I'm clicking the "retire" button on Civ VII

[j51]

Sad to see you go.

 

[Kev1916]

Adios , cu fir Civ VIII

 

[Civinator]

My perspective doesn't seem to fit in well here on CFC anymore so I'm off to new things, and new games.

I think your perspective fits very well here on CFC! In any case I wish you all the best.

 

[itix]

You will be missed. Always loved to read tour thoughts.

 

[MutilationWave]

We didn't exactly line up on many of our views of the game, but I always read your posts and appreciated your input. May the wind be always at your back.

 

[reddishrecue]

I thought i was going to retire but I came back. I think its the technologies that brought me back. There's something that's not really part of this world about them. Even though i sometimes get sleepy, I save it and reroll to run it again. The good part here is that you can save and load unlike civ 6.

 

[McSpank01]

I've played a few games recently, thinking the latest patch would draw me back in and make me want to continue playing.

Nope. I still can't mentally push myself through the exploration age. I just don't find it fun from that point. Antiquity is pretty good, most people seem to think so. Exploration just feels like a grind, it feels like busywork. Even removing all the issue with age transitions, I just think Exploration as an age is not fun, because of the way legacy paths are set up.

Firstly, the most iconic of these paths should be the race for Treasure Fleets. The problem is that this is either totally broken, or just badly implemented. I always play Continents or Continents Plus, and the system just doesn't work well there. I guess the initial idea is that in Exploration you move off your home continent to go and invade and explore other continents and plunder their resources. Two issues there:

• Firstly the amount of distant lands 'land' that is free is mostly just tiny scraps of island dotted around the place. This doesn't appear to have ever changed. So the whole game because a race to who can just build a settler and shove it on an island first. Yawn
• Civs on the other continent are equally as advanced as you. This makes the idea of going and colonising another settlement totally unappealling. Why go through the hassle?

The big thing here is that I was dreaming about playing a civ game, how fun it would be to play, to trample on a civ who is fighting with swords, and I gave tanks. Or to get involved in a big futuristic war with nukes and fighter jets and death robots. I can't do any of that in this game. It's ability to allow you to just run with an idea and make it happen is so limited.

Maybe I really am hitting the retire button too.

 

[Siptah]

Firstly the amount of distant lands 'land' that is free is mostly just tiny scraps of island dotted around the place. This doesn't appear to have ever changed. So the whole game because a race to who can just build a settler and shove it on an island first. Yawn

Some months ago, people recommended to reduce or even eliminate players in the distant lands in the game start options to change this. I personally think it is rather boring to do so, but you might like it.

Civs on the other continent are equally as advanced as you. This makes the idea of going and colonising another settlement totally unappealling. Why go through the hassle?

Oversea landings with quick, coordinated invasions are one of the most fun things to do in civ for me. At least since transports aren't a thing anymore. But since civ 5, and especially now with 7's fortified districts, I generally enjoy to siege down large coastal cities with a combination of troops and ships.

 

[Leucarum]

I've played a few games recently, thinking the latest patch would draw me back in and make me want to continue playing.

Nope. I still can't mentally push myself through the exploration age. I just don't find it fun from that point. Antiquity is pretty good, most people seem to think so. Exploration just feels like a grind, it feels like busywork. Even removing all the issue with age transitions, I just think Exploration as an age is not fun, because of the way legacy paths are set up.

I'm not as negative, still having a lot of fun with Civ7, but I think you're onto something. I too end most of my games after antiquity, only playing exploration if the setup looks really interesting.

Busywork is definitely the right description for cultural victory. Religion is micromanagement hell. Fortunately you can mostly ignore it once you've got your relics so i find I just fire out a few missionaries here and there then ignore the system. The new adjacency bonus for temples belief is perfect for this style of play!

Science in exploration is pretty automatic. Millitary is fine - could maybe do without the interaction with religion as that's jusy busywork.

Economic I still find pretty random, and since the other paths are pretty quick it can be a case of either you slow yourself down to be able to win it, you get lucky, or... My favourite option, play Inca/Songhai - this now being the main thing which can lure me into actually playing exploration.

I'm still enjoying enough that I am not ready to make my dramatic exit, but I am certainly playing a lot less. As great as antiquity is, it can't carry the game alone.

 

[MutilationWave]

I'm not as negative, still having a lot of fun with Civ7, but I think you're onto something. I too end most of my games after antiquity, only playing exploration if the setup looks really interesting.

