I think I'm coming around on this civ switching implementation, but it depends

[ggalindo001]

Just my personal head canon, but I like to think of civ-switching as more about your civ's culture evolving than actually changing your civilization itself. So I don't think of it as Egypt becoming Mongolia but rather your empire started with an Egyptian-like culture and that culture has evolved into a Mongol-like culture. Like you said, if we think of the Mongols as "steppe nomads famed for their horsemanship and skill at warfare" then we can think of your Egyptian empire focusing on horse units and warfare as gaining a Mongol-like cultural trait, hence, why you switch to the Mongol "civilization". Civ switching is just the game's abstract way of representing that cultural shift.

This is exactly how I am thinking about it. And to me, I can absolutely wrap my head around this.

I keep thinking there could be an option where you can "keep" the Egypt name when the age ends and you select another civilization -- but you get that other civilizations bonuses, special units etc.

I keep thinking people are getting excited about the "name" -- much more so than the mechanic, which seems to be a very promising mechanic.

So, if in vanilla Civ 7 -- you can "rename" or "keep your name" when transitioning, but you get the new attributes of the civilization you switch to -- I think this would go a long way to calming nerves.

The only issue is if you want to be a modern civ throughout the game -- that could be harder to pull off.

Hopefully the devs will offer something like this.

And hopefully the AI can make logical choices here too at age end -- it would be interesting (and refreshing) if you had a more peaceful Egypt as your neighbor in the Antiquity age, and then they shift to Mongolia in exploration age -- and now you have to really change your gameplay. If the AI can take advantage of this -- it will be very rewarding.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I keep thinking people are getting excited about the "name" -- much more so than the mechanic, which seems to be a very promising mechanic.

Yeah, I feel the critics are focusing too much on the name change and not enough on the game mechanic. They see the name change as meaning that you actually change your civ/nation each age which they see as sacrilege. They believe a core premise of civ is that you lead the same civ/nation from 4000 BC to 2000 AD.

But I think picking a new set of civ bonuses each age is a great mechanic. It offers interesting choices and strategies for the player since they have to decide which civ bonuses they think would work best for their game. For example, you might pick a "culture civ" in the Antiquity Age to focus on wonder building, switch to an "economic civ" in the Exploration Age to focus on building your empire economically and then switch to a "science civ" in the Modern Age to go for science victory. Or maybe you pick a "military civ" in all 3 Ages to go for a pure domination victory. There are probably lots of interesting combos you can do with this new system.

And as the devs have explained, the civ bonuses in past games were only really strong in certain ages. This created an imbalance where a civ might be strong in the early game but then become weak later or vice versa. And if you picked a strong late game civ, it felt like playing a vanilla civ for most of the game and maybe not even getting to use your late game bonuses. This new system solves this problem but always letting players and the AI pick civs that are strong in the each age. So from a gameplay point of view, it is better.

 

[Duuk]

I kind of hate civ switching, it's one of the things that annoyed me in newer Civ-style games. This may be a deal breaker for me, coupled with the $129.99 price point.

 

[kaspergm]

Yeah, I feel the critics are focusing too much on the name change and not enough on the game mechanic. They see the name change as meaning that you actually change your civ/nation each age which they see as sacrilege. They believe a core premise of civ is that you lead the same civ/nation from 4000 BC to 2000 AD.

I'm not against Civ changing in itself, but I do think the way it's presented plays an important role.

The fact that Egypt can just "choose" to become Mongolia kills immersion for me. I know civs have changed an replaced each other over time, but that was generally not done by choice. If they wanted to make it a choice, they should have gone with abilities you tie to your civilization instead imo. I.e. you develop 3 Horses and unlock the "Horse Lord" trait, which is the starting trait if you play as Mongolia. There were lots of great options for game design in such an approach imo. without the jarring civ change.

Otherwise, the change should have been linked to the crisis and be something that happens because you are overrun or otherwise forced. For instance, you are faced with a giant barbarian invasion of horsemen, and you fail to defeat them, so your country gets taken over and you now play as Mongolia (I made a suggestion as to how that could work here some days ago). This would make the civ change meaningful and realistic.

