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

[McSpank01]

Whether you accept civ switching or not is entirely subjective, I don't understand why discuss it so much. If you could associate yourself and opponents with leaders instead of civs (and, unlike Humankind, Civ7 does good job in helping you), the civ switching itself is not a problem. If civ is a mandatory part of identity for you, civ switching becomes an issue. So, it's a matter of personal perception, has nothing to do with logic or arguments. It was possible to make exactly the same game from gameplay perspective, but instead of switching civilizations, having them "adopt a culture" or something like this, having mechanical changes without changing name.

Yeah I generally have never considered the 'leader' of a civ to be the actual representation of the civilisation, if you take my meaning. The leader in Civ 6 was always just the face for the flavour of that civ. I never thought I was playing against Montezuma.. I was against the Aztecs.

I think really hate the implementation of leaders in Civ 7 for almost exactly that reason. It is really jarring to have really ahistoric matchings of Civ and Leader, it all gets very gamey and throws me out of the immersion.

Personally I would do away with leaders altogether, or make them generic and customisable, and maybe they change outfits or whatever depending on your civ and age. That would be a massive improvement.

 

[uppi]

Personally I would do away with leaders altogether, or make them generic and customisable, and maybe they change outfits or whatever depending on your civ and age. That would be a massive improvement.

No. Humankind did exactly that and in my opinion, it was the weakest point of the game. Leaders were not recognizable and then would change their clothes on civ switch and then you would meet them and go "Who are you? Do I know you? *checks notes* Ah you are the leader of the dark brown civ (not to be confused with the black civ) What civ are you now... actually... I don't care that much anyway".

The designers of Civ7 were entirely correct that you need recognizable leaders if you have civ switching. Where they dropped the ball a bit is the non-binding civ preference which does not satisfy anyone, I think.

 

[GeneralZift]

I don't how people can say you play the same Civ all the time if, when the crisis comes, you switch names, icons, bonuses, your cities become towns, your army and navy changes, all the mechanics change, and you essentially enter a different mini game?
Okay so I guess I still own the same plots of land, and I play the same leader?

My problem with the Civ switch and Ages isn't strictly here but with the way that they disrupt the narrative flow. Actually this is the case for so many new Civ7 mechanics.

What if it doesn't make sense for my empire to topple? What if the crisis shouldn't affect me as it does? Why do I always get the crisis no matter what I do? Why does everyone get the same crisis and a Civ switch at the same time?

Why do I need to do Treasure Fleets? Maybe my empire can be economic without them.
Why does Religion have to start in the Exploration age? Some began in Antiquity.

Why do I grab arbitrary points from arbitrary legacy trees so that I can keep more in the age switch?
Like what about progressing the commercial tree means I can keep my cities? Has anyone thought about how it makes no sense?

If you put some critical thought into anything that Civ7 tells you to do, you find what you're actually doing is clicking buttons to progress bars.
What some people enjoy is gaming the system so that they can keep as much as possible between Age switching.
But then you're invalidating the entire point of the system which is designed to slow your snowball.

Once they split the main game into 3 mini-games, you start to see that they've designed it pretty much as a railroaded experience, inspired mainly by European (Colonial) history, and not as an open-ended Civ experience, where you take Your empire to the end YOUR WAY.

 

[McSpank01]

Once they split the main game into 3 mini-games, you start to see that they've designed it pretty much as a railroaded experience, inspired mainly by European (Colonial) history, and not as an open-ended Civ experience, where you take Your empire to the end YOUR WAY.

This seems to be basically it. The game is 3 separate mini-games, poorly stitched together. That appears to be the core decision from the beginning, 'let have these mini-games', and all other decisions stem from that. You can't get away from having that in your head though when you play it, it touches everything. You go through an age, not thinking you are building a civ, but trying to win the mini-game.

I think it's a fundamental design flaw that has so many knock on consequences that its hard to see how the game recovers.

No. Humankind did exactly that and in my opinion, it was the weakest point of the game. Leaders were not recognizable and then would change their clothes on civ switch and then you would meet them and go "Who are you? Do I know you? *checks notes* Ah you are the leader of the dark brown civ (not to be confused with the black civ) What civ are you now... actually... I don't care that much anyway".

