I mean, that's a legitimate description of late Imperial Russia.
Is Civ 7 as a strategy game less deep than previous Civs?
- Thread starter Cywil
- Start date
It's more and more about pride and prejudice
1. Casual players
2. Builders
1. That wasn't about console players. Read my post again, please. That was about casual players, especially casual console players. I understand console players. I'm one of them. I play some games on my PC, some my games on my Nintendo, I'm waiting still for my all games to be on Steam Deck available. I play Civ on my PC because of spreadsheets, for my convenience. I'm a casual player in some genres, e.g. in PUBG and I care there more about my outfit than about my weapons stats and I can't yet to win my first solo chicken dinner because of lack of skills, but I don't even think to call for an egalitaritism
I should be more precise however. By casual players I mean non-strategy-fan players. Anyway, if anyone felt offended by me, I apologize (my English is rather bad, I know).
There is not enough established strategy fan players for Civ 7 to surpass Civ 6 in terms of sales numbers. FXS have to aim for non-strategy-fan players. Some of them may then (sooner or later) find a taste for strategy games. Imagine a teenager who get a Civ 7 as a gift from relatives who choose the very game as an educative one - even if he/she prefers now car races or horror adventures there is a chance for him/her to play Civ 7 and find it cool and even recommend it to his/her friends. And Civ 7 at launch as a base game should be as easy to play as possible and even easy enough to win on lowest difficulty level which is not the case with Civ 5 or Civ 6. Later with expansions and DLCs and pass there will be perfect moments to increase the game's strategy depth by adding more layers to it. Now a visual things are more important. There are 3 no brainers: fix some leaders suboptimal models, change cameras angle when interacting with leaders ("Talk to me!"), rework too gray-ish and too microscopic UI.
About strategy depth - I think that has to be decreased in bas Civ 7 game at its launch = Civ 7 at its launch should be less deep strategically than Civ 6 at its launch. And micromanagement decreasing would be just a part of strategy depth decreasing.
This.
2. I didn't post builders were good. I didn't post builders were bad. I'm neutral towards builders itself as a feature. I think removing builders from base Civ 7 game works well for decreasing both: strategy depth and micromanagement.
I disagree with looking at builders problem only as a micromanagement problem (the case with a lumbermill). It's not just about using builders. It's about producing/training builders and using them. And using them itself could be seen as micromanagement, right. But to have a builder you have to produce/train the unit, wait several turns for it to be produced/trained, delaying production of other important things (a monument, a scout, a slinger etc.) - and that's just strategy, an impactful one. You have to prioritize and at the beginning of the game that's a difficult decision. Later (mid and late game) builders are mostly just a burden, right. Anyway, micromanagement =/= strategy depth. Micromanagement is often part of strategy depth. You can't remove only just micromanagement by removing builders - by removing builders you remove micromanagement and some strategy depth as well. I hope I'm making myself clear here now?
It's good we have this discussion. Changing votes means it's fruitful.
Actually, your English is quite good. You should be proud.
Civilization is a game about making a series of interesting choices and meaningful decisions.
I believe there will be a gameplay video on the 31st of August. Hopefully they will highlight what new interesting choices and meaningful decisions they are offering.
Uh, what's your actual definition of 'strategic depth'? Strategic depth to me means having a lot of multiple strategies and options for winning, that are all essentially equal and require consideration. Civ 6 doesn't actually have a lot of strategic depth imho. It has one optimum strategy: more is better, expansion overall. It has a lot of things to do, but of a lot of it doesn't matter. Civ 7 appears to me that it will have possible more "strategic depth" than 6, because of those things like the tech reset, where you have to make difficult choices on how on how to spend the bonuses that do carry over. Getting ahead in tech and staying ahead is not "strategic depth".
Go and Chess (as two examples, both of which are available on the Seitch), have less rules, less decisions, and are much easier to learn the rules of than Civ 6. Are you going to tell me they have less "strategic depth" than Civ?
Arent11
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Well, it's simply a different target audience. Some people maybe want to puzzle & "play tetris" instead of imagining that they lead an empire.
And that's fine. The game is just not directed at me.
Simple example: I hated reassigning trade routes every xx turns. And I found the world congress annoying & unimportant. So my solution was to simply never build traders & ignore these game elements completely.