Busywork is definitely the right description for cultural victory. Religion is micromanagement hell. Fortunately you can mostly ignore it once you've got your relics so i find I just fire out a few missionaries here and there then ignore the system. The new adjacency bonus for temples belief is perfect for this style of play!

Science in exploration is pretty automatic. Millitary is fine - could maybe do without the interaction with religion as that's jusy busywork.

Economic I still find pretty random, and since the other paths are pretty quick it can be a case of either you slow yourself down to be able to win it, you get lucky, or... My favourite option, play Inca/Songhai - this now being the main thing which can lure me into actually playing exploration.

I'm still enjoying enough that I am not ready to make my dramatic exit, but I am certainly playing a lot less. As great as antiquity is, it can't carry the game alone.

I would love to play a full length game where tech stopped with gunpowder. I bet that would be very hard to balance.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I'm not as negative, still having a lot of fun with Civ7, but I think you're onto something. I too end most of my games after antiquity, only playing exploration if the setup looks really interesting.

Busywork is definitely the right description for cultural victory. Religion is micromanagement hell. Fortunately you can mostly ignore it once you've got your relics so i find I just fire out a few missionaries here and there then ignore the system. The new adjacency bonus for temples belief is perfect for this style of play!

Science in exploration is pretty automatic. Millitary is fine - could maybe do without the interaction with religion as that's jusy busywork.

Economic I still find pretty random, and since the other paths are pretty quick it can be a case of either you slow yourself down to be able to win it, you get lucky, or... My favourite option, play Inca/Songhai - this now being the main thing which can lure me into actually playing exploration.

I'm still enjoying enough that I am not ready to make my dramatic exit, but I am certainly playing a lot less. As great as antiquity is, it can't carry the game alone.

Playing on Huge helps a lot, I've found. Huge maps are balanced for 12 players, not ten and it shows in how the players are distributed: 6 on the homelands, 4 in the distant lands.

And that usually keeps the game fresh because there are large swaths of land in the Distand Lands that you can colonize and settle - effectively the antiquity game, with a treasure convoy here or there.

Religion is garbage but I found my sweet spot in the tenet that converts cities by establishing a trade route. Combine that with a tenet that gives relics upon conversion (like the one that gives Relics from Wonders) and you can usually hit Toshakhana. I only use Missionaries to convert my own cities now, and while it's still a game of whack-a-mole to get Non Sufficit Orbis, i usually can pull it off by the sheer number of Distant Lands cities I can settle.

A lot of the Exploration game is playing it from the perspective of a lazy person and minimizing the tedium while retaining what you find fun. From there, it's pretty smooth sailing.

In a sense I find the MODERN age to be a drag now, because I'm almost always in a position where I know I'll win, and it simply doesn't happen fast enough. I miss a fast "Win Through Being Ahead" option that a good Diplomatic victory would provide.

 

[Leucarum]

Playing on Huge helps a lot, I've found. Huge maps are balanced for 12 players, not ten and it shows in how the players are distributed: 6 on the homelands, 4 in the distant lands.

And that usually keeps the game fresh because there are large swaths of land in the Distand Lands that you can colonize and settle - effectively the antiquity game, with a treasure convoy here or there.

I am enjoying the biggest maps far more than I thought I would for sure!

Religion is garbage but I found my sweet spot in the tenet that converts cities by establishing a trade route. Combine that with a tenet that gives relics upon conversion (like the one that gives Relics from Wonders) and you can usually hit Toshakhana. I only use Missionaries to convert my own cities now, and while it's still a game of whack-a-mole to get Non Sufficit Orbis, i usually can pull it off by the sheer number of Distant Lands cities I can settle.

Religion is garbage but you can get it over and done with in a few clicks which is nice.

A lot of the Exploration game is playing it from the perspective of a lazy person and minimizing the tedium while retaining what you find fun. From there, it's pretty smooth sailing.

In a sense I find the MODERN age to be a drag now, because I'm almost always in a position where I know I'll win, and it simply doesn't happen fast enough. I miss a fast "Win Through Being Ahead" option that a good Diplomatic victory would provide.

Modern is a very sad age for me. Snowballing is too much for it to be interesting. The micromanagement tips over the point which I enjoy, culture is outright NOT fun. And beelining becomes the name of the game..

I find it interesting though that an advamced start for modern is a lot of fun... More proof that snowballing is real and problematic in 7

 

[MrRadar]

Well, I thought I'd try a Huge deity map after the newest update, and here I am, in my first 1.2.2 game, somewhere in the second half of Exploration:

Spoiler :

Frankly, I don't see any point in continuing this game. All the fun is already behind, and all what is left is some ~100-ish very dull turns of whack a mole misionaries and trying to make as little effort as humanely possible in Modern until the inevitable victory screen. AI will do nothing to threaten me in any way for the rest of the game. Why play it out then?