The designers of Civ7 were entirely correct that you need recognizable leaders if you have civ switching. Where they dropped the ball a bit is the non-binding civ preference which does not satisfy anyone, I think.

Fair, I've never played Humankind. I'm sure there would be ways to make it all work though, even if Humankind messed it up. You can have recognisable leaders without them just being historic leaders that are clearly attached to one civ or another.

 

[GeneralZift]

You go through an age, not thinking you are building a civ, but trying to win the mini-game.

And each time you win the mini game, you make the next mini game easier to win. So essentially we added more to the snowball effect.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

I just think the over reaction is misplaced. The overall idea of 'civ switching' could absolutely work and makes a lot of sense, but for it to work it has to feel a lot less dramatic, needs to reduce the sense of player loss, and potentially give the player more customisation options.

If for instance you had the ability to customise your civ name and banner, you could then basically have what ever empire you wanted and do whatever work is needed in your head for it to make sense.

If they made the changes between ages more subtle, so you don't get your civ taken away, but instead gradually add elements from a new civ to your old civ, then you might feel it's more of an evolution.

If each civ actually had much more distinct features that were more age specific, which weren't just a set of boring invisibile bonuses, then maybe it might all be a bit more fun.

The idea itself is sound, the implementation of it is jarrying and unfun.

It can't possibly work for me. I tried to like it in Humankind, but ultimately ended hating it to the point of using an old broken mod that gave me "classic Civ" experience. For all those decades playing civ = leading my chosen civ throughout the ages. A civ that I chose to lead. Not the one I was forced to abandon and pick some new one just because some clock said I have to.

Personally I would go with customizable civs. Classic option of all civs available since the start (for greater variety) with the option of selecting bonuses based on your playstyle. You had huge cavalry army? In the next era you can pick trait enhancing your cavalry and pick some unique mounted unit. You had big navy? Select maritime traits and enhanced naval unit in the next era. And so on. It would be about evolving and enhancing your own civ instead of switching Egyptians for Mongols ffs.

Whether you accept civ switching or not is entirely subjective, I don't understand why discuss it so much.

It's basically the main thing that killed all my hype for this game and already convinced me to skip this one completely, so I'd say it's quite important element to focus on in discussions. For me and, as it seems, for many other players as well.

If you could associate yourself and opponents with leaders instead of civs (and, unlike Humankind, Civ7 does good job in helping you), the civ switching itself is not a problem.

The problem is I can't, especially with choices like Tubman, Lafayette or Lovelace. There's so many interesting real rulers and leaders but we were left with them instead. So I can't associate myself with a civ (which I will forcefully have to abandon... twice) and I can't associate with leaders which I find completely anti-immersive. Someone at Firaxis worked really hard to make me dislike this game.

If civ is a mandatory part of identity for you, civ switching becomes an issue. So, it's a matter of personal perception, has nothing to do with logic or arguments.

But this perception was the core of all Civ games to this date. To abandon it so abruptly and bluntly turned out to be a very bad move. Civ VII is a failure - reviews are bad, number of players is low, hype exists only on places like this - where small group of hardcore fans still praise the game and hope for a miracle, while the rest of the internet basically already forgot about it. I'd say there is some logic in saying it was a bad and totally uncalled for move.

 

[UWHabs]

It can't possibly work for me. I tried to like it in Humankind, but ultimately ended hating it to the point of using an old broken mod that gave me "classic Civ" experience. For all those decades playing civ = leading my chosen civ throughout the ages. A civ that I chose to lead. Not the one I was forced to abandon and pick some new one just because some clock said I have to.

Personally I would go with customizable civs. Classic option of all civs available since the start (for greater variety) with the option of selecting bonuses based on your playstyle. You had huge cavalry army? In the next era you can pick trait enhancing your cavalry and pick some unique mounted unit. You had big navy? Select maritime traits and enhanced naval unit in the next era. And so on. It would be about evolving and enhancing your own civ instead of switching Egyptians for Mongols ffs.




It's basically the main thing that killed all my hype for this game and already convinced me to skip this one completely, so I'd say it's quite important element to focus on in discussions. For me and, as it seems, for many other players as well.



The problem is I can't, especially with choices like Tubman, Lafayette or Lovelace. There's so many interesting real rulers and leaders but we were left with them instead. So I can't associate myself with a civ (which I will forcefully have to abandon... twice) and I can't associate with leaders which I find completely anti-immersive. Someone at Firaxis worked really hard to make me dislike this game.