However, civ 6 makes sure to punish & force you whenever you ignore an annoying game element. You have to build traders, otherwise you magically can't build roads. You can't "opt out" of the world congress, you have to choose some stupid resolution.
And the simplest solution for me, in the end, was just to play Alpha Centauri & Beyond Earth.
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I think it depends on what you mean by depth. Having leaders with a customizable trait tree you build throughout the game is a layer of depth that none of the previous games had. It means that the choices you make will change every game regardless of what leader you start with. Civ switching is in a similar vein. In Civ 6, if you start as a certain civ/leader, you can already know exactly what your focus will be for the entire game. If you took a religious nation, you know you're going religion, for example. Civ 7 seems far more likely to allow you to adjust your strategy throughout the game and not feel like you're gimping yourself the way Civ 6 feels.
They have eliminated much of the micromanagement, but micromanagement is frequently not an example of depth. Micromanagement in Civ has usually not been meaningful decisions (depth) it has usually just been busywork. Something like chopping isn't depth when the design makes it always the correct decision. That's the opposite of depth. In my mind, having a ton of stuff to do is not depth. The stuff you do mattering and being impactful is depth.
What has been revealed about Civ 7 to me sounds far more deep than Civ 5 or 6 ever did.
They have eliminated much of the micromanagement, but micromanagement is frequently not an example of depth. Micromanagement in Civ has usually not been meaningful decisions (depth) it has usually just been busywork. Something like chopping isn't depth when the design makes it always the correct decision. That's the opposite of depth. In my mind, having a ton of stuff to do is not depth. The stuff you do mattering and being impactful is depth.
What has been revealed about Civ 7 to me sounds far more deep than Civ 5 or 6 ever did.
dagriggstar
King
I feel like I'm going to have a much harder time explaining how to play this than previous versions
Civilizations - Even more bonuses that need to be understood in order to play well
Leaders - Leader bonus plus leader bonus trees
Independent powers/city states - Seems like barb clans but more complex
Building rural districts is (I'd argue) is more complex than builders were because of culture bombing and the lack of population micromanagement (making it a more important and meaningful decision)
Ages in 7 being much more complex than in 6. Just feeling like you got the hang of your current civilization bang here's another like 10 new things to learn and a bunch of stuff you learnt is now irrelevant. Not to mention your opponents potentially drastically changing too.
Diplomacy with all the sanctions war support etc
Feels like more a lot varied moving parts to me....
Civilizations - Even more bonuses that need to be understood in order to play well
Leaders - Leader bonus plus leader bonus trees
Independent powers/city states - Seems like barb clans but more complex
Building rural districts is (I'd argue) is more complex than builders were because of culture bombing and the lack of population micromanagement (making it a more important and meaningful decision)
Ages in 7 being much more complex than in 6. Just feeling like you got the hang of your current civilization bang here's another like 10 new things to learn and a bunch of stuff you learnt is now irrelevant. Not to mention your opponents potentially drastically changing too.
Diplomacy with all the sanctions war support etc
Feels like more a lot varied moving parts to me....
rrreese
Chieftain
My observation is that there is a type of player who associates "more stuff" with more greater depth. Its easy to ignore that amount of strategic depth simple clean systems can give. We simply don't have enough information about Civ 7 yet. The systems shown off could have immense strategic depth, but we wont know that until we understand them fully.
Professor Phobo
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Yeah, there's more to depth than just a bullet list of features. It's about whether or not there are meaningful decisions to make within those systems.
Arent11
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Yeah, few rules that create a complex interplay.
However, that clashes with the aim to introduce more and more content via DLC. In that case, you usually introduce more civs, game mechanics etc. that become increasingly more powerful, so you're getting an incentive to buy.
aieeegrunt
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Is it? It’s not like Imperial Russia was renowned for science, technology and engineering.
In Civ6’s case the extensive modding scene allows you to opt out of garbage like the World Council, or not being able to build roads, or UI that doesnt suck.
No, but it was well known for its (generally Western-educated) intelligentsia in contrast with its positively backwards social structure.
Arent11
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When I was teenager I created such mods myself. Nowadays, I have money but less time. So I just want a quick solution that consumes money, not time.
