Maybe Civilization should have no Civs.

[GeneralZift]

Alright, hear me out!
I'm just as attached to all the different Civs and Leaders as anybody else. But there seems to be some unsolvable issue between those who want Civs to be appropriate to each age and those who want the same Civ forever.
There's going to be this disconnect that splits the playerbase down the middle.

My suggestion is very stupid but I think it would be so crazy as to work. Simply 'remove' the Civilisations and instead let the player name and customise their Civilisation to the absolute maximum.

Instead, Civs became a choice of name, flag, colours, architecture and so on. Exactly like the older games. But there's now an emphasis on making a custom Civ with a choice for a preset 'real' Civ.

The leaders would stay. Now you can pick whatever leader you want, and they come with all the bonuses relating to their nation and personality and so on.

The AI would choose a preset that matches their Leader. But of course the Nations are just skins and they have no literal meaning.

Because we've separated them like this, you can play as anything you want. Pick the name, choose a flag or make your own, pick the colour, pick the architecture.

Is it too stupid that it would be dumb or is it so stupid that maybe it could be fun?

 

[Kyriakos]

Historically prominent civilizations always were one of the lures of the Civ games - and one suspects that the most played civs (if reliable lists do exist) are topped by the usual suspects. You can also notice that from back when the Civ games only had a name to differentiate the civilization (and a color) from the rest, which was entirely true before Civ3: while there was nothing unique in the chosen civ gameplay-wise, it still added to the game due to the player's own imagination.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Civ VII will be saved by the Puddington DLC, you heard it here first

 

[Kwami]

Millennia is kind of like this. You pick a name, flag, city list, and color. They have presets like "France", but you can change everything. Then, you pick your bonuses in-game for each era.

It feels very boring and lifeless.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Historically prominent civilizations always were one of the lures of the Civ games - and one suspects that the most played civs (if reliable lists do exist) are topped by the usual suspects. You can also notice that from back when the Civ games only had a name to differentiate the civilization (and a color) from the rest, which was entirely true up to Civ2: while there was nothing unique in the chosen civ gameplay-wise, it still added to the game due to the player's own imagination.

Yes, the "unique XX" has been growing and growing. I started with Civ2: just a color (and an alternate color) and an attribute. Civ3 had attributes and a unique unit, which could trigger your one and only "Golden Age." All of the rest was in the player's imagination.

For both Civ3 and Civ4, several civilizations shared the same attribute: Militaristic, Scientific, and so on. Those tribes/factions did play very similarly.

Fast forward to Civ6, where a civilization has a unique building, unique unit, chooses a unique pantheon, can found a unique religion... all independent of a leader persona. Trajan and Julius Caesar have more in common than they differ. The two personas for Harald have a big difference in their unique unit.

It might be possible to supply a pallette of unique things to choose from, to build both a leader and a civ that you believe in. All those choices could be overwhelming; new players might want defaults or suggested/guided choices.

 

[Pedro P]

There's going to be this disconnect that splits the playerbase down the middle.

More like split the fanbase between the majority of people, and a tiny but loud minority of people who actually want to solve the "Washington/America in the stone age issue" that in fact doesn't exist and cannot be solved.

It is a common joke, but the majority of people don't take the joke seriously and don't decide if they buy the game or not over it. Like, make a Free DLC that adds Cossack, Mayan, Samurai and American Cowboy skins for the War Elephant and the same people who make the joke would be saying that DLC is awesome.

Civ cannot be "historical" by design, no civilization makes sense in a randomized world where events are dynamic. Rome makes as much sense in a pre-bronze age start at a massive plains in a world with no Greeks, Etruscans, Iberians and Celts as a stone age America does.

Civ7 and Humankind tried to remedy the imaginary issue and just ended up creating even more glaring issues while the "historicity" didn't improve and in fact, in many ways, regressed.

 

[misesfan]

More like split the fanbase between the majority of people, and a tiny but loud minority of people who actually want to solve the "Washington/America in the stone age issue" that in fact doesn't exist and cannot be solved.

And splitting your fanbase is not a very good business decision. But no one ever accused Firaxis/Take2 of having the biggest brains when it comes to business and satisfying all their customers.

