Long Term Support For Civ 7

[GeneralZift]

If our definition of words is "whatever the person posting them prefers", we're going to struggle more than usual in online discussions to get our point across to others

A reboot is commonly agreed to be a restarting of a series (or franchise, or even a singular game release). See: DOOM, Tomb Raider, and so on. It generally ties into the (new title's) marketing and franchise aspirations.

Not sure why you're being snarky. I recall that Civ7 has new marketing - the tagline changed, does that not count?
To some people the main concept of the game is changing, this doesn't count?

DOOM 2016 was a reboot. But you know, so was Doom 3. Even though it had the same name as the previous titles, it was a total departure in terms of gameplay.
Many people liked it (among them me) and many people disliked it. I don't think being a reboot is necessarily bad and I don't think it's strictly objective like you describe. Nothing wrong with the individual describing the game from his perspective as a reboot.

That being said I imagine they will 'turn the boat around' over time to make Civ7 more alike previous entries to pull back in players.

 

[Xur]

One thing that I've become aware of through the discussions here, though, is that there are now significant dichotomies that have developed within the fanbase. And they have developed in part because of individual preferences but also in part because previous numbers of the game did one thing or another in a particular way, and fans of that game came to like it and regard it as definitive of the franchise. I'm trying to compile as complete a list as I can, because I think it would help illustrate what any new set of devs are up against when they undertake to design a new number of the franchise. So feel free to add any that I haven't thought of, but here is my list:

Should it be a computer game or a board-game on a computer? (I don't quite understand this one, because 3 supposedly falls into the computer-game era of the franchise, but it feels like a board-game to me; turns and a map make anything feel like a board-game to me, so I obviously don't understand what people are driving at when they say 1-4 were computer games. But I do know it's one of the dichotomies that splits fans).

Should it involve entirely high-level empire-management strategy or can it include the tactical-level dimension that came in with 1UPT?

Should it maximize or minimize micro-management? (for my part, I love micro-management; I love feeling I'm getting the tiniest edge by some little thing I do with my tile assignments or tile development; these tiny edges add up to my advantage in the game, so I think of them as how I am competing in the game. But I also totally understand that there would be people who find micro-management tedious and want "optimization" instead).

Should it be built primarily as a multi-player game or primarily as a single-player game, and then the other derived out of that starting basis?

Should it favor wide or tall? How many cities should a normal/winning empire have in them? (Civ 5 made playing wide difficult, but then, does the 4-city empire that is optimal there really end up feeling like an empire? On the other hand, if your empire covers dozens of cities across the whole globe, does managing those cities become tedious?)

Should the AI civs play to win the game or just be part of the background environment in which you build your own empire?

Should the game prioritize the meeting of victory conditions, or should it most fundamentally allow sandbox-style play?

Should the game resist snowballing, or is snowballing just a negative term for the very thing you should be trying to do in the game: min-max so as to build up an advantage on all of the other civs?

How significant should the changes be from the past iteration to the next? Should the game-play mechanics work essentially the same way, so that all of your skills in # carry over into #+1? Or should a new # have fresh mechanics from the ground up? ("I don't want no #.2").

So I'm not sure that, at this point, you could get your 6 focus groups to agree on what would make a good direction for 8. (Plus, people who like elements of 7 would feel resentful at being excluded and would boycott your stinkin' game).

Some of the problems newer civ games have, is that they have binary design like these questions of yours. I think it's a flawed way to describe the problem.

It should have micro management, with the option to automate (the computer part of the game).

It should work primarily for singleplayer (the AI has to know how to work systems), with the option to play multiplayer. The human players will always know how to play, so it doesn't make sense to do it the other way around.

Why limit it to tall vs wide? Why limit it to either one of these. Make it fluid. Make it a choice.

Give us the choice in difficulty settings wether or not the AI plays to win. Snowballing could be another difficulty setting. Set the amount of rubberbanding you want - if any.

When talking about the changes from previous civ games, I can only say that civ7 didn't work. Civ 1, 2, 3 and 4 had direct evolution, improvement and systems that built on top of each other. From civ 5 and onwards, they basicly started from scratch each time. It's like they dont know what to do for expansion anymore if they dont start over again and again. Replacements of systems could be good if they are an improvement. I think they have to respect what made civ popular and not delete entire systems.

I dont personally like 1UPT or sprawling/unpacked cities, so I would prefer older systems here. But I'm fine with it if there's limits to amount of units and they could keep the sprawl down to a minimum. It's all about how it's done. 1UPT can be super tedious late game. Either way, that's not a deal breaker, and I dont think it is for the majority of people either given the success of both systems. Ideally it would also be a setting.

About the boardgame... I know people either dont understand or dont want to understand it. But I'll try to explain it. Using "cards" for systems is something that you could copy 1 to 1 for a physical game. Having to do everything yourself is a very physical action - like moving single units constantly. There's no help from the computer for tedious tasks. It's not that fun to move 20 units across a giant map with 1UPT. The removal of percentage gains on buildings, in favor of flat stats. They are easy to calculate (as if we aren't sitting at a computer). Disconnected systems vs overlapping systems (religion). Abstract rules (gamey) vs logical rules - why a leader hates you f.ex. Choosing a leader with pre-defined stats instead of gaining/earning stats while you play. Basicly, older civ games had more cohesive systems vs newer civs that has many small disconnected "minigames". There's zero automation anymore. You had to fight to even get an autoexplore option in civ7. Long story short, the newer games feel very physical, tangible and shallow with constrained rules - like a boardgame.

There is no dichotomy. There's just a profound lack of choice. We all have to play the same now, with a very constrained set of rules. Individual preference does not matter if there's a choice that serves 90% of the player base. I'm aware that there's always going to be some people that aren't happy, but 90% is a fair goal to set. The goal is to please as many as possible, and the only way to do that is... to give them a choice. More choice would also improve replayability.

