LOW number of civilizations at launch

Once you've swallowed this level of absurdity:


It seems odd to draw the line at this:


The first set is just those disconnected bits I referenced that have existed in every iteration, and that even you think give the game its charm. The second set is just different bits being disconnected/differently-connectable-in-game-than-IRL.

you're essentially asking "well if you are okay with some level absurdity then why aren't you okay with a completely different type of absurdity which fundamentally changes a long established formula which you've come to enjoy as a fan" and you don't see the disconnect? This same line of reasoning could be used to ask you why you wouldn't be okay adding fantasy races and alien leaders to the game or to inquire why a fan wouldn't be okay with leaders changing completely randomly every age.

As Sagax so elegontly pointed out, every person will subjectively draw a line in the sand at different places when it comes to how they role play and immerse themselves into a game like Civ. So it's really a fruitless for you to try reason that I should be able and willing to shallow different absuridities and changes, just because you can.

What if the new bonuses were originally inspired by modern European colonial states (or modern Asian/African states*) created by genocide/oppression….but they kept their civ(name+city list+graphics)

*since gameplay unlocks would mean the Shawnee might be able to unlock Qing, Buganda, Mughal**, etc. sets of unique ability/unit/infrastructure/civics

** all formed through oppression (and occasionally genocide) …but not of the Shawnee.
If Firaxis let us keep our civs fundamentally and just pick new era bonuses, we wouldn't be having this discussion
 
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Personally, I think if civ switching just doesn't jive with you that's totally fine. It is a major departure from previous iterations and if that makes it feel less like "Civ" for you that's legitimate subjective complaint.

However, I don't get the whole "social commentary" argument/complaints about colonialism. I will grant that there are relatively few "direct" links but that is due to INCREASED diversity and INCREASED representation in the civ roster.

What's wrong with having modern civilizations with colonial roots? Should we just not have modern civilizations? Or do you think colonialism is somehow uniquely bad in a world where vanishingly few civilizations exist without committing atrocities against...someone? Most post-colonial modern civilizations are a fusion of colonial and indigenous, and to claim otherwise is honestly erasure of the indigenous people who live there and participate in government, culture, and society.

What in the holy strawman...... Literally no one is arguing that there's anything "wrong" with modern civilizations with colonial rooots.. The United States is one of my favorite countries to play.... Do you think people are arguing to exclude countries from Brazil, US, and Mexico from Civilization games?
In fact, if one takes the position that colonial civs as an evolution of non-colonial civs is offensive, it's an equivalent argument to say that playing as a colonial civ as if it always existed is highly offensive to all indigenous people who died in making that civilization what it is. It skips all that, sanitizes it, puts it on the same level as an indigenous civ and erases their complex history by flattening it into a monocultural people group.

No its not... at all....

Do you not see the implications of forcing people who want to play indigenious civilizations to inevitable become European colonial states in a series where we've historically been able to take a country/people through all of time and the tagline is "build an empire to stand the test of time". Come on... this argument is so uncharitable it's bordering on insulting

Or - hear me out here - maybe these arguments take themselves too seriously and are looking to justify dislike of a mechanic which requires no justification to dislike. It's ok - you can just not like civ switching. You don't need to make it more than it is.

Or hear me out. Your argument is just not very good and there is more than one reason why someone may dislike civ swapping as Firaxis has designed.

Civ (the game) takes an inherently optimistic view of cultures, representing them in their best light. The approach to civ switching is the same. Yeah, a lot of cultural evolution happened due to conflict, but it doesn't always. And the approach here is going out of its way to celebrate and maintain your previous culture into your new one - the Civ perspective is clearly a celebratory one and choosing to find offense in it is a personal choice.

Apologies if my thoughts are a bit disjointed and subsequently blunter than I might intend. Hard to insert much nuance on my phone while watching the kids at the trampoline park.

Most of this has already been adressed. I'm not the one who made up devs idea of "layered history" and used Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman London forged almost entirely by conflict, conquest as an example of this history.. I'm not the one who designed era defining crisises that lead into a unavoidable civilization change. Civilization evolution can change without conflict, but the civilization changes the devs are trying to modeling with its "layering" happens through conflict, conquest, and collapse.
 
