I wonder if some of the displeasure at Civ-switching could be alleviated by allowing player to rename their Civilization. The UUs and whatnot would be whatever that new Civ has, but at least I can still call my Empire Egypt .
That was my take on it as well. For one thing, IIRC it didn't include the Abbasids as an option, when we know that's one of Egypt's automatically-unlocked paths.
As far as I know there's nothing to suggest a cap on the number of choices we'll have for choosing which civ to choose at the Exploration and Modern ages.
If you really want to guarantee playing the X civ
1. Start the game in the era of that civ
OR
2. If there is a leader for that civ available, choose that leader
Hopefully there are some restrictions, and hopefully an option to have it set up in the game creator to have AI only pick their "historical" or leader based choice. They would need to have a historical leader for their historical Civ option as well. Hopefully they add Civilization renaming, at least then if I'm playing with no duplicate civs and someone else picked the one I wanted, I can rename it myself.
I think the Civ->Civ unlocked options are hard wired, but basically seem to be geographic.
Leader unlock options also hardwired but more closest civ to that leader.
The Gameplay unlock options, so far seem to make sense (Mongols get unlocked with enough horses, Inca with enough Mountains)
However... there seems to be more than one civ that can unlock a civ (Songhai by both Egypt and Aksum)
and
More than one civ that a civ unlocks (both Songhai and Abbasids from Egypt)
It is possible there are other ways to unlock Mongolia/Inca (leaders, or maybe 1st Age China/Olmec civs)
So it appears history will be able to "Alt" quite a bit.
That screen was a scheme that Firaxis put us to explain the concept a bit, but I don't think it was gameplay. What seemed as gameplay was the screen where there are about 15 options and the one that is selected is that of the Shongai. In it he explains what characteristics Shongai has and what requirements he needs to be unlocked to be a potential option. The striking of the Shongai is that they had three options: two were playing with a certain civilization in the ancient times, and the other was to play with a certain leader.
Probably each civilization has three paths to unlock. And one type of them can be to meet objectives during the gameplay of the last age (as is the case of Mongolia to have exploited 3 resources of horses), or those mentioned above to play with a specific leader or civilization . And each one will have different convinations. That would mean that any civilization with 3 exploited horses can unlock Mongolia, not just Egypt. And there will be more options for other civilizations. Perhaps the Arabs are something like that, and also demand having certain resources or building a certain number of buildings of a type, or unlocking so many technologies, or having so many military units, etc.
The truth is that we only know that Shongai is a rather exclusive civilization to play, since it does not depend on our gameplay, but on your choice when choosing leader or ancient civilization. This is probably because the Shongai is a specialized civilization in a specific type of land (navigable rivers). Other civilizations specialized in specific lands could follow the scheme of the Shongai, while others more aimed at a certain style of play such as the Mongols (military with a lot of cavalry) would be more accessible to all civilizations if you fulfill their style of play. Or at least that's what I think at this time.
I think the Civ->Civ unlocked options are hard wired, but basically seem to be geographic.
Leader unlock options also hardwired but more closest civ to that leader.
The Gameplay unlock options, so far seem to make sense (Mongols get unlocked with enough horses, Inca with enough Mountains)
However... there seems to be more than one civ that can unlock a civ (Songhai by both Egypt and Aksum)
and
More than one civ that a civ unlocks (both Songhai and Abbasids from Egypt)
It is possible there are other ways to unlock Mongolia/Inca (leaders, or maybe 1st Age China/Olmec civs)
So it appears history will be able to "Alt" quite a bit.
There seems to be a civ with a red horse icon with Confucius leading it in the Antiquity age from the video. Presumably it's from a Eurasian nomadic civ, such as the Huns or Scythia, which could easily progress into them.
Hmm, I'm pretty sure that there will always be certain civ choices unlocked for you, based upon your starting civ choice and your leader choice. So if you want to guarantee a certain Exploration or Modern Age civ you can do so with your choice of starting civ.
For example, we know that if you play as Egypt you are guaranteed to unlock the Abbasid and Songhai choices for the Exploration Age. If you choose Songhai, then you are guaranteed the Buganda choice for the Modern.
We just don't know what Mongolia's civ precursor would be, or if Mongolia is only unlocked via the horse resource. Potentially if Genghis Khan were a leader, you could also guarantee Mongolia shows up as one of your choices just by picking him.
I think many civs will have both "historical" choices and gameplay choices.
Ursa Ryan talked in one video about how the Firaxians played a mountain-heavy early game and then got the Inca as choice. I assume you will be able to pick among the choices which you unlock, otherwise you will get the closest one displayed, so that you have some knowledge for the next game (or it's probably in the Civilopedia).
From a gameplay perspective, I'm okay with what they showed. My problem will be if my Egyptians become the Mongolians and most Egyptian culture is erased. I can understand if invaders come and rename my empire, but it makes no sense that the Egyptians would become the Mongolians -- adopting a whole new language! -- simply based on a heavy use of horses in their society. I'm kind of surprised no modern day Mongolians have complained about this portrayal of the rise of Mongolian society yet.
I think that the end of age crises are supposed to explain what kind of societal upheaval took place that caused such a drastic change, but I remain skeptical that they will be convincing in all of the possible scenarios.
I just don’t think most people in the world are so fragile as to dig for reasons to be upset about a videogame.
Civ 7 doesn’t offer anything much new in terms of the potential pitfalls of how a culture can be portrayed. Firaxis is always respectful and careful these days.
I can definitely see some disappointment if you start a new game and you're excited to play the Mongols but don't get the horses to do so. Maybe there will be a "last-ditch" mechanic where you can try to fulfill some other condition (sacrifice enough gold or something) to brute-force your choice anyway.
On the other hand, I think that'll at least encourage players to try new things...
I'm guessing the reason for horses to unlock Mongolia is Mongolia could have multiple bonuses that are impacted by having horses, specialty unit that needs horses, maybe a building that benefits from horses, civ bonus. If it turns out that it's just Mongolia has one specialty unit that needs horses but no other benefits then the horse requirement isn't so good.
I do hope other civ requirements are impacted much more by actions than just access to certain resources.
I just don’t think most people in the world are so fragile as to dig for reasons to be upset about a videogame.
Civ 7 doesn’t offer anything much new in terms of the potential pitfalls of how a culture can be portrayed. Firaxis is always respectful and careful these days.
not to mention mongolians take pride in their heritage. the west has a perception of genghis as unique evil but in mongolia he’s a national hero, the ulaan baatar airport is named after him
I’d go so far as to say he didn’t do anything unique for a leader of his time, he just gets more flak for it because he was a non-european doing conquest to europeans. Going around invading places and killing ppl was kinda the modus operandi in the 12th and 13th century, really.
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