia.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

I disagree with the Original Poster that this exercise was particularly difficult
I came up with a set of thirty civilizations, ten per Age, each with at least one sensible geographical or historical pathway for the AI to follow
Moreover, it covers all of the essential civs as well as each broad geographical area (Africa, East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South/Central America)
Here's what Firaxis should have done:

Ten Civilizations per Age at Launch:

1. Britons -> Anglo-Saxons -> United Kingdom
2. Maya -> Spain -> Argentina
3. Imperial China -> Feudal Japan -> South Korea
4. Egypt -> Ethiopia -> Boers
5. Franks -> Holy Roman Empire -> France
6. Goths -> Teutons -> Germany
7. Greeks -> Byzantium -> Ukraine
8. Hebrews -> Outremer -> Israel
9. Mississippi -> Colonial America -> United States
10. Rome -> Papal States -> Italy

Pre-order bonus: Norse (Exploration Age)

DLC (in order of release):

Slavs -> Russia -> Soviets
Babylon -> Arabia -> Ottomans
Khmer -> Siam -> India

 

[kaspergm]

I disagree with the Original Poster that this exercise was particularly difficult (...) I came up with a set of thirty civilizations, ten per Age, each with at least one sensible geographical or historical pathway for the AI to follow

1. Maya -> Spain -> Argentina
2. Imperial China -> Feudal Japan -> South Korea
3. Egypt -> Ethiopia -> Boers (...)

Khmer -> Siam -> India

Not wanting to be rude or anything, but we clearly have a very different view on what constitutes a "sensible" upgrade path. I'm not saying your approach is not allowed, but imo. you're stretching things a lot more than I am, which obviously is why you find it easier.

 

[Black Gate]

27 civs. Enough room left to add a region of your choice.
I moved France to the Exploration Age. I see the European Union as their good evolution, and a secondary choice for all other European civs.

Canada could be added as a path for both France and England. That way Maya, Celt and Rome are assured a path in games they're all three present. And it will be good for sales of course.

Chinese nationalists don't like to think of it, but China was controlled many times by foreign powers. I have no issue with exploration age China being represented by Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty. I guess the Mongols could also evolve to Russia.



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I'll leave aside the idea of "EU" and "Arabia" being modern civs (especially after you put the Abbasids in?) but you've missed the real hard mode of Civ7's model - you must account for players that don't care about their own path's historicity but want the AI to stick to mostly predictable paths. That is, you need to provide a second connection for every civ. It's why Greece will go to the Normans or Persia to Mongolia for instance. I have a personal list of 80 total civs that I think have a good shot at making it into the game, and even then coming up with that second path is sometimes very difficult, as is ensuring that each civ has more than one option to get to them.

 

[Maniac]

I'll leave aside the idea of "EU" and "Arabia" being modern civs (especially after you put the Abbasids in?)

?? I don't understand what point you want to make.

That is, you need to provide a second connection for every civ.

France & Aztec could also go to USA (or for France add Canada as a modern civ).
Nubia to Arabia
Abbasid and Mughal could both go to a new modern civ: Iran.
Mongol could lead to Russia.
That makes for two connections for each exploration civ.

And for ancient civs:
Maya leads to Spain I guess.
Greece leads to Abbasid.
Persia & Maurya leads to Mongol.
I guess for Han you could add Japan or Korea as an exploration civ.