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Alternative framing: one can enjoy (or not enjoy) civ7 while thinking about or not thinking about these tensions. The developers seem to embrace a little of both and their design decisions sometimes do and sometimes don’t appear driven by efforts to help more people find ways to feel represented in the games. Seems to me a fitting conversation to have in connection to the move away from timeless civs. (Agreed that their are multiple paths toward erasure.)
 
Franks may be the label under which those "barbarians" conquered Gaul, but in fact they brought with them very few Frankish inhabitants, I think it's on the average of a couple of thousands or so. Even if the tradition was frank in the future, it's just for convenience of legitimacy, as it became a kingdom with a king at its head. France is in fact not more Frankish than Mexico is European, it's still a Gallo-Roman population in majority. People FTW.
 
I wonder how many civs we'll end up with eventually, going to be fun to follow along, for me at least. I hope it will be a lot but I don't know, I think a lot of people will be disappointed with the final number regardless. I can imagine 20 per Age but it's tough to think they'll go much beyond that.
 
I wonder how many civs we'll end up with eventually, going to be fun to follow along, for me at least. I hope it will be a lot but I don't know, I think a lot of people will be disappointed with the final number regardless. I can imagine 20 per Age but it's tough to think they'll go much beyond that.
I've done several simulations of complete lists of civilizations, trying to represent all regions while striving to keep the historical paths at least reasonably coherent. It’s clear that 20 civilizations per era is too few; 25 per era would improve things slightly but would still leave a sense of wanting more for several regions. I was only able to create a truly well-rounded list with 30 to 33 civilizations per era.
 
Looking into Civ 7's future, how can FXS make civ-switching more palatable for more players by iterating on the feature rather than removing/overhaulting it?
I think the objection comes from the apparently implicit assumption that something has to be done at all.
 
I've done several simulations of complete lists of civilizations, trying to represent all regions while striving to keep the historical paths at least reasonably coherent. It’s clear that 20 civilizations per era is too few; 25 per era would improve things slightly but would still leave a sense of wanting more for several regions. I was only able to create a truly well-rounded list with 30 to 33 civilizations per era.
Indeed - I just can't see them making that many, and I'm not sure they feel as strongly about coherent paths as many of our Fanatics do.
 
Indeed - I just can't see them making that many, and I'm not sure they feel as strongly about coherent paths as many of our Fanatics do.
True, I don't expect that many either. But look, they always end the game with more than twice as many civs as at launch, that's been the trend in the last few games. If this pattern continues, then we can expect something close to 25 civs per era, totaling 75 at the end, which seems quite feasible to me. Still, there would be important omissions and not very satisfactory historical paths.
 
you're essentially asking "well if you are okay with some level absurdity then why aren't you okay with a completely different type of absurdity
I don't think it's a different kind of absurdity. I think the things that bother you are two more versions of the same kind of absurdity. I've characterized it as follows: elements that were connected one way in our history being disconnected from one another and allowed in-game to be connected differently.

Must China be defined by the territory it occupied on this-earth's map? No, in fact we can have maps of a different shape from this-earth.
Must China be defined by the kind of terrain it possess in this earth? No, China could have a tundra start.
Must China be defined by the luxury resources it possessed on this-earth? No, in-game China could be famous for furs rather than silks.
Must China be defined by the great wonders it built on this-earth? No, China could build the Pyramids rather than the Wall.
Must China be defined by the religion it has in this-earth? No, China could be Christian rather than Buddhist.
Must China be defined by the governmental system it has on this-earth? No, China can choose Democracy rather than Communism.

Must China be defined by one of the leaders that actually led it on this-earth? You're damn right it must!

In previous games, you've been willing to carve out of a civ almost everything that has made it the civ what it was on this-earth, really substantial elements of what makes China China. Now you're balking at one individual who led it for maybe forty years if he or she had a long reign.

Ok, you'll grant me, that is a pretty irrational hang-up.

But civ switching, you'll say, is way more extreme.

