LOW number of civilizations at launch

[Gorbles]

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.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

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.

 

[Xandinho]

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.

 

[Gori the Grey]

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.

 

[TheGrayFox]

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.

 

[chaosprophet]

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.

 

[Krikkit1]

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”

 

[TheGrayFox]

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.

 

[Gori the Grey]

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.

 

[TheGrayFox]

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

PS:

 

[gdr_willter]

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.

 

[Krikkit1]

. There was an option to detach leaders from their Civs in 4, guess which option I never selected?

PS:
View attachment 714268

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)

 

[untitledjuan]

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.

 

[notNamed]

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.

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

 

[Evie]

Not disagreeing (or agreeing, the debate as a whole is not one I want to intervene in) with your general point, but the claim that the USA "renamed half its states with native name once it had solved the natives problem. Without thyme or reason" is questionable - most Native state names in the US were associated with the territory or its prominent geographic features well ahead of full-scale colonization (and removal of natives). And certainly few enough of them *changed* their names from a non-native one to a native one.

There are a few weird cases out in the Northwest of pseudo-Native names, and there's Wyoming which was originally the (not at all random) name of a valley in Pennsylvania, then transfered by settlers from that region to the new territory they settled.

 

[Naokaukodem]

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.

We do not depict Mexico as an European colony either.

It would be insulting.

If you mean the picture you attached somewhere, we could say the same for most European countries :

"For centuries, Rome extracted from the Ancient World natural resources and the wealth of past empires. But Following the Fall of Rome, many saw an Opportunity to create a new, free society in all those past empires. They succeeded in their struggle for conquest, and new states emerged - blablabla."

So this speech do not mean that Mexico was an European colony, it depicts its general History that we Europeans know of.

Now why not to choose to depict France and other European countries the way I did it ? Because why start from here when there is a before and an after ?

The depiction of Mexico here is just Euro-centered.

 

[notNamed]

Not disagreeing (or agreeing, the debate as a whole is not one I want to intervene in) with your general point, but the claim that the USA "renamed half its states with native name once it had solved the natives problem. Without thyme or reason" is questionable - most Native state names in the US were associated with the territory or its prominent geographic features well ahead of full-scale colonization (and removal of natives). And certainly few enough of them *changed* their names from a non-native one to a native one.

There are a few weird cases out in the Northwest of pseudo-Native names, and there's Wyoming which was originally the (not at all random) name of a valley in Pennsylvania, then transfered by settlers from that region to the new territory they settled.

Yeah, sorry for confusing the events here. I was going off of memory from

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/delrcc/native_american_names_like_wyoming_miami_and

which indeed talks about this later fashion for cities and counties not necessarily related to the geographic features/native names or words they took on, not states.

 

[thecrazyscot]

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?

Like I said, I was at the trampoline park when I was catching up on this thread so I sincerely apologize if I misinterpreted a bunch of posts.

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

Look, I just don't view this the same way as you do. I don't see any bad or nefarious implications. I don't see any social or political commentary. What I do see is offense being taken on behalf of others and constantly shifting goalposts for what constitutes making this acceptable. For example:

"The Shawnee were consulted and are happy with their representation in-game."
"Only one tribe was consulted, they can't speak for all Shawnee."

What, exactly, is the magic ratio of indigenous people who need to be consulted to make sure no toes are getting stepped on? If two tribes were consulted, would that be enough? Four? Twenty? You'll always respond with "but you didn't get approval from this group!"

Three other points:

• You're not "forced" into anything - you have a choice of civs to evolve into.
• Modern post-colonial civs are more than just European successor states. They are an amalgamation of European and indigenous culture. It's just not "indigenous civ -> colonial civ". That's overly reductive and dismissive, meaning it's just not a solid argument against the mechanic.
• I stand by my argument that playing as a whitewashed colonial civ from the dawn of time is just as problematic as switching into a colonial civ. That is, if you find that sort of thing problematic. I don't. My point is that it's not a great argument, but one goes with the other.

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.

The time gap between ages means the circumstances of the civ switching are not defined. I think this is intentional - it's up to you on how you want to narratively frame it! And the fact that each new age explicitly celebrates your previous civs (via architecture, tradition, city names, etc) is pretty clear evidence that the devs are taking a pretty positive and optimistic approach to it. But again, it's up to you on how to write the story, and I think that's part of the disagreement here. You can't seem to see it as anything but a violent transition, while a lot of the others on this forum aren't interpreting it that way.

 

[Evie]

Yeah, that sounds more like it. With the triple caveats as follow:

1)In some cases, settlers moving westward brought the name of their hometown/home region with them - it wasn't about romanticism, but about naming things after what they once knew.

2)In some cases (like Miami) it really is just an accident of two separate words from two spearste native people tjat end up written the same in Colonial English.

3)They did the same thing with European and Biblical names. Like, a LOT. (See all the Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Toledo, Jerusalem (and Salem), Bethlehem, etc).

 

[Gori the Grey]

And the fact that each new age explicitly celebrates your previous civs (via architecture, tradition, city names, etc) is pretty clear evidence that the devs are taking a pretty positive and optimistic approach to it.

Also, I think there will be a psychological dynamic that plays into this "optimism" or "celebration." As I understand it, the very first thing you get to do in the new age is spend points accumulated in the previous age on things you think will be of benefit going forward. There's nothing more satisfying in games than spending your points on kewl lute.