 

[Deer]

Yeah, I feel the critics are focusing too much on the name change and not enough on the game mechanic. They see the name change as meaning that you actually change your civ/nation each age which they see as sacrilege. They believe a core premise of civ is that you lead the same civ/nation from 4000 BC to 2000 AD.

But I think picking a new set of civ bonuses each age is a great mechanic. It offers interesting choices and strategies for the player since they have to decide which civ bonuses they think would work best for their game. For example, you might pick a "culture civ" in the Antiquity Age to focus on wonder building, switch to an "economic civ" in the Exploration Age to focus on building your empire economically and then switch to a "science civ" in the Modern Age to go for science victory. Or maybe you pick a "military civ" in all 3 Ages to go for a pure domination victory. There are probably lots of interesting combos you can do with this new system.

And as the devs have explained, the civ bonuses in past games were only really strong in certain ages. This created an imbalance where a civ might be strong in the early game but then become weak later or vice versa. And if you picked a strong late game civ, it felt like playing a vanilla civ for most of the game and maybe not even getting to use your late game bonuses. This new system solves this problem but always letting players and the AI pick civs that are strong in the each age. So from a gameplay point of view, it is better.

In my opinion, the simplified view you offer of those who disagree with you is unsatisfying. I have not yet landed in what I think - I need to see more before I can make a proper judgement. But the thoughts I have against this change are far more nuanced than you give 'they' credit for. That is, in general, a risk with trying to describe what a group of people thinks.

@kaspergm offered some good thoughts on the matter and there are many more out there. The simple idea of reducing Mongolian culture to "steppe nomads famed for their horsemanship and skill at warfare" (not saying you said this) is disheartening. Especially when previous civ games have illustrated a much richer picture of the culture with appropriate musical themes, landscapes, language etc. Naturally, there are gameplay related aspects to consider too. If this change, for instance, makes the empires around the player lose much of the character that we are used to, it can be detrimental to how memorable the games are and identifying which civ, teal or purple, that stole a settler a few irl days back. Questions of which civs we can switch too are also unclear: Will we have a race to reach our preferred civ? Will it be possible to have duplicates? Or is there perhaps another restriction? My point is not that civ-switching is bad, necessarily, but rather that those who think that it is likely have far more nuanced thoughts and ideas than being too honed in on a mere name.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I'm not against Civ changing in itself, but I do think the way it's presented plays an important role.

The fact that Egypt can just "choose" to become Mongolia kills immersion for me. I know civs have changed an replaced each other over time, but that was generally not done by choice. If they wanted to make it a choice, they should have gone with abilities you tie to your civilization instead imo. I.e. you develop 3 Horses and unlock the "Horse Lord" trait, which is the starting trait if you play as Mongolia. There were lots of great options for game design in such an approach imo. without the jarring civ change.

Otherwise, the change should have been linked to the crisis and be something that happens because you are overrun or otherwise forced. For instance, you are faced with a giant barbarian invasion of horsemen, and you fail to defeat them, so your country gets taken over and you now play as Mongolia (I made a suggestion as to how that could work here some days ago). This would make the civ change meaningful and realistic.

Your proposal is interesting and would be more historically realistic. But it would constrain the player since they are forced to either accept the new civ chosen by the game for them, or keep their original civ. But what if the player wants to go for a different civ? I think this illustrates the tension between giving the player interesting choices and being historically accurate. You can give the player choices but railroad them to only certain "realistic" historical paths or you can be more open ended and let the player do whatever they want, switch from Egypt to the Franks if they want, for example. Is it historically realistic for a civ to just pick their next civ when they change ages? No. It is very gamey. But civ has always had gamey elements. I do respect your point of view that it breaks immersion for you. And I recognize that it is a big debate among fans about when it is ok to have gamey elements and when it is not.