Yes and no. It's not different in kind. It's a civ-element made available for different combinations in-game than we saw this-earth. When we take the long view of a civ, we will almost always partition its total history into broad phases. Ancient Rome was a Mediterranean-spanning empire, medieval "Italy" was a collection of competing city-states, modern Italy is a peninsular nation state. The age-specific civ-lets are these differently-assemble-able chunks. So now an in-game civ, Tecumsehland, can have an Egyptian first phase, a Shawnee second phase and an American final phase. (Or alternately, you can define your total civ backwards from your final civ. "Early America--or as that people called itself in antiquity, Egypt--was from its founding rich in agricultural and mineral resources . . .") Admittedly, that those civlets get the names of this-earth civs does represent an obstacle to conceiving of your in-game polity as a single, continuously developing entity. But again, as I said, I think game dynamics will mitigate that.
 
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Franks may be the label under which those "barbarians" conquered Gaul, but in fact they brought with them very few Frankish inhabitants, I think it's on the average of a couple of thousands or so. Even if the tradition was frank in the future, it's just for convenience of legitimacy, as it became a kingdom with a king at its head. France is in fact not more Frankish than Mexico is European, it's still a Gallo-Roman population in majority. People FTW.

Oh god this tangent again. Yes, the Franks were a minority (I'd ask for a source on those numbers though) and one of several Germanic tribes/peoples to migrate into Gaul during and after the collapse of the Roman empire, assimilating into a mostly Gallo-Roman population, which they ruled over directly. I wasn't trying to imply that France is predominately Frankish today but rather point out why we don't refer to the modern nation-state of France as a "Roman Colony" today despite Gaul's ancient history as a Roman province where they built colonies.
 
At the end of the day, every player will draw their own line in the sand when it comes to immersion in Civ, and each of those lines is valid - because role-playing and immersion are a deeply personal experience, and I hope we can agree that Civ as a franchise does try to deliver on that front. Trying to dismiss either side with "your perception is incorrect, the issue is in your head" is not helpful, because perception will always be in the eyes of the beholder. And for a mostly single-player game where one can scratch their megalomaniacal itch, allowing a larger number of players to comfortably immerse into their own role-playing narrative is worth considering and keeping on a priority list (not the top priority, but still important).
I completely agree with you, immersion is a subjective meter which means that people would have the personal reasons and lines for it which are valid for them. The reason I dislike that term being used in discussion about games, is that people often use it as something objective, whether saying it out loud or implying it. Sometimes because they may really be narrow minded to think what breaks their immersion may surely break at least almost everyone else, or because they conflating immersion on the sense of getting so invested in doing the activity (in this case playing the game) to forget about the rest of the world, with immersion when it comes to something like a VR game that is trying to make you feel like you're really there walking on that world, which is a type of immersion that has more of an objective vein to it, even if also partially subjective.

In the end in these conversations immersion seems to be turned into a similar meme word to me as saying a game has "soul". A way for people to talk about their subjective opinion about something while feeling like they are saying something objective about it.
 
you're essentially asking "well if you are okay with some level absurdity then why aren't you okay with a completely different type of absurdity which fundamentally changes a long established formula which you've come to enjoy as a fan" and you don't see the disconnect? This same line of reasoning could be used to ask you why you wouldn't be okay adding fantasy races and alien leaders to the game or to inquire why a fan wouldn't be okay with leaders changing completely randomly every age.

As Sagax so elegontly pointed out, every person will subjectively draw a line in the sand at different places when it comes to how they role play and immerse themselves into a game like Civ. So it's really a fruitless for you to try reason that I should be able and willing to shallow different absuridities and changes, just because you can.


If Firaxis let us keep our civs fundamentally and just pick new era bonuses, we wouldn't be having this discussion
What is the “Fundamental” to the civ?
if it’s not bonuses then presumably things like names graphics.
Those are much easier to change how they operate.

It is terrible that FXS has not recognized that the ability to keep the name of a civ while getting uniques of another civ answers a Lot of the issues people have with civ switching. Hopefully they soon let you keep/choose your civ “Identity pack” initially and on transitions Separately from your “Age Bonus pack”
 
I don't think it's a different kind of absurdity. I think the things that bother you are two more versions of the same kind of absurdity. I've characterized it as follows: elements that were connected one way in our history being disconnected from one another and allowed in-game to be connected differently.

