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

[AD1730]

Nah man.

When something doesn’t work, it’s always management’s fault. Even if it isn’t in the immediate sense. They have to take responsibility. That’s one of management’s major roles. “Heavy is the head…” yada yada yada. A manager has to be able to motivate their employees to deliver. If they can’t, they probably shouldn’t be a manager.

I blame both.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I blame both.

This is almost certainly what went down

 

[Pfeffersack]

(...) I look at the top ten most popular mods on the Civ6 workshop, and 7 of them are fixing the UI. (...)

Civ7 even beats that with 10 out of 10 It speaks volume that a poular mod like "Extended Policy Cards" (which shows the cards effects on yields) hasn't been considered as an UI standard for Civ7 (and again a mod made by @leonardify emerged). It would have perfectly fit in the spirit of making big decisions instead of wasting clicks on trial and error. And that's just on example...don't get me started on stuff like the resource screen, which is just an utter pain to use without Resource Re-Sorts made by @beezany

 

[aieeegrunt]

Civ7 even beats that with 10 out of 10 It speaks volume that a poular mod like "Extended Policy Cards" (which shows the cards effects on yields) hasn't been considered as an UI standard for Civ7 (and again a mod made by @leonardify emerged). It would have perfectly fit in the spirit of making big decisions instead of wasting clicks on trial and error. And that's just on example...don't get me started on stuff like the resource screen, which is just an utter pain to use without Resource Re-Sorts made by @beezany

It’s sad that this did not result in even a flicker of surprise

 

[vorlon_mi]

Nah man.

When something doesn’t work, it’s always management’s fault. Even if it isn’t in the immediate sense. They have to take responsibility. That’s one of management’s major roles. “Heavy is the head…” yada yada yada. A manager has to be able to motivate their employees to deliver. If they can’t, they probably shouldn’t be a manager.

Meh. Speaking as a supervisor of a team of IT folks, I will own being accountable for my team's actions. I give them credit when they get things right and guidance when they get things wrong. Improving their overall performance is how *my* performance is measured.

Software development includes some art along with the science. As many have pointed out here, the design needs to be sound, even separate from the execution. My team or I can struggle to implement a flawed design, or even worse, a frequently changing design. I have seen no evidence that Civ7's design was frequently changed, but I'm willing to consider that they implemented a flawed design.

Management of programmers/developers/artists is a tricky business. It does not include aerospace-level tolerances nor reasonable deadlines. Automated testing can catch many bugs that result in crashes. Managing budgets is a whole 'nother challenge.

 

[King Flevance]

I am in total agreement that the ball was dropped in the development of this title. The UI aside, even core concepts are not fully realized in the design. Age transitions, Governments, ideologies, religion, pantheons, legacies, all the way to simple tile ownership - and then some - are all clunky messes. The design as a whole is crude and very underdeveloped with only the basics having been delivered at launch and even those were broken. However, that said, I can't help but think that they have a core design with some potential here. I certainly do not want to throw the baby out with the bath water.

With refinement, I think this version could be a great catalyst to a fantastic Civ 8, if not a great game in and of itself after a couple expansions. Cutting down on worker micromanagement and city micromanagement helps the pacing tremendously. However, I feel that city specialization could use some mechanics to really push in. The days of switching from your farms for growth over to the mines for a production push are over and I am OK with that but I feel like cities have now become bland even though you can specialize somewhat through resource allocation. All cities need production on some level so skipping production buildings always feels wrong. Most cities specialize based on the map layout. (Mountains = culture city, resources = science city) This is something I didn't care for much in Civ 6 and am hoping Civ 7 refines this. There are multiple ways to do so. I would really like for each tech tree to offer tech leaps in unit warfare. I really think that warfare (and the diplomacy around it) is the most bland aspect of the game and needs a massive flavor injection. Plus a cohesive religion system the blends pantheons and religion together and would be nice if religion could be embraced or suppressed with a reason to do so. It would also be great if Ideologies would synergize with governments and/or religions. There is a lot of untapped potential here is my point though. This is a very crude shell of a game but with proper care and growth it could become pretty awesome.

I would like to see them pull away from civ switching in later sequels but am OK with indulging this time around. Civ switching did offer a certain charm to some of us out here in the consumer market with Humankind but others did not care for it. Civ already had its own brand of charm and I feel like Civ 7's flavor changed too much this time around that it lost some of its own charm. The new age/legacy system could be great on its own without civ switching. I do feel like they tried to add in too much and didn't have time to finish it. It is sad that this is considered acceptable but if there is a silver lining, it is that there is a lot of potential in the design if it can be developed carefully.

 

[Skojardu]

I would like to see them pull away from civ switching in later sequels but am OK with indulging this time around.

I agree in that switching is a core value of 7 and Ed, Andrew, and co should try to win us back by making it work as best they can.

It is jarring, however, that 7 is not called Civ Rev 3. It's ok if Civ has some experimental offshoots that polarize their fans (Colonization, Beyond Earth), but 7 is a system shock to the Civ fan who expects a standard of excellence from the mainline entries to the series.