The simple idea of reducing Mongolian culture to "steppe nomads famed for their horsemanship and skill at warfare" (not saying you said this) is disheartening. Especially when previous civ games have illustrated a much richer picture of the culture with appropriate musical themes, landscapes, language etc. Naturally, there are gameplay related aspects to consider too. If this change, for instance, makes the empires around the player lose much of the character that we are used to, it can be detrimental to how memorable the games are and identifying which civ, teal or purple, that stole a settler a few irl days back.

I guess it is a lose-lose. If the game presents civs in a rich way with nuanced abilities, music, themes, art etc, the devs will be accuse of breaking immersion since the player just switched from Egypt to Mongols. But if they present civ switching as more like just picking new cultural traits, they will be accused of oversimplifying civilizations. Some might argue that this is why civ switching itself is a fundamentally bad idea. The fact is that the devs wanted to try something new, to try to give players more choices when they start a new age. Let's see how it plays out. It is too early for a final verdict IMO.

Will we have a race to reach our preferred civ?

I don't see how that is possible since every civ changes ages at the same time. So, it is not a race.

Will it be possible to have duplicates? Or is there perhaps another restriction?

That is a good question. The game might allow duplicates or maybe it will restrict civs to prevent duplicates. Maybe the human gets first dibs and the AI will pick other civs that don't have duplicates.

 

[Thormodr]

That's definitely true, and very well put. And I can see why people think of that as a loss - I do too to an extent.

It's worth considering that this sort of loss came in as soon as civ specific attributes came in. In Civ2, you could conquer the world as France using legions. In Civ3 that idea was killed - only Rome could conquer with legions, everyone else had to make do with swordsmen. In Civ7 this effect is magnified because the fictional civilization you create by playing a game doesn't draw its uniqueness from a single historical civilization, but from 3 different ones. In, effect, you're trading the what-if "Rome builds a spacecraft" to the what-if "Rome adapted the mass use of Mongol-like horse archers to combat the rise of Islam, changing the whole character of their civilization (and its name) in the process" I think that many people are mourning the loss of the former, and some are mourning it so much that they're not seeing the birth of the latter. Which is natural and, frankly, unavoidable - we always think more about what we're familiar with than the unknown.

Fundamentally, it's a trade off between (1) having lots of "what-if's" where everyone can do anything in any playthrough and (2) unique traits that limit what the player can do as a specific civilization/leader. The former arguably gives the player more freedom in a single playthrough, but the latter more replayability (and so more freedom) between multiple playthroughs. It's just that some of the possibilities were moved from the game itself to the "meta" part of the game (aka, everything on the new game screen) in the transition to Civ3 and now, paradoxically, being partially moved back to the core part of the game.


The one constant through out the history of the franchise is a steady movement from prioritising (1) to (2). Hopefully they'll stop at some point or, in Civilization 4784, we'll have 20,000 playable civs all strictly railroaded into one narrow playstyle for a specific period of history. Some people clearly find it problematic earlier (ie, now). I can't remember, where there complaints with the release of Civ3 that specialising civs towards certain paths (and UU) removed role-playing ability?

However, with mods, you could play as France and conquer the world with legions in Civ II.

If the modding capacity is strong in 7, then a lot of problems can be resolved.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Yeah, I feel the critics are focusing too much on the name change and not enough on the game mechanic. They see the name change as meaning that you actually change your civ/nation each age which they see as sacrilege. They believe a core premise of civ is that you lead the same civ/nation from 4000 BC to 2000 AD.

But I think picking a new set of civ bonuses each age is a great mechanic. It offers interesting choices and strategies for the player since they have to decide which civ bonuses they think would work best for their game. For example, you might pick a "culture civ" in the Antiquity Age to focus on wonder building, switch to an "economic civ" in the Exploration Age to focus on building your empire economically and then switch to a "science civ" in the Modern Age to go for science victory. Or maybe you pick a "military civ" in all 3 Ages to go for a pure domination victory. There are probably lots of interesting combos you can do with this new system.

I've proposed this same idea, but with switching leaders instead. I feel like switching leaders among the same civ, or even with non-historical leaders of that civ, would at least add in more continuity while still having replay ability.