But this perception was the core of all Civ games to this date. To abandon it so abruptly and bluntly turned out to be a very bad move. Civ VII is a failure - reviews are bad, number of players is low, hype exists only on places like this - where small group of hardcore fans still praise the game and hope for a miracle, while the rest of the internet basically already forgot about it. I'd say there is some logic in saying it was a bad and totally uncalled for move.

There's some very weird ways the choice of leaders this time around has come. Like, at one level, splitting the leader from the civ has allowed a lot more options, you can bring in a Lovelace, Machiavelli, etc... which never would have made previous iterations. Or have leaders with no direct civ. So it's been a fantastic boost for those lesser named leaders.

But at the same time, since they split the leader and civ, and made the leader the top dog, to get the most out of it, it leans itself to truly focus on those greatest leaders in history. Like if every game is Lizzy vs Gilgamesh vs Genghis Khan vs Napoleon vs Montezuma, I think you would have a lot better immersion to your leader and opponent leaders.

 

[Smegger213]

There's some very weird ways the choice of leaders this time around has come. Like, at one level, splitting the leader from the civ has allowed a lot more options, you can bring in a Lovelace, Machiavelli, etc... which never would have made previous iterations. Or have leaders with no direct civ. So it's been a fantastic boost for those lesser named leaders.

But at the same time, since they split the leader and civ, and made the leader the top dog, to get the most out of it, it leans itself to truly focus on those greatest leaders in history. Like if every game is Lizzy vs Gilgamesh vs Genghis Khan vs Napoleon vs Montezuma, I think you would have a lot better immersion to your leader and opponent leaders.

The whole idea of a leader can play any Civ is totally absurd. They should stick to their historic countries. EG Lovelace could still have been a British leader. But I would rather have Elizabeth 1st or Churchill. That is the 1st reason why I don't like Civ 7.
Reason no 2 is the being forced to swap Civ's at every age transition. They should have given us the choice of sticking with what we had. I would prefer to play with the same Civ for the whole game. They could easily give each Civ some bonuses that apply in the exploration age, then some bonuses for modern age etc.
Reason no 3 is the whole age system itself. Especially the hard reset at each age transition. The worse thing is having to do such things as research stuff again. EG to get merchants and start trading again.

It boils down to the fact that Civ 7 is just flashy graphics over substance. I am now hardly playing at all, and will likely go back to Civ 5. I couldn't get the hang of Civ 6, no matter how hard I tried.

 

[Leucarum]

There's some very weird ways the choice of leaders this time around has come. Like, at one level, splitting the leader from the civ has allowed a lot more options, you can bring in a Lovelace, Machiavelli, etc... which never would have made previous iterations. Or have leaders with no direct civ. So it's been a fantastic boost for those lesser named leaders.

But at the same time, since they split the leader and civ, and made the leader the top dog, to get the most out of it, it leans itself to truly focus on those greatest leaders in history. Like if every game is Lizzy vs Gilgamesh vs Genghis Khan vs Napoleon vs Montezuma, I think you would have a lot better immersion to your leader and opponent leaders.

I agree with the first part but I have more of a problem with leaders who are ultra-assocuated with a civilization - like Augustus or Franklin - where I cannot connect them to the Civ they are playing, for me I'll always think of Augustus as Rome or Franklin as America even when they aren't.

I like leader mixing/matching a lot - the gameplay options are awesome, if someone doesn't like the historical innacuracy I sympathise but I personally love it. So I'm ok with a little confusion if mixing and matching is the reward, but Civ switching on top just adds too much confusion, and honestly, I usually don't want to change my civ so I'd like to see it go or become optional.

 

[stealth_nsk]

But this perception was the core of all Civ games to this date

I disagree with this. We had multiple leaders per civ in several games, including Civ6 and, for example, Rome has pretty different identity depending on whether you play Trajan or Caesar.

Where are games, which has extremely tight association between player and nation - those which have dynasty, like most Paradox games or, say Total War. There are also role playing games with strong focus on character, but with some strategic/tactical gameplay behind, like King's Bounty.

Civilization was always in between, having strong ties with both civilization and leader, so different players always had different perception here.