Must China be defined by the territory it occupied on this-earth's map? No, in fact we can have maps of a different shape from this-earth.
Must China be defined by the kind of terrain it possess in this earth? No, China could have a tundra start.
Must China be defined by the luxury resources it possessed on this-earth? No, in-game China could be famous for furs rather than silks.
Must China be defined by the great wonders it built on this-earth? No, China could build the Pyramids rather than the Wall.
Must China be defined by the religion it has in this-earth? No, China could be Christian rather than Buddhist.
Must China be defined by the governmental system it has on this-earth? No, China can choose Democracy rather than Communism.

Must China be defined by one of the leaders that actually led it on this-earth? You're damn right it must!

In previous games, you've been willing to carve out of a civ almost everything that has made it the civ what it was on this-earth, really substantial elements of what makes China China. Now you're balking at one individual who led it for maybe forty years if he or she had a long reign.Ok, you'll grant me, that is a pretty irrational hang-up.
But civ switching, you'll say, is way more extreme.

Yes and no. It's not different in kind. It's a civ-element made available for different combinations in-game than we saw this-earth. When we take the long view of a civ, we will almost always partition its total history into broad phases. Ancient Rome was a Mediterranean-spanning empire, medieval "Italy" was a collection of competing city-states, modern Italy is a peninsular nation state. The age-specific civ-lets are these differently-assemble-able chunks. So now an in-game civ, Tecumsehland, can have an Egyptian first phase, a Shawnee second phase and an American final phase. (Or alternately, you can define your total civ backwards from your final civ. "Early America--or as that people called itself in antiquity, Egypt--was from its founding rich in agricultural and mineral resources . . .")


Must China even have unique units and buildings and traditions themed around its real history?
Must China even be defined by being called Chinese?
Must China even be represtened by humans that actually existed on this earth at all?

This argument just seems a slippery slope. You can keep following your the logic and eventually you'll carve out EVERYTHING that has made it a civ in past civilizations. I was fine with the status quo, I liked Civilization games. As that other user already mentioned, where users will draw the line in how the suspend their disbelief and what they are willing to accept from a roleplaying and immersion perspective are entirely subjective but one thing is for sure, you're not going to get very far trying to convince civ swapping/eras/detached leaders detractors that the problem with civ swapping is in their head and it actually isn't that big of a change to the formula.
 
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Must China even have unique units and buildings and traditions themed around its real history?
That one, too, I think earlier games have already, in some measure, answered "no." I just have in mind Civ V militaristic city states that could gift you unique units of civs that weren't in the game. In a recent game as Korea, Belgrade gifted me Chu-ko-nus (thank you very much, by the way, Belgrade; very useful in fending off that Iroquois surprise attack while I was fighting Denmark on another front). So, in game, they're not absolutely unique to China.
You're not going to get very far trying to convince civ swapping/eras/detached leaders detractors that the problem with civ swapping is in their head
That's pretty much what I am trying to do, but the way I would say it to myself is to say "TheGrayFox (howbeit he may spell grey incorrectly) has already, by buying into the alternate-history premise of the Civ series, made 90% of the mental adjustment needed to enjoy this next iteration of Civ. He just needs to treat leaders and phases of a civ's history as differently-assemblable Lego pieces the way he already treats wonders, terrain, governmental system, religion, etc."

I'm contrasting you with a friend who looked at me playing one of my early games of Civ III and said, "Rome isn't next to China," walked away, and never gave the game another look.
 
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That one, too, I think earlier games have already, in some measure, answered "no." I just have in mind Civ V militaristic city states that could gift you unique units of civs that weren't in the game. In a recent game as Korea, Belgrade gifted me Chu-ko-nus (thank you very much, by the way, Belgrade; very useful in fending off that Iroquois surprise attack while I was fighting Denmark on another front). So, in game, they're not absolutely unique to China.

I don't care if you can get other unique units during a campaign. I don't have a problem with a gameplay mechanic like city states granting you a unique unit or luxury. That doesn't mean I want Civ franchise to remove staple features at this point like appropriate leaders for civs and historically themed unique traits, units, and abilities.


