Is Civ 7 as a strategy game less deep than previous Civs?

[Playsoneasy]

This is a really confusing poll. It’d be clearer if you explained the options more.

At any rate, I think the game is mostly shedding needless micromanagement and streamlining systems. It’s for the better.

Also there’re still unit promotions. They just apply to commanders directly.

There is still an initial settler unit.

Why does everything have to be streamlined? I don't want streamlining, I want depth, I want choices.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Why does everything have to be streamlined? I don't want streamlining, I want depth, I want choices.

One of the stated aims is to help the AI, which is surely a good thing.

Besides, I don't think there is necessarily a correlation between depth and complexity. It is possible to reduce tedious micro management but increase the number and significance of choices. With VI, there is a lot of micro but many of these choices are meaningless, I don't think it is particularly deep.

We'll see if they pull it off with VII.

 

[Kev1916]

Why does everything have to be streamlined? I don't want streamlining, I want depth, I want choices.

To me it it will be an illusion , rather than concentrate and fix the AI,. They have dressed up the problem and split the game into three.
Now the ”AI” will play little bit more optimal, with a forced catch up .The game will be easier yea even a Nintendo Switch can run the game engine without getting completely owerworked.
But in general I doubt the AI will be any better than before , the game has just been optimised to be easier to the ”AI”, with shining new meta in a smaller scale less opponents less maps etc

 

[Disgustipated]

To me it it will be an illusion , rather than concentrate and fix the AI,. They have dressed up the problem and split the game into three.
Now the ”AI” will play little bit more optimal, with a forced catch up .The game will be easier yea even a Nintendo Switch can run the game engine without getting completely owerworked.
But in general I doubt the AI will be any better than before , the game has just been optimised to be easier to the ”AI”, with shining new meta in a smaller scale less opponents less maps etc

I'm not expecting much from the AI. But we can be sure of the lands will be improved unlike in Civ 6 where they had issues improving their lands. And we can be sure of we won't be seeing heavy chariots in the modern age. But from what I seen of the live stream when Carl attacked his neighbor, I wasn't impressed. Now keep in mind that was a surprise war, I hate to think the AI would keep an army commander close to the front lines otherwise. But I feel like once we kill those commanders, it will be easy to stomp the AI.

 

[bladex1200]

One of the stated aims is to help the AI, which is surely a good thing.

Besides, I don't think there is necessarily a correlation between depth and complexity. It is possible to reduce tedious micro management but increase the number and significance of choices. With VI, there is a lot of micro but many of these choices are meaningless, I don't think it is particularly deep.

We'll see if they pull it off with VII.

Huge + on this. One reason I feel that VII might "appear" more streamlined is that V and VI started adding a ton of mana to the game - culture policy unlocks, then a separate culture research tree, tourism points and a whole minigame around that with naturalists and great works of art, diplomacy points that you spend at the World Congress - that don't really connect well with each other. The hope with VII making some of these mechanics core to the civ you pick is that you'll do less minigaming and more strategic decision-making where it actually matters.

As for removing workers, the worker minigame was never tactical decision-making, just tactical decision-prolonging. There were optimal worker strategies in 3 and 4 for what improvements to do first, always putting partial turns into building roads to avoid wasting worker moves, only wasting worker turns during anarchy to minimize opportunist cost, when to do pollution cleanup, etc. Removing workers and having improvements directly come from the city might preserve the strategic depth people wanted from workers while reducing the tedious micromanagement of having to manage each worker. I mean, I don't think anyone complained 4 was "less deep" because they got rid of pollution cleanup.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Why does everything have to be streamlined? I don't want streamlining, I want depth, I want choices.

The devil is in the details. Streamling can also mean reducing micromanagement and busywork, which is a major contributor to late game fatigue in almost every civ game.