 

[Gorbles]

Not sure why you're being snarky.

I'm not! I mean what I said seriously. Discussions are often tricky enough without "well X is right because they get to define what word Y means".

I recall that Civ7 has new marketing - the tagline changed, does that not count?

Civ VII isn't the first game in the franchise with a different tagline, so imo no.

To some people the main concept of the game is changing, this doesn't count?

No, because reboot means something pretty specific.

It doesn't mean "it's changed so much to me I personally don't view it as the same franchise anymore".

DOOM 2016 was a reboot. But you know, so was Doom 3. Even though it had the same name as the previous titles, it was a total departure in terms of gameplay.
Many people liked it (among them me) and many people disliked it. I don't think being a reboot is necessarily bad and I don't think it's strictly objective like you describe. Nothing wrong with the individual describing the game from his perspective as a reboot.

Doom 3 is a considered a reboot because it ignored everything that came before. It re-conceptualised the setting (sources for this claim include both Wikipedia and the Doom wiki).

Maybe in time, Civ VII might? If it strongly influences future iterations in the franchise. But VII doesn't have a story setting (common to franchises that are rebooted), nor did the development on the franchise halt, nor was it shifted to another studio, etc. These are all hallmarks of "starting again". VII explicitly builds on Civ VI, with a large amount of the same team working on both games. It doesn't seem to be a similar thing.

If you want to say "it's not a proper Civ game to me", then say that. We don't need to repurpose an existing word for it at this time, in my opinion.

 

[GeneralZift]

I'm not! I mean what I said seriously. Discussions are often tricky enough without "well X is right because they get to define what word Y means".

Civ VII isn't the first game in the franchise with a different tagline, so imo no.

No, because reboot means something pretty specific.

It doesn't mean "it's changed so much to me I personally don't view it as the same franchise anymore".

Doom 3 is a considered a reboot because it ignored everything that came before. It re-conceptualised the setting (sources for this claim include both Wikipedia and the Doom wiki).

Maybe in time, Civ VII might? If it strongly influences future iterations in the franchise. But VII doesn't have a story setting (common to franchises that are rebooted), nor did the development on the franchise halt, nor was it shifted to another studio, etc. These are all hallmarks of "starting again". VII explicitly builds on Civ VI, with a large amount of the same team working on both games. It doesn't seem to be a similar thing.

If you want to say "it's not a proper Civ game to me", then say that. We don't need to repurpose an existing word for it at this time, in my opinion.

Okay fair enough then, let's not split hairs over it

 

[Gori the Grey]

@Xur, I was going to add a line to my post to the effect of "of course, the devs will try to get the best of both worlds wherever they can." And I think they actually do manage to do that pretty well. If I designed a Civ game, the only way to win would be wide. Not because I prefer that but because my mind is limited: how could more not be better? But they devised systems that make it viable to play tall instead, so I think that's an amazing compromise they've managed to strike.

But these dichotomies do exist in the preferences within the fanbase, if only in which of the two directions they'd like to see the design lean. In another thread, some people are saying they are glad that worker/builders are gone from 7 because they regarded them as tedious micromanagement. Others are saying that workers are one of their favorite elements of the game. (That's true of me also). I suppose if you developed super effective automation routines, you could please the no-builder people, but maybe not as much as no-builders seems to be pleasing them. Similarly, there is strong disagreement on the question of whether the AI should play to win. Difficulty level can maybe partly deal with that.

Anyway, my only point was that I think your 6 focus groups would have a harder time coming to a consensus on what a promising direction for 8 would be than you might think.

 

[Xur]

@Xur, I was going to add a line to my post to the effect of "of course, the devs will try to get the best of both worlds wherever they can." And I think they actually do manage to do that pretty well. If I designed a Civ game, the only way to win would be wide. Not because I prefer that but because my mind is limited: how could more not be better? But they devised systems that make it viable to play tall instead, so I think that's an amazing compromise they've managed to strike.

But these dichotomies do exist in the preferences within the fanbase, if only in which of the two directions they'd like to see the design lean. In another thread, some people are saying they are glad that worker/builders are gone from 7 because they regarded them as tedious micromanagement. Others are saying that workers are one of their favorite elements of the game. (That's true of me also). I suppose if you developed super effective automation routines, you could please the no-builder people, but maybe not as much as no-builders seems to be pleasing them. Similarly, there is strong disagreement on the question of whether the AI should play to win. Difficulty level can maybe partly deal with that.

Anyway, my only point was that I think your 6 focus groups would have a harder time coming to a consensus on what a promising direction for 8 would be than you might think.

You missed the point. Giving them a choice means they wouldn't have to agree on the best way to play the game. I would love to get workers back, and automation (smarter than previous games) would make it less tedious. The solution to most problems always goes back to choice.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I was honestly surprised that the next big thing on the horizon is map generation. I feel it was terrible at launch, making the games to predictable and repetitive. But the updates have already improved this by a lot (as a fractal player that I also was in previous civ games). It‘s still quite schematic with the small islands and basically two continents though. So maybe, the new maps will finally give us maps that are better than the ones in civ VI?

Big changes in map generation could mean multiple things:
- Some way to make treasure resources more accessible, like increasing overall landmass, filling big empty spots with island and add treasure resources to this new land
- Additional map types
- Non-rectangular zones
etc.

I generally agree with you, the land itself feels less repetitive now, and I think the problem is more with distant lands as a feature, not in how maps are generated.

Or does „maps“ maybe even include a tile yield rebalance and the possibility to start in the DL?

I thought the possibility to start in DL was already added for MP? And I don't think tile yield rebalance counts for map generation.