I also disagree that negative reviews and other numbers show that this approach was wrong. According to analysis of steam reviews, civilization switching doesn't appear in top reasons for those negative reviews.

 

[McSpank01]

Civ has always trod the line between history and this kind of gamey abstraction. I think there are just too many 'gamey' inclusions in this iteration and I think these are deliberate choices to bring in other types of players. The disconnect between Leaders and Civilisations is an abstraction too far for my tastes, it suddenly turns the game into a 'how can you min max your civ'. I also personally HATE the memento idea, it just has this whole mobile game vibe that I can't get over. There are just far too many little things like that where they have tried to include these modern concepts taken from other popular games and crowbar them into a Civ game. I totally understand why it is a common complaint that Civ 7 doesn't feel like a Civ game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

BTW, I didn't save the original document analyzing English reviews, only the second one with non-English reviews. And it hit me that civilization switching is not one of the top concerns, but age transitions are. People complain about abrupt game ending and game being split into 3 games, but not about changing civs (at least in significant number).

 

[Aquila SPQR]

The whole idea of a leader can play any Civ is totally absurd. They should stick to their historic countries. EG Lovelace could still have been a British leader. But I would rather have Elizabeth 1st or Churchill. That is the 1st reason why I don't like Civ 7.
Reason no 2 is the being forced to swap Civ's at every age transition. They should have given us the choice of sticking with what we had. I would prefer to play with the same Civ for the whole game. They could easily give each Civ some bonuses that apply in the exploration age, then some bonuses for modern age etc.
Reason no 3 is the whole age system itself. Especially the hard reset at each age transition. The worse thing is having to do such things as research stuff again. EG to get merchants and start trading again.

It boils down to the fact that Civ 7 is just flashy graphics over substance. I am now hardly playing at all, and will likely go back to Civ 5. I couldn't get the hang of Civ 6, no matter how hard I tried.

There are two reasons that I can think of behind that choice of leaders:

1. greater variety when it comes to sex and race
2. make those people more famous (to be honest Civ VII is the reason I've learned that Tubman or Lovelace existed).

But how they did that is flawed. I would be absolutely fine with them as Great People. No problems here whatsoever and people would still learn about them. When it comes to "include more women as leaders" - why they picked Lovelace instead of Elizabeth I, Victoria or (I would be fine with this as well) Elizabeth II?

Meeting Tubman as leader of the USA would be so incredibly anti-immersive... Not to mention meeting her as leader of the... Egyptians. That would be literally absymal.

I disagree with this. We had multiple leaders per civ in several games, including Civ6 and, for example, Rome has pretty different identity depending on whether you play Trajan or Caesar.

No. Rome with Caesar is the same Rome as Rome with Trajan. Even Romulus and Constantine (separated by about 1000 years) would still be fine, as they are both Roman. In all previous Civ games we were leading the same civilization through all eras and that became our perception - that this is what this game is about (together with slogans like "stand the test of time"). Forcing people to switch civs mid-game is breaking it. So it is logical to argue it's one of the Civ's flaws.

I also disagree that negative reviews and other numbers show that this approach was wrong. According to analysis of steam reviews, civilization switching doesn't appear in top reasons for those negative reviews.

Less players play it currently than a 15 year-old Civ V. I'd say something went terribly wrong here and mandatory civ switching played an important part. I'm also interested how many other players are like me - they never touched this game just because of that (among other things).

 

[Smegger213]

There are two reasons that I can think of behind that choice of leaders:

1. greater variety when it comes to sex and race
2. make those people more famous (to be honest Civ VII is the reason I've learned that Tubman or Lovelace existed).

But how they did that is flawed. I would be absolutely fine with them as Great People. No problems here whatsoever and people would still learn about them. When it comes to "include more women as leaders" - why they picked Lovelace instead of Elizabeth I, Victoria or (I would be fine with this as well) Elizabeth II?

Meeting Tubman as leader of the USA would be so incredibly anti-immersive... Not to mention meeting her as leader of the... Egyptians. That would be literally absymal.



No. Rome with Caesar is the same Rome as Rome with Trajan. Even Romulus and Constantine (separated by about 1000 years) would still be fine, as they are both Roman. In all previous Civ games we were leading the same civilization through all eras and that became our perception - that this is what this game is about (together with slogans like "stand the test of time"). Forcing people to switch civs mid-game is breaking it. So it is logical to argue it's one of the Civ's flaws.