 

[Nineliveslost]

And splitting your fanbase is not a very good business decision. But no one ever accused Firaxis/Take2 of having the biggest brains when it comes to business and satisfying all their customers.

HEY !!! it worked for Star Wars. . . uhhh , never mind

 

[RaidandTrade]

How about a setting for something like “enforce leader and civ paths” so that player who want leaders tied to Civs can enable it (which would force AI to take those pairings as well) and those willing to embrace new can keep playing it as is?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Simply 'remove' the Civilisations and instead let the player name and customise their Civilisation to the absolute maximum.

Instead, Civs became a choice of name, flag, colours, architecture and so on.

I've had the same thought - let the player name the Civ then what are now Civs become cultures instead. By the end of the game your "Puddington" Civ is composed of Carthage, Hawaii and Great Britain cultures.

 

[evonannoredars]

Civ7 and Humankind tried to remedy the imaginary issue and just ended up creating even more glaring issues while the "historicity" didn't improve and in fact, in many ways, regressed.

For civ 7 at least, that's not why ages/civ-switching were implemented. The first dev diary goes into detail why they went with this system and trying to remedy the ahistoricity of stone age america wasn't one of the reasons.

 

[Xur]

Having the civilization being the main protagonist, with with a leader as supporting character worked for 25 years. If someone wants to argue that it's the other way around, then tell me why the game isn't called "leaders". It's like saying Hermione is the main protagonist in Harry Potter.

Honestly, why fix what isn't broken? The formula has been popular and successful for a quarter of a century. Sometimes it's just not as complicated as people make it out to be.

 

[Gorbles]

Honestly, why fix what isn't broken?

Why ever change anything, then?

Isn't the entire core of all of this is people differ over what is or isn't broken?

Nevermind personal appreciation for leaders vs. civs, where you seem to be ignoring anyone with different preferences or ways of immersing themselves in the franchise.

 

[misesfan]

Nevermind personal appreciation for leaders vs. civs, where you seem to be ignoring anyone with different preferences or ways of immersing themselves in the franchise.

Which is exactly what was done to the people who play the game as an empire-building game. There are people who identify with the nation and want to build that nation to stand the test of time, not something they believe in.... In fact, given the reception of this iteration of civ, I think most people want to play an empire-builder instead of a deck-building mobile game.

 

[GeneralZift]

Why ever change anything, then?

Isn't the entire core of all of this is people differ over what is or isn't broken?

Nevermind personal appreciation for leaders vs. civs, where you seem to be ignoring anyone with different preferences or ways of immersing themselves in the franchise.

Nobody is saying never change anything, I think reasonable minds would think something has to change from sequel to sequel, but if there's no necessity in reinventing the wheel, then perhaps you shouldn't.

It's like looking at the sport of football and seeing Players regularly shoot behind the Defenders. Instead of adding the Offside rule, you'd rather reinvent the game so that they carry the ball in their mouths and crawl on all 4 limbs.

In a lot of circumstances, especially relating to design, there's been a bunch of people who came before you who put in lots of trial and error to a finished thing that you don't see.

When you uproot something completely, you sometimes miss the point of some very crucial core components which have to be redesigned completely again to provide the best experience.

You know, at some point you've Ship Of Theseus-ed the Game trying to chase something that has scared away the rest of the playerbase.

 

[evonannoredars]

Nobody is saying never change anything, I think reasonable minds would think something has to change from sequel to sequel, but if there's no necessity in reinventing the wheel, then perhaps you shouldn't.

Sounds like you're simultaneously saying here that things should be changed and also that things shouldn't be changed. Where do we draw the line between things that don't need to be reinvented versus ones that should be reinvented?

It's like looking at the sport of football and seeing Players regularly shoot behind the Defenders. Instead of adding the Offside rule, you'd rather reinvent the game so that they carry the ball in their mouths and crawl on all 4 limbs.

How does that analogy map onto this situation beyond just trying to characterise firaxis as coming up with stupid solutions?

 

[Gorbles]

Which is exactly what was done to the people who play the game as an empire-building game. There are people who identify with the nation and want to build that nation to stand the test of time, not something they believe in.... In fact, given the reception of this iteration of civ, I think most people want to play an empire-builder instead of a deck-building mobile game.

