I'm trying....I'm REALLY trying, but....

[Sekou]

Okay, despite my antagonism to the systems and design direction of this game I decided to give it another go with 1.3. Grrrrr....or should I blather "arrrrgggghhhh!"

1. Blackbeard is arguably one of the best leader models they've ever developed. Too bad they ruin any possible interaction with him with the horrible 3rd person vignette.
2. HOW are mementos still not front and center when there is an age transition? I mean HOW? I literally knew I could change them but could not locate any button or option or whozit on a screen to swap my mementos out. This is like basic UI functionality. It's an important decision and it's nowhere to be found.

The good....

My gawd the map remains beautiful. The music is fantastic, as always. I still like the Commanders. The influence system has a lot of promise.

The other bad stuff I won't get into cuz it's been rehashed everywhere here- including by me.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

#2 does my head in as well.lol.

Really enjoying 1.3.0 having not played for a few months.

 

[marius_kaparius]

I really enjoy the game but I also find the Age transition screen and especially the memento selection to be baffling. It really needs to be an area of UX focus.

 

[Leucarum]

I don't think momentos should be swappable between ages. It's a far more interesting strategic choice if you take sometning great for early game but can't switch it out later.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't think momentos should be swappable between ages. It's a far more interesting strategic choice if you take sometning great for early game but can't switch it out later.

That would just cause a rebalance. Imago Mundi will be less popular, for example, if you can't swap it out.

I don't think it would add any strategic choice.

 

[Leucarum]

I don't think it would add any atrategic choice.

Huh? Introducing interesting tradeoffs is pretty much the definition of adding a strategic choice, no?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Huh? Introducing interesting tradeoffs is pretty much the definition of adding a strategic choice, no?

I mean, there are already tradeoffs with switchable mementos, I don't see how non-switchable ones increase the choice.

 

[disjointaccount]

I don't think momentos should be swappable between ages. It's a far more interesting strategic choice if you take sometning great for early game but can't switch it out later.

I think too many mementos atm are very explicitly geared towards the early game (eg. gold lump sums, Imago Mundi) or late game (eg. specialist bonuses) (another example is the attribute point mementos, taking an attribute point early, you typically don't want to keep that one in for later as you've usually filled out a lot of the tree, but you might want to swap different points in to start working on a different tree) that being able to swap into and out of mementos between ages is pretty fundamental to making a lot of them viable. Locking them would require reworking a lot of mementos imo.

 

[Leucarum]

Sure you'd probably need to buff the power level of some of the weaker ones. I stand by it being way more interesting strategically if you force players to choose between early game small buffs and late game big buffs.

Now that I say it out loud, there's a definite allegory for Civ switching overall in there...

 

[marius_kaparius]

I like that some Mementos are more powerful and others are weaker. It let's me scale the difficulty and the type of game I want to play.

 

[disjointaccount]

Sure you'd probably need to buff the power level of some of the weaker ones. I stand by it being way more interesting strategically if you force players to choose between early game small buffs and late game big buffs.

Now that I say it out loud, there's a definite allegory for Civ switching overall in there...

I think for me, civ is the kind of game where I like option A's drawback being the opportunity cost of not getting a relatively equal option B instead, rather than a choice between option A (get something good now then sit around with nothing for ages) or option B (sit around with nothing for ages then get something good). In part because sitting around with nothing for ages is no fun, but also because the snowbally nature of the game makes "good now" vs. "good later" a pretty one-sided choice 90% of the time.

I think one of the best aspects of the ages in VII is the fact that everyone has age-relevant uniques at all times, and instead the choice of civ is just "would I rather a burning arrow or a legion?". Sitting around as someone like Teddy watching everyone else have fun with their UUs never felt great, and by the time your Mustangs finally did come online Gilgamesh could have just about won with the headstart his war carts gave him (I'm exaggerating a bit and obviously there were other aspects to civ's kits; my point is just that for me the sort of fomo mentality that came with asynchronous uniques was no fun).

 

[rocksinmypath]

There's an insane amount of friction during age transitions. It's like the game begs you to stop playing, similar to how some subscription services discourage you from unsubscribing by making you jump through hoops when you try. There are the basic UI blunders like not letting you save the game before the transition (or just automatically saving?), not bothering to warn you about mementos, or not letting you see the game screen to check what you have before choosing a new civ (e.g. "Shawnee might be interesting, but I have no idea if all my cities are on navigable rivers..."). But also, there are just too many little decisions that you need to make before you start the new age. Choosing a new pair of mementos, opening and closing the leader attribute window multiple times and flipping through its different tabs to see if I should pick up a bonus attribute point, and if so, which one, etc.

One thing I find remarkable about Civ 6 is how simple its UI is, and I don't think it came out to be that way by accident. I believe Firaxis has a clear philosophy that initially guided them to it, and I'd like to ask the devs if the way Civ 7 is currently, especially with age transitions, does it not violate that same philosophy?

 

[Askia Muhammad]

Okay, despite my antagonism to the systems and design direction of this game I decided to give it another go with 1.3. Grrrrr....or should I blather "arrrrgggghhhh!"

1. Blackbeard is arguably one of the best leader models they've ever developed. Too bad they ruin any possible interaction with him with the horrible 3rd person vignette.
2. HOW are mementos still not front and center when there is an age transition? I mean HOW? I literally knew I could change them but could not locate any button or option or whozit on a screen to swap my mementos out. This is like basic UI functionality. It's an important decision and it's nowhere to be found.

The good....

My gawd the map remains beautiful. The music is fantastic, as always. I still like the Commanders. The influence system has a lot of promise.

The other bad stuff I won't get into cuz it's been rehashed everywhere here- including by me.

I also fired up a game last night for the first time in ~3-4 months. Ran Blackbeard as leader of Tonga for antiquity. Never finished Antiquity last night. Honestly felt like I was kind of just clicking things again but it was fun to arrive in the distant lands on like turn 20.

I don’t really have a desire to even load my save tonight .. maybe that’s what best speaks for my review. I wouldn’t even say I was turned off by anything just yet (usually the age transition screen makes me quit) but it’s just not exciting or fun enough to make me want to come back right now.