Less players play it currently than a 15 year-old Civ V. I'd say something went terribly wrong here and mandatory civ switching played an important part. I'm also interested how many other players are like me - they never touched this game just because of that (among other things).

Its obvious why we got leaders like Tubman and Lovelace. But I am not going to state it.
They will try to sell us leaders like Elizabeth 1st, Victoria or Churchill etc in paid for DLC further down the line.
They even put Britain and Lovelace behind a pay wall.
I too had never heard of Tubman till Civ 7. Then when I did find out who she was I thought "why is she in the game then, she wasn't a king, president of prime minister?". Then I thought the same thing about Lovelace and some of the other leaders.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Yeah I generally have never considered the 'leader' of a civ to be the actual representation of the civilisation, if you take my meaning. The leader in Civ 6 was always just the face for the flavour of that civ. I never thought I was playing against Montezuma.. I was against the Aztecs.

I would agree with you when I am playing that civ, but as far as the AI is concerned playing against a Pericles led Greece is different than playing against a Gorgo led Greece. For that reason, I do picture myself playing against whichever leader of Greece shows up.

Personally I would do away with leaders altogether, or make them generic and customisable, and maybe they change outfits or whatever depending on your civ and age. That would be a massive improvement.

I don't think making the game more like Humankind is the solution. IIRC that was a feature that many disliked and preferred historical leaders.

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

Whether you accept civ switching or not is entirely subjective, I don't understand why discuss it so much

We discuss it so much because its a big part of the reason right alongside ages and detached leaders why the game is preforming so badly

If you could associate yourself and opponents with leaders instead of civs (and, unlike Humankind, Civ7 does good job in helping you), the civ switching itself is not a problem

But I don't, have never, and never will associate my opponents wtith leaders instead of civs because this game is called Civilization, not Leaders.

You're not going to get all the people against civ swapping and ages to simply "change their perspective" into accepting Abbasids becoming Buganda, Harriet Tubman leading the Greeks, and the three mini-games in a trench coat masquarading as a Civ game.

 

[uppi]

Fair, I've never played Humankind. I'm sure there would be ways to make it all work though, even if Humankind messed it up. You can have recognisable leaders without them just being historic leaders that are clearly attached to one civ or another.

It could work, but it would be much harder to pull off. Instead of using characters from history, they would have to write their own characters. With brilliant writers this can work, but if the writers are just mediocre, it can quickly feel bland.

And I am not sure it would help that much either in a historical setting. If the stereotypical, medieval European king ruled Hawaii, the Ghengis-stand-in horse lord ruled the Inca and the Polynesian Chief ruled the French, would that really be better?

 

[aieeegrunt]

I don't how people can say you play the same Civ all the time if, when the crisis comes, you switch names, icons, bonuses, your cities become towns, your army and navy changes, all the mechanics change, and you essentially enter a different mini game?
Okay so I guess I still own the same plots of land, and I play the same leader?

My problem with the Civ switch and Ages isn't strictly here but with the way that they disrupt the narrative flow. Actually this is the case for so many new Civ7 mechanics.

What if it doesn't make sense for my empire to topple? What if the crisis shouldn't affect me as it does? Why do I always get the crisis no matter what I do? Why does everyone get the same crisis and a Civ switch at the same time?

Why do I need to do Treasure Fleets? Maybe my empire can be economic without them.
Why does Religion have to start in the Exploration age? Some began in Antiquity.

Why do I grab arbitrary points from arbitrary legacy trees so that I can keep more in the age switch?
Like what about progressing the commercial tree means I can keep my cities? Has anyone thought about how it makes no sense?

If you put some critical thought into anything that Civ7 tells you to do, you find what you're actually doing is clicking buttons to progress bars.
What some people enjoy is gaming the system so that they can keep as much as possible between Age switching.
But then you're invalidating the entire point of the system which is designed to slow your snowball.

Once they split the main game into 3 mini-games, you start to see that they've designed it pretty much as a railroaded experience, inspired mainly by European (Colonial) history, and not as an open-ended Civ experience, where you take Your empire to the end YOUR WAY.