 

[Big J Money]

I've proposed this same idea, but with switching leaders instead. I feel like switching leaders among the same civ, or even with non-historical leaders of that civ, would at least add in more continuity while still having replay ability.

It's too late for them to allow switching leaders, at least in the vanilla game. Too much is based around them: there's a level-up tree for your leader to gain attributes, and the leader you pick is what determines which civs you can become. If I pick Ben Franklin, because I want to be America, then the game forcing me to change leaders in Age II would take away my ability to choose America in Age III. I guess you could play around this by not picking BenF until you hit Age II. That would be really weird though, because you'd pick BenF in Age II to guarantee America as your next civ, then you'd be forced away from BenF when you actually play as America.

They would also have to be okay with leader attributes transferring from leader to leader. I just don't see them re-designing the whole game just to please some people who prefer leader switching over civ switching.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

or making like 60 leader animations at this point in the game.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

it's also "build an empire to stand the test of time"

View attachment 701235

Well, that has always been the official tagline of the series, but not necessarily the real tagline. That would be "One. More. Turn."

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

It's too late for them to allow switching leaders, at least in the vanilla game. Too much is based around them: there's a level-up tree for your leader to gain attributes, and the leader you pick is what determines which civs you can become. If I pick Ben Franklin, because I want to be America, then the game forcing me to change leaders in Age II would take away my ability to choose America in Age III. I guess you could play around this by not picking BenF until you hit Age II. That would be really weird though, because you'd pick BenF in Age II to guarantee America as your next civ, then you'd be forced away from BenF when you actually play as America.

They would also have to be okay with leader attributes transferring from leader to leader. I just don't see them re-designing the whole game just to please some people who prefer leader switching over civ switching.

I know that won't happen in this game. I just stated my preference that switching leaders, instead of civs, to me would be more enjoyable.

 

[AntSou]

I know that won't happen in this game. I just stated my preference that switching leaders, instead of civs, to me would be more enjoyable.

This might be moddable if no 3d art is used, though it sounds like a lot of work. If it's all just pictures and abilities, it shouldn't matter much whether it's a leader leading 3 Civs or a Civ going through 3 leaders.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Well, that has always been the official tagline of the series, but not necessarily the real tagline. That would be "One. More. Turn."

No "build an empire that will span the test of time" is the official and real tagline.

There's a reason why Civ games open up with a monologue about your leader and civilization that asks you to build an empire that spans the test of time and why you find the tagline on the series's box art and throughout its manuals.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

First of all, I don't want to paint an inaccurate picure: I'm not against the evolution of one civilization into another from a conceptual standpoint. My gripe has been with the example they showed in the big gameplay reveal -- Egypt becoming Mongolia -- and how that demonstrated to me a lack of plausability in terms of which civilizations can become which. I just don't find it within the realm of imagination that simply because Egypt could become societally dependent upon horses that they would have become Mongolia. Mongolia is culturally a lot more than horses, geographically nowhere close to Egypt, spoke a completely unrelated language to ancient Egyptian, and didn't ascend from any remotely similar tribes.

However, I think something is confusing all the conversation on this, and that's one word: "Civilization".

When you transition into a new age, who is transitioning? I don't think we really know yet. We know that a crisis brings your civilization to its knees. My interpretation of this is:

1) Government and authority break down
2) Many people die, perhaps whole people groups
3) Cultural skills and talents are lost to time

Taking the Mongolia example, if we imagine that a tribe of people prospers among the chaos that saw Egypt collapse, a new one could arise. If you imagine that the people called "Mongolians" come from a tribe of people who lived among the Egyptians, and shared some of their culture, but also had some of their own, this is quite believable. The word "Mongolians" is a bit confusing because I associate it with "people from Asia", but in this context it could simply mean "steppe nomads famed for their horsemanship and skill at warfare", geography be damned.

As far as language goes, we simply imagine that the new Mongol civilization speaks either Egyptian, or their own Mesopotamian language. It could be called Mongolian, but it wouldn't be historical Mongolian.