And I don't think I'll start another one until the next update.

 

[Krikkit1]

I would love to play a full length game where tech stopped with gunpowder. I bet that would be very hard to balance.

Well, once they get the ability to have any age be the victory age, then supposedly you could set Exploration to victory…and then go “One more turn”

 

[MutilationWave]

Well, I thought I'd try a Huge deity map after the newest update, and here I am, in my first 1.2.2 game, somewhere in the second half of Exploration:

Spoiler :

Frankly, I don't see any point in continuing this game. All the fun is already behind, and all what is left is some ~100-ish very dull turns of whack a mole misionaries and trying to make as little effort as humanely possible in Modern until the inevitable victory screen. AI will do nothing to threaten me in any way for the rest of the game. Why play it out then?

And I don't think I'll start another one until the next update.

Yeah Maya needs nerfed. Your opponents have low yield compared to my games at this point. I'm really curious about what's causing things you the so different.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Well, I thought I'd try a Huge deity map after the newest update, and here I am, in my first 1.2.2 game, somewhere in the second half of Exploration:

Spoiler :

Frankly, I don't see any point in continuing this game. All the fun is already behind, and all what is left is some ~100-ish very dull turns of whack a mole misionaries and trying to make as little effort as humanely possible in Modern until the inevitable victory screen. AI will do nothing to threaten me in any way for the rest of the game. Why play it out then?

And I don't think I'll start another one until the next update.

Question: I can't see the rest of the map (obviously), but Jose Rizal is comparable to you in both science and culture rate.
Do you consider him "not a threat" because (a) the AI rarely invade, (b) the AI don't aggressively pursue a victory condition, or (c) you always complete a Modern victory before they do? My first post-patch game had more aggression from the AI in both Exploration and Modern, lower than Deity. I just want to understand which aspect(s) make it a foregone conclusion.

 

[MrRadar]

Your opponents have low yield compared to my games at this point. I'm really curious about what's causing things you the so different.

There has been a lot of inter-AI fighting on my side of the world, between two power blocks, if you can say so, that formed in Antiquity, one of them involving me. So Cleo, for example was hell bent on declaring wars and then losing them and giving away her cities for peace, which I then took over in peace deals from Himiko, because they fitted so well into my lands. Maybe that had such an impact.

Btw., it seems, that alliances made in Antiquity tend to persist beyond transitions into Exploration and even Modern. By far, it's not the first game I'm seeing this, so the artificial breaking up of the game into distinct separate ages seems not to serve the intended purpose.

Question: I can't see the rest of the map (obviously), but Jose Rizal is comparable to you in both science and culture rate.
Do you consider him "not a threat" because (a) the AI rarely invade, (b) the AI don't aggressively pursue a victory condition, or (c) you always complete a Modern victory before they do? My first post-patch game had more aggression from the AI in both Exploration and Modern, lower than Deity. I just want to understand which aspect(s) make it a foregone conclusion.

For the second installment in the franchize back to back, AI seems to be built just to exist as a background, and not as a real contender for a victory condition. Neither in Civ6, nor in Civ7 AI can really wage a determined war and go for a victory condition the way AI in Civ4 is capable to do. So it is probably b), also c), but not only. I don't know why, but devs give this AI only rudimentary coding. In Civ6 AI can't really use fleets or planes, and the more I see of Civ7, the more everything reminds me of 6. AI just can't or isn't playing the game, it just does some sort of Brownian motion. Tbf, that's probably what it does in 4 as well, but there that motion seems to be much more focused.

As for Rizal, here's what it looks like after some more turns:

Spoiler :

I don't really think he will accomplish much. However, I met someone more serious than him:

Spoiler :

Funny, but on Huge map all the opponents don't fit in the bar, so you can't see them all without scrolling and can't see your own stats next to the last few guys. Best UI ever. Anyway, I don't think that even Confucius will know how to use that advantage to get a victory sooner than me, because, apparently, the devs did not tell him how.

So in this game yet a bit later my little and only ally Cleo declared war on Ashoka again. I thought why not, so I renewed alliance with Nappy, as he had come back into heart relationship with me, and I supported Cleo. Soon enough the old power blocks were at it again, but this time a couple of overseas guests jumped in and Cleo bailed out, little rascal. So it is 2v5 now. I wonder, who will end up with even more cities? Here's another funny picture from the war:

Spoiler :

It makes me suspect that AI can't tell a military commander from a settler. Or were those scooped from the Military Academy just as they were handing in enrollment documents?