The easiest solution is to buy games that do exactly what I want.
rocksinmypath
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Long-term investment in Civ 6 more or less means you do all your planning in the Ancient era, and there's barely anything else left to tinker about when you're done with it. The soft reset that comes with a new age might actually imply you get to do something akin to district planning in Civ 6 three times, but you get a different flavour of it in each age. In the Antiquity age, you're planning districts from scratch (this is similar to Civ 6 district planning), but in subsequent ages, you're redoing districts by replacing old buildings with new ones, which will hopefully feel significantly different from building districts from scratch.
I'm not sure how a hard tech reset poses a problem, either. In Civ 6, once you've unlocked key techs or civics, which usually happens by the early- to mid-game, there's not much interesting going on when it comes to tech/civic pathing. For example, when I'm playing Sejong, I'll often try to rush Recorded History to have a shot at the Great Library. Then, I'll probably try to unlock Feudalism quickly after that because of the Serfdom card. And then... that's it? Maybe I should try to unlock Hwacha quickly as well and try to go on a domination push, but honestly, I can probably get all of these things done by turn 100. From what I've seen, it looks like each age in Civ 7 should last ~150 turns, so I don't see why the reset is a problem. If anything, like with district planning, you might be able to do tech/civic pathing three times in a campaign.
Builders add a lot of depth to Civ 6, but not because of any one of these points you're making. Builders balance the game by giving significance to gold and especially faith, in a game where production would otherwise be way too important. The fact that you need so many builders and that you can buy them with gold and faith (often at 30% discount) gives you more things to do with both gold and faith. It also makes you think about the fundamental difference between production and gold or faith, which is that production can only be spent where it's earned, whereas the other two currencies can be spent anywhere. This is a really important piece of information when it comes to figuring out how much gold (or faith) 1 production is worth. The game tricks you into thinking the ratio should be 4:1 (or 3:1) because that's the default exchange rate for most things available for purchase with both currencies, but the 2p/t your newest city is generating is basically useless because the cheapest useful thing you can produce in that city is a monument, which would take 30 turns, or basically forever, to build. An extra 6g/t is likely more significant than the 2p/t because that will help you get your next builder a couple turns more quickly, and you can use that builder to grow the city more quickly or chop into the monument, so that it gets built much more quickly.
As far as I can tell, the devs have already thought of how to make sure there's a good balance between production and gold in Civ 7 in the absence of builders. They made it so that new settlements (towns) won't have production queues and will require gold to be developed into cities. Also, they seemed to have removed faith as a currency. This makes sense because faith in Civ 6 wasn't different enough from gold to deserve to be in the game. Removing it should make balancing easier, which hopefully means we'll have a good game earlier in Civ 7's life cycle.
Promotions in Civ 6 aren't interesting. You almost always choose a single promotion path for any given unit class. The Civ 7 Commander will have multiple promotion trees, and while this doesn't guarantee promotion will be more interesting than in Civ 6, there's a good chance it will be.
Citizen management is only really interesting when you have fewer than a dozen citizens to manage. Beyond that it's more annoying than impactful on the outcome of the game.
I'm sorry but if you think builder micro was unimportant, then you're simply not good at the game.
Tons of people are talking about how obvious it was as to which tile improvement to build, but that wasn't where the deep strategy came from. The deep strategy came from things prioritizing which tiles to improve, deciding when and what to chop, moving builders so as to not waste turns, syncing builder production, when to preserve one charge builders, and even when to explore with builders.
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Professor Phobo
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Builder management was important but god it was boring.
This is fair. I personally disagree because I find the strategic element rewarding but it definitely takes up a lot of time.
Disgustipated
Deity
It was interesting to me, at least in the early and mid game. It's a bit tedious late game cleaning up after natural disasters.
TreVor_ish
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Builder management also provided additional layer of strategy, not only transferring production, but also clearing land.
In CIV VII I wont have an option to remove rainforest just because I want to expand my farming land.
And would planting forest be done from city build now?
In CIV VII I wont have an option to remove rainforest just because I want to expand my farming land.
And would planting forest be done from city build now?
Professor Phobo
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Oh the repair thing was the worst. "Oh when did that farm get pillaged?" I notice after 100 turns...