That's pretty much what I am trying to do, but the way I would say it to myself is to say "TheGrayFox (howbeit he may spell grey incorrectly) has already, by buying into the alternate-history premise of the Civ series, made 90% of the mental adjustment needed to enjoy this next iteration of Civ. He just needs to treat leaders and phases of a civ's history as differently-assemblable Lego pieces the way he already treats wonders, terrain, governmental system, religion, etc."

I'm contrasting you with a friend who looked at me playing one of my early games of Civ III and said, "Rome isn't next to China," walked away, and never gave the game another look.

Okay I think we've reached an impasse, Mr. Grey. No, the Gray Fox will not make adjust and accept unwanted changes to a well established formula that ruins how he personally experiences, roleplays, and immerses himself in a game series he has enjoyed for most of his life because you think I should just accept it. Why? becuase the Gray Fox does not want to experience alt history like you think he should want to. I don't want actual leaders of civs and civilations themselves being treated as interchangable lego pieces regardless if thats how things like wonders, terrain, governmental system, religion, etc. already work. There was an option to detach leaders from their Civs in 4, guess which option I never selected? At this point, we're just going in circles. You're not going to change my mind

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True, I don't expect that many either. But look, they always end the game with more than twice as many civs as at launch, that's been the trend in the last few games. If this pattern continues, then we can expect something close to 25 civs per era, totaling 75 at the end, which seems quite feasible to me. Still, there would be important omissions and not very satisfactory historical paths.
Yes. I guess the dev cost of time and budget for the new Civ was mainly caused by the Leader (CG, animation, dub), but now the Leaders are seperated from Civs. Make a concept of each new Civ don't need so much effort, and devs can use more and more legacy assets from existing Civs when more and more Civs are added. So I hopefully consider Civ 7 can have a big enough Civ list for each Age.
 
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. There was an option to detach leaders from their Civs in 4, guess which option I never selected?

PS: 👇🤓
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Fortunately in Civ 7 the AI leaders seem to stay attached to their civs (at least in the appropriate age)…and then stay attached to the closely related civs otherwise.

Once civ7 finally lets players retain their civ names, that might be a good option (AI leaders will retain the civ name if it’s “their civ” .v the standard of AI always changes)
 
Your wrong. It’s not. We don’t say France is a Roman colonial state.
Well, the cultures of France do have lots of influence from the Romans, the French and Occitan languages come from Latin, their legal systems as well, most of their cultural and social norms, etc.

The same can be said of Mexico, through the Spanish.

In a way (and perhaps in very different but related ways), both France and Mexico are Romance (or Latin) descendants of the Romans and their respective nations have also been responsible of colonising and taking over lands of various Native American peoples.

Mexico originated as a Spanish colony/viceroyalty/kingdom know as New Spain. It began as a European colonial nation. It only began somewhat accepting its indigenous heritage after the Mexican Revolution. Before that, it even had Habsburg emperor of Mexico brought from Austria.

Even though I don't think that it'd be a problem to have the Aztecs switch into Mexico, it is important to remember that Mexico is not a direct successor of the Aztecs (even Spain would be a more historically accurate predecessor, which is already a route in-game) and that the Mexican government (as well as all the Western post-colonial nations of the New World) have done a great deal of damage to the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Most Native Americans do not identify themselves with the modern post-colonial nations that exist in the New World and that's something to keep in mind.
 
Mexico originated as a Spanish colony/viceroyalty/kingdom know as New Spain. It began as a European colonial nation. It only began somewhat accepting its indigenous heritage after the Mexican Revolution.
And even that acceptance of heritage was effectively a romanticism movement which has exactly 0 relation to actual Mesoamerican people or culture.
Just like USA renamed half of its states with native names once it successfully "solved" the native problem. Without rhyme or reason.

Mexico is in the same boat. Post-Revolution they obliterated native languages in favor of Spanish. Pushed native people into extreme poverty on the edge of society.
You adopt certain imagery, invent customs (Thanksgiving, Dia de Los Muertos), push the observance of those customs on your population to strengthen the idealised invented narrative.
It's a European nation pushing a European philosophy to create national myths and unity of properly behaved European-style subjects.
Romanticism and reality stand apart. England was proud of its Celtic roots and starved millions of Irish in the same breath. :undecide:

So yeah, definitely agreed with Juan here. Mexico is a European colonial state standing very firmly in European traditions.
 
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