Getting rid of workers is a huge one I’ve wanted in Civ since I played the first Call To Power

To me it it will be an illusion , rather than concentrate and fix the AI,. They have dressed up the problem and split the game into three.
Now the ”AI” will play little bit more optimal, with a forced catch up .The game will be easier yea even a Nintendo Switch can run the game engine without getting completely owerworked.
But in general I doubt the AI will be any better than before , the game has just been optimised to be easier to the ”AI”, with shining new meta in a smaller scale less opponents less maps etc

The soft reset is pretty enfuriating

 

[Voidwalkin]

I wonder how changes to movement will effect the use of ranged units.

IMO, the lack of ranged units and lack of their effective use was probably the single greatest deficiency of the AI in 6. Ranged units could be used to absolutely devastating effect, particularly if units didn't move tightly, with no wasted motion, immediately upon the ranged units.

In theory, 6 had a simple movement system. In practice, reading terrain, unit position, available force, and likely attrition was too much for the AI. The player could create a melee column and smash haphazardly positioned AI ranged quickly, but the AI would blunder about for 5 turns while incurring great damage.

That is sorta what worries me about strategic depfh; interacting pieces quickly create complex situations even if the moves themselves are simple. These interactions are where 6's AI struggled most, greatly decreasing depth, because beating the AI at these puzzles was simple enough as the interactions increased complexities; streamlining may help the AI, but only if it can better evaluate the interactions.

 

[sTAPler27]

For every simplified feature there's a more complex one. Civ switching, district customization, terrain elevation. A lot of the new mechanics introduced in civ 6 are being carried over too like the weather effects of Gathering storm and elements of the monopoly and barb clan game modes. Tack on 2 new dlc packs and maybe even more down the road and there will be a lot going on.

 

[JackConor]

Yeah probably, no reason other than I trust my gut which has been right about humankind, millennia and ara history untold while everyone was thinking they can even compete with civ.

The "hardcore" gamer is no longer the target audience of civ for a long time, since civ 4. Those gamers have mostly move on to paradox games, and if you want depth especially in immersion and role playing then you should too, it's good for mental health rather than hoping for civ to become that game. Don't let the learning curve discourage you, as all their games are quite easy after a while. Due to the very specific fan base of paradox games, the harder and deeper the game, the more popular it gets, and their future games seem to be going that way aka EU5. And the time when they try to casualized a game for Example victoria 3 war system, they face community backlash. So I would say pdx games have a built in resistance to casualization, although there are still demands for it from newer players who recently enter the field from other simpler games. Of course paradox is not a perfect company without faults as there are many if you follow the news. There are also better mod support for pdx games than any other similar in the genre so you get mods ranging from balance mods to total conversion like star trek. The only downside is the constant updates breaking mods.

Humankind, Ara history untold and millennia "fail" because they are trying to copy civ, instead they should copy paradox games to fill the obvious market gap of a deep pdx style historical 4x game. Currently no games does that other than old world, but old world has limited scope.

These are all just my 2 cents.

Edit: There was a quote from a civ 4 dev which I can't remember verbatim, but he/she said something along the lines of - their problem with civ 4 was that it was too much of an empire builder and too less of a game. That alone summarize the philosophy of firaxis games.

 

[Bast]

Thinking back. I feel like what I loved about Civ Vi was that each civ made me play a certain way. It was the districts and unique buildings and abilities that made it that way. But I liked the most how districts defined how you placed your cities and thus how you ran your civilization.

I'm looking for the same thing. Something that will make it unique and immersive to what I'm doing. I'm not sure if it's deeper, I just need it to be enjoyable.

My memory is sketchy but I remember with Civ IV, what appealed was that you couldn't rely on having a small military as you may get a surprise attack and you have to fully realize an empire to have any chance of success. For me, it was the ultimate realization of that the I-III Civ versions into a form that had good visuals, concepts and replayability. I feel like Civ changed a lot after IV. I never got V, VI pulled me back in. I'm obviously going to get VII and I think it will pull me back in a different way.

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

I just finished a game of Civ 6, and one thing that surprised me was that I was kinda excited for builders to be gone? I mean, sure, stalling districts and wonders for chops and balancing where you put your tile improvements adds some depth to the game, but all the moving around builder charges and remembering which of my 10 cities (because tall is far and away the most optimal way to play) is building something to complete and which are just dumping turns into something I'll need later while I wait on a chop for a district and which cities have just raised their district cap again and where should I queue up the builder to chop the new one out...