 

[McSpank01]

So I decided to fire up a game of Civ 6, something I hadn't really done since just before Civ 7 came out. I always had this feeling that 6 would feel so ancient and out of date when I played it, so I never thought to go back.

However, it just feels amazing now that I've had my experience playing Civ 7. All the little things I took for granted now seem to bring me incredible levels of joy:

• The UI. Something I always thought was too cartoony and colourful before, something that always bothered me. Now I fully appreciate it. It slides in and out incredibly smoothly, I can find exactly the info I need without having to search or guess what things mean. The colours I always disliked, now feel comforting and I realise how much easier it is to understand things.
• The speed of the game is so much more noticable. Something about Civ 7 feels.. sluggish. It was especially bad before they introduced fast movement, but even now turns just don't race along like they do in 6.
• I don't feel like stuff is going on and I'm not being told about it either. In 7 if I lose a scout, I wouldn't know it. In 6 I'm given information I need to know
• Map tacks of course just incredible
• Adjacencies feel like they make sense and feel unique and special. I'm actually doing real city planning based on the landscape, decisions matter.
• City states are interesting
• I feel like I am making genuine choices about my tech and my civ direction, I'm not just doing everything for no reason.

I could go on. I thought 7 would eclipse 6 quite quickly, but instead the opposite has happened, I've found a new level of appreciation for what we had.

I guess the problem here is that 7 does most of the things 6 does, but does them worse. Everything is less well defined, features are missing, everything is slower and less interesting. The new features don't tend to work especially well, and I don't even massively miss the better new features like commanders. There literally doesn't seem to be a good reason to play Civ 7 if you have Civ 6 at the moment, it's hard to point a finger at where 7 is superior.

 

[Leucarum]

So I decided to fire up a game of Civ 6, something I hadn't really done since just before Civ 7 came out. I always had this feeling that 6 would feel so ancient and out of date when I played it, so I never thought to go back.

However, it just feels amazing now that I've had my experience playing Civ 7. All the little things I took for granted now seem to bring me incredible levels of joy:

• The UI. Something I always thought was too cartoony and colourful before, something that always bothered me. Now I fully appreciate it. It slides in and out incredibly smoothly, I can find exactly the info I need without having to search or guess what things mean. The colours I always disliked, now feel comforting and I realise how much easier it is to understand things.
• The speed of the game is so much more noticable. Something about Civ 7 feels.. sluggish. It was especially bad before they introduced fast movement, but even now turns just don't race along like they do in 6.
• I don't feel like stuff is going on and I'm not being told about it either. In 7 if I lose a scout, I wouldn't know it. In 6 I'm given information I need to know
• Map tacks of course just incredible
• Adjacencies feel like they make sense and feel unique and special. I'm actually doing real city planning based on the landscape, decisions matter.
• City states are interesting
• I feel like I am making genuine choices about my tech and my civ direction, I'm not just doing everything for no reason.

I could go on. I thought 7 would eclipse 6 quite quickly, but instead the opposite has happened, I've found a new level of appreciation for what we had.

I guess the problem here is that 7 does most of the things 6 does, but does them worse. Everything is less well defined, features are missing, everything is slower and less interesting. The new features don't tend to work especially well, and I don't even massively miss the better new features like commanders. There literally doesn't seem to be a good reason to play Civ 7 if you have Civ 6 at the moment, it's hard to point a finger at where 7 is superior.

I tried that too recently and found the exact opposite. The moment I built my first builder I just had an "ugh, this sucks" moment, and then started thinking about how I was going to need to spam cities everywhere, micromanage units without commanders...

I have thousands of hours in Civ6, and I adore the game.

I also think that Civ7's best features are these core changes like no builders, army commanders and towns/cities. It could ditch eras/civ switching and I'd probably be happier...But those core features are now things I don't want to play without

 

[GeneralZift]

I think the new system feels weird. But I also didn't like Builders. I enjoy Workers which some people say is the most micromanagement, but for me it's the Builders who are the most.

Workers work for multiple turns and you can set and forget them. And you can also automate them.

When you have builders you have to move them or use them every turn until they're out of charges. That's tiring.

The Civ7 system is the least MM but it also feels quite boring and linear. Since you can only have one type of improvement on a tile, or you can have a building.

All that being said, I've never found that newer Civ games invalidate older Civ games. It's actually one of those few franchises where this is not the case, because they're all different and good in their own ways.