As far as physical appearance goes, this is where things could get weird. If the people of my first civilization have a North African appearance, then it wouldn't make sense for my second civ to suddenly be red and blonde headed people who look Norse. I'm curious how they will handle this. I suppose you could blame this on Sea Peoples, but what about other crises?

As far as architecture goes, it's quite feasible that the new civilization will have a new architecture. Where this could get weird would be to see, for example, Asian architecture arise in Egypt due to the Mongolians, and then the exact same Asian architecture arise on the other side of the world due to (for example) the rise of Korea. I guess we could say aliens...

So my question really is: how much are we evolving "a civilization", and how much are we starting over with a new civ that has some influences from the past; a different, dead civilization? I think there are ways to imagine these kinds of scenarios plausibly, but it's going to depend on how they portray it.

Regardless of whether it's plausible, and regardless of whether it ends up being fun, it all leads me to some interesting, fundamental questions, though.

Are we really building an empire (or civilization) to stand the test of time, if the first two will always fail in crisis?

Is the game Civilization, or Civilizations?

I don't think it has been layed out everything already out to a point of exclusion of either ones.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

No "build an empire that will span the test of time" is the official and real tagline.

There's a reason why Civ games open up with a monologue about your leader and civilization that asks you to build an empire that spans the test of time and why you find the tagline on the series's box art and throughout its manuals.

Genuine question, how often has that line actually been used? I know it's on the Civ website, and it's on the Civ 1 box + in the Civ 1 intro, but I don't think it is on any other box art and I just went back to watch all the intros + launch trailers, I only heard a similar line used in the Civ V launch trailer, no where else. I honestly didn't realise it was the tag line until the furore over switching.

 

[DukeSammael]

When Alexander the Great conquered Persia and other territories to the east, he forced his generals and encouraged his soldiers to marry locals from conquered territories in order to mix the cultures up and strengthen the ties. He succeeded, creating what we today call Hellenistic Culture, a blend of Greek, Macedon, Persian, and Egyptian cultures. He was himself proclaimed a Pharaox of Egypt and fully embraced their traditions.

It's funny when people say civ switching is not historical when it clearly is. The devil is in the details, i.e. the implementation.

 

[King Flevance]

Genuine question, how often has that line actually been used? I know it's on the Civ website, and it's on the Civ 1 box + in the Civ 1 intro, but I don't think it is on any other box art and I just went back to watch all the intros + launch trailers, I only heard a similar line used in the Civ V launch trailer, no where else. I honestly didn't realise it was the tag line until the furore over switching.

It is usually after you pick your Civ and settings and start a new game in the intro text/ movie. In Civ 1 it was after making a new game and a cutscene of a goddess ended with that as the text. In Civ 4, when you start a new game Leonard Nimoy's Intro he ends it with "build a legacy that will span the test of time." In Civ 3 it is in the initial text box when you start a new game with your civ info. Civ 6 doesn't have it though.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Genuine question, how often has that line actually been used? I know it's on the Civ website, and it's on the Civ 1 box + in the Civ 1 intro, but I don't think it is on any other box art and I just went back to watch all the intros + launch trailers, I only heard a similar line used in the Civ V launch trailer, no where else. I honestly didn't realise it was the tag line until the furore over switching.

Used on the cover over the first civ game and in its intro. Used in Civ V launch trailer and the starting monologues given to your leader at the start of every single game of Civ 5. Every campaign start end with "oh great <insert leader here>, can you build an civilization/empire that stands the test of time" I'm pretty sure was the case in Civ 3 and 4 as well and even Civ 6 probably has the tagline somewhere (though admittedly I haven't played those games in ages)

The tagline is found repeatedly in past games and their manuals including the first paragraph of its introduction

This one is pretty obvious too.

The tagline is still used in promotional materials for the series TO THIS DAY including this latest showcase. "Building an empire/civilization to span the test of time" shouldn't be unfamiliar concept or phrase if you are a fan of the series.

 

[Bahraini]

Civ-changing Ages is one of the main reasons that Humankind failed miserably. I hope, and I have faith that the dev in Firaxis will not make the same mistake and find a reasonable solution