This is what happens when someone essentially should be making euro board games, but is somehow in charge of a computer one

There's some very weird ways the choice of leaders this time around has come. Like, at one level, splitting the leader from the civ has allowed a lot more options, you can bring in a Lovelace, Machiavelli, etc... which never would have made previous iterations. Or have leaders with no direct civ. So it's been a fantastic boost for those lesser named leaders.

But at the same time, since they split the leader and civ, and made the leader the top dog, to get the most out of it, it leans itself to truly focus on those greatest leaders in history. Like if every game is Lizzy vs Gilgamesh vs Genghis Khan vs Napoleon vs Montezuma, I think you would have a lot better immersion to your leader and opponent leaders.

Lovelace, Machiavelli, Tubman etc being leaders is a joke, they should be Great People.

The closest Machiavelli claim to being worthy of a Civ Leader slot is when Frederick the Great, an actual candidate, wrote a book refuting him *in his goddamn teens*.

You might as well make JK Rowling the leading of Britain.

BTW, I didn't save the original document analyzing English reviews, only the second one with non-English reviews. And it hit me that civilization switching is not one of the top concerns, but age transitions are. People complain about abrupt game ending and game being split into 3 games, but not about changing civs (at least in significant number).

There was a oretty serious backlash to civ switching when it was announced

It’s just the era transition is so terrible once people experiencd it, it made complaining about other things less of a priority, so that took center stage in reviews.

A bad case of explosive diarheea becomes a lower priority when you’ve been lit on fire.

There are two reasons that I can think of behind that choice of leaders:

1. greater variety when it comes to sex and race
2. make those people more famous (to be honest Civ VII is the reason I've learned that Tubman or Lovelace existed).

But how they did that is flawed. I would be absolutely fine with them as Great People. No problems here whatsoever and people would still learn about them. When it comes to "include more women as leaders" - why they picked Lovelace instead of Elizabeth I, Victoria or (I would be fine with this as well) Elizabeth II?

Meeting Tubman as leader of the USA would be so incredibly anti-immersive... Not to mention meeting her as leader of the... Egyptians. That would be literally absymal.



No. Rome with Caesar is the same Rome as Rome with Trajan. Even Romulus and Constantine (separated by about 1000 years) would still be fine, as they are both Roman. In all previous Civ games we were leading the same civilization through all eras and that became our perception - that this is what this game is about (together with slogans like "stand the test of time"). Forcing people to switch civs mid-game is breaking it. So it is logical to argue it's one of the Civ's flaws.



Less players play it currently than a 15 year-old Civ V. I'd say something went terribly wrong here and mandatory civ switching played an important part. I'm also interested how many other players are like me - they never touched this game just because of that (among other things).

The legions of people who straight up passed are reflected in the drop in sales and player count from 6

 

[GeneralZift]

BTW, I didn't save the original document analyzing English reviews, only the second one with non-English reviews. And it hit me that civilization switching is not one of the top concerns, but age transitions are. People complain about abrupt game ending and game being split into 3 games, but not about changing civs (at least in significant number).

With enough Civs I think Civ switching could be okay...
But the age transition with it together cements the feeling of splitting the game into 3 mini-games.

I guess that was the aim all along, to have them as 'Campaigns'.
Maybe they could sell more Campaigns.
Similar to Scenarios, but for example, you could play 2 Ages of a Scenario by zooming in to history.

Like Rise of Rome and Fall of Rome.
You can play Early Rome and Early Roman Neighbours.
Then Age Switch, and you play as Rome in it's final years, and Late Roman Neighbours (IE the Barbarians).

 

[McSpank01]

It could work, but it would be much harder to pull off. Instead of using characters from history, they would have to write their own characters. With brilliant writers this can work, but if the writers are just mediocre, it can quickly feel bland.

And I am not sure it would help that much either in a historical setting. If the stereotypical, medieval European king ruled Hawaii, the Ghengis-stand-in horse lord ruled the Inca and the Polynesian Chief ruled the French, would that really be better?

I guess the way I imagine it is your 'leader' is just some generic character that you can customise the look of, and is really there as just a visualisation of the player. The leader doesn't 'do' anything and brings nothing to the way you play. It's just a way to make it easier to recognise people. There wouldn't be any need for any writing, because it's just an avatar.