The new system for city development will let me focus on the actual city building and building adjacencies (to greater reward due to specialists) while maintaining a level of strategic depth in when and where you can place buildings by making city expansion a tile by tile decision. Similar strategic decisions, less unit management and stalling. If it turns out how I (and the devs) think it's going to turn out, it's going to be beautiful.

 

[Disgustipated]

their problem with civ 4 was that it was too much of an empire builder and too less of a game

That's not a problem, it's a strength. And it makes me wonder how well the devs know their own game. Not a game? The specialist and slavery rush system was VERY gamey.

 

[Rajendran_P]

I’m confident, based on pass Civ series, Civ 7 will get deeper with DLCs, like Brave New World, etc. Only the base game and changes to gameplay has been revealed now. Hope more new gameplay strategies will be added progressively via DLCs, to make the game more in-depth.

The Civ 7 has a different gameplay, as revealed in demo video, and looks more interesting. What makes Civ 7 more exciting is the different gameplay strategy. And I’m sure the game MODs will also increase more choices for the players

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Now that this topic has resurfaced at a point when we know much more about the game, I would say the answer is emphatically no. There appears to be great depth in VII, from the wealth of possibilities with synergising leaders with specific civs, to chaining civs in order to make the most out of Traditions, the leader attributes and the long term effects these offer, the use of specialists, and the new tall/wide consideration in relation to towns and cities.

I think there will still be some busy work (resource and policy management), and perhaps some elements have less depth (governments looks a bit meh, although perhaps the celebration/happiness part of the game will also be critical), but overall I'd say we're clearly moving towards less micro and more long term strategic decision making.

 

[Isengardtom]

What I’ve seen so far I think it’s deeper than Civ 6. Only the religious gameplay feels more simplistic compared with Civ 6, but it’s limited to the exploration age sor far.

Especially comparing Vanilla Civ 6 vs Vanilla Civ 7. Has a lot more going for it in its current form I think

 

[aieeegrunt]

Yeah probably, no reason other than I trust my gut which has been right about humankind, millennia and ara history untold while everyone was thinking they can even compete with civ.

The "hardcore" gamer is no longer the target audience of civ for a long time, since civ 4. Those gamers have mostly move on to paradox games, and if you want depth especially in immersion and role playing then you should too, it's good for mental health rather than hoping for civ to become that game. Don't let the learning curve discourage you, as all their games are quite easy after a while. Due to the very specific fan base of paradox games, the harder and deeper the game, the more popular it gets, and their future games seem to be going that way aka EU5. And the time when they try to casualized a game for Example victoria 3 war system, they face community backlash. So I would say pdx games have a built in resistance to casualization, although there are still demands for it from newer players who recently enter the field from other simpler games. Of course paradox is not a perfect company without faults as there are many if you follow the news. There are also better mod support for pdx games than any other similar in the genre so you get mods ranging from balance mods to total conversion like star trek. The only downside is the constant updates breaking mods.

Humankind, Ara history untold and millennia "fail" because they are trying to copy civ, instead they should copy paradox games to fill the obvious market gap of a deep pdx style historical 4x game. Currently no games does that other than old world, but old world has limited scope.

These are all just my 2 cents.

Edit: There was a quote from a civ 4 dev which I can't remember verbatim, but he/she said something along the lines of - their problem with civ 4 was that it was too much of an empire builder and too less of a game. That alone summarize the philosophy of firaxis games.

I would really like to enjoy their games, tried Solaris and one of the Vickies but the UI is impenetrable to me

 

[Zaarin]

I would really like to enjoy their games, tried Solaris and one of the Vickies but the UI is impenetrable to me

I bounced hard off all of Paradox's games except CK3, but I play CK3 like an RPG with management elements, not like a strategy game. Stellaris is okay, too, but it's more of a traditional 4X than their other games.