I think you're overestimating the importance of the dealbreakers that affect you personally. I think the game's reception was the result of a compounding number of issues. But this doesn't have much to do with the thread.

The thread is about proposing changes. I don't think they'd work myself (similar to what Kwami said).

Nobody is saying never change anything

"don't fix what isn't broken" is saying "don't change things I don't consider to be broken". My question was how far do we extend that principle?

Which is, like I said, what the whole difference in opinion tends to be about. You can make an analogy to football if you want, but it still stems from your own subjective interpretation of the game's design. Based on the fact that you quite simply and fairly don't like it.

 

[misesfan]

I think you're overestimating the importance of the dealbreakers that affect you personally. I think the game's reception was the result of a compounding number of issues. But this doesn't have much to do with the thread.

The thread is about proposing changes. I don't think they'd work myself (similar to what Kwami said).

You may be right - but the title of the thread is 'Maybe Civilization should have no Civs.' The fact that I think most people want to play civ as an empire builder is in fact why I dont agree with the premise of this thread. I think the foundational design problems with the game, that is age resets, disconnecting the leader from the civ, and civ resets, is having demonstrable results to the civ franchise.

 

[Gorbles]

You may be right - but the title of the thread is 'Maybe Civilization should have no Civs.' The fact that I think most people want to play civ as an empire builder is in fact why I dont agree with the premise of this thread. I think the foundational design problems with the game, that is age resets, disconnecting the leader from the civ, and civ resets, is having demonstrable results to the civ franchise.

I think most people don't want an unfinished UI, with stability issues on apparently every platform at launch, along with paid DLC with substandard assets that landed mere months after release. Separating out individual problems is difficult, and we have different threads for that kind of thing.

EDIT

I mean, separately, I personally like Ages. I understand what they're trying to solve. But separate to that, I don't think the OP's suggestions would work, because it dilutes the impact further. Not because there's some inherent barrier to players with regards to the mechanics. That's where we disagree (among other areas, I guess).

 

[GeneralZift]

Sounds like you're simultaneously saying here that things should be changed and also that things shouldn't be changed. Where do we draw the line between things that don't need to be reinvented versus ones that should be reinvented?

Well it is totally subjective, I admit. But you need to be aware of what your player base / target audience finds is the core of the gameplay, and what they think should be replaced. IF 10% of the group thinks that part should be remade, then maybe its not as high priority as something which 90% of the group thinks should be remade.
At the end of the day, you're making something for a target audience, if they don't like it, then no one will buy it.

"don't fix what isn't broken" is saying "don't change things I don't consider to be broken". My question was how far do we extend that principle?

Which is, like I said, what the whole difference in opinion tends to be about. You can make an analogy to football if you want, but it still stems from your own subjective interpretation of the game's design. Based on the fact that you quite simply and fairly don't like it.

Same as above. Also I highlight that there needs to be a good, consistent design vision for how they want their game to be. What they don't want is conflicting visions, half-finished concepts and lots of back-end drama (As we have heard from reviews.)
Also, it's not strictly that I don't like it, but that the majority of players don't like it (In Its Current Implementation) and so the game is falling off in numbers. Also, it's objectively a large change.

You may be right - but the title of the thread is 'Maybe Civilization should have no Civs.' The fact that I think most people want to play civ as an empire builder is in fact why I dont agree with the premise of this thread. I think the foundational design problems with the game, that is age resets, disconnecting the leader from the civ, and civ resets, is having demonstrable results to the civ franchise.

I agree. Although you are slightly mistaken about the premise of the thread.
I meant that you should have the capacity to heavily customise your Civilisation as you want, with the Leader choice bringing a lot of the variety.

The focus is on Civ as an empire builder - building YOUR empire (Empire of Puddington as some people would put it).
Of course, you can just pick the "British" and pick British flags and British colours, but there's no gameplay meaning to it, and you'd have to literally craft the gameplay of your Civilisation yourself.


EDIT:

I mean, separately, I personally like Ages. I understand what they're trying to solve. But separate to that, I don't think the OP's suggestions would work, because it dilutes the impact further. Not because there's some inherent barrier to players with regards to the mechanics. That's where we disagree (among other areas, I guess).

Disagree or not, I respect your opinions, I feel it should be said I don't want to make anything personal.