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We created a new subforum for the Civ7 reviews, please check them here!
Oct 10/11 - PAX Australia Dev Panel and new leader reveal Discussion thread
- Thread starter Eagle Pursuit
- Start date
Nah, this is Aztec, or at least Mesoamerican from the same period. See the general here:
These were all from Antiquity, but I agree it must be the Mayan commander.Nah, this is Aztec, or at least Mesoamerican from the same period. See the general here:
Yeah, they simply used drawings of Aztecs to make Mayans. The banners, the full bodysuit armor, prominent use of the macuahuitl don't fit classical period Maya at all.
The general holds that thing from Aztec general above.
The soldiers hold this used by the Tlaxcalans:
The loincloths with a prominent knot is also Aztec fashion, Maya used a different one, though possibly adopted something more similar during the post-classic peiod.
The red tunic with black spots IIRC comes from one of those Aztec tribute books. I've definitely seen it before.
Maya just don't look like that at all. Could also be a Mesoamerican independent peoples, though? Those guys also get their own designs, right? I like to lay into the game for chosing recognisability over history on way too many occasions for my taste but I still trust Andrew not to let something this ridiculously wrong slip by. Civ can get pretty horrible with history but not Mayaztec/Apocalypto levels of horrible.
I feel like they've always done a pretty poor job with both the Aztecs and the Maya, though. Civ5 Pacal was definitely sporting some Apocalyptico-tier fantasy feathers.
moysturfurmer
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One thing I found interesting is the Art Director with the beard was pretty explicit in saying “every civ has a unique military unit, and a unique civilian unit. Some civs have 10 great people” when discussing the variety of unit designs. His emphasis on it made me wonder if each great person will look different from other great people for a specific civ. They certainly have the tech for it. Am I reading too much into it in assuming (hoping) Aristotle will look different than Plato? Seems over the top, but a boy can dream.
That was my interpretation of his statement in context.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Just a few comments; it's 'way too late for more until tomorrow morning.
1. The one Exploration Age figure carrying a 'kite' shield is probably a Norman-specific: the kite shield was adopted by everyone after about 1100 CE, but the Normans used it first and it is about as typically Norman as the Bayeau Tapestry.
2. One of the Modern Age figures is carrying a portable rocket-launcher. I sincerely hope that doesn't mean separate antitank units again. Portable rocket launchers were NEVER separate units, people.
3. The Trebuchet in the middle of the field battle looks purty, but is flat out Wrong. Once a trebuchet is built, it cannot be moved easily - for one thing, it's top heavy as hell; for another, it takes weeks or months to build it and set it up. Against any unit that can move faster than a curtain wall, it is worthless.
4. Of the three Antiquity figures shown, one is a classic Greek Hoplite with his big round aspis shield, one a Roman legionary signifer, and the third - looks a lot like he's wearing an typically Etruscan chest-plate armor rig. Since there's no room in Antiquity for Etruscans, I suspect he is 'generic Mediterranean'.
Do love the look of the Continuous Battle, though: no more piddling squads of 2 - 4 men cartooning about, it actually looks like two armies going at it.
1. The one Exploration Age figure carrying a 'kite' shield is probably a Norman-specific: the kite shield was adopted by everyone after about 1100 CE, but the Normans used it first and it is about as typically Norman as the Bayeau Tapestry.
2. One of the Modern Age figures is carrying a portable rocket-launcher. I sincerely hope that doesn't mean separate antitank units again. Portable rocket launchers were NEVER separate units, people.
3. The Trebuchet in the middle of the field battle looks purty, but is flat out Wrong. Once a trebuchet is built, it cannot be moved easily - for one thing, it's top heavy as hell; for another, it takes weeks or months to build it and set it up. Against any unit that can move faster than a curtain wall, it is worthless.
4. Of the three Antiquity figures shown, one is a classic Greek Hoplite with his big round aspis shield, one a Roman legionary signifer, and the third - looks a lot like he's wearing an typically Etruscan chest-plate armor rig. Since there's no room in Antiquity for Etruscans, I suspect he is 'generic Mediterranean'.
Do love the look of the Continuous Battle, though: no more piddling squads of 2 - 4 men cartooning about, it actually looks like two armies going at it.
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Civ 5 has Sejong the great, the perfect, inventing lightbulbs to light the room he's in.
It's been 15 years, though. And if you look at the Maya and Lady Six Sky, the only thing that really stands out is that she doesn't look very Native American-Asian. But you can look at her clothes which come from a real engraved stone, the Hul'Che that Maya get also looks reasonably Mayan and even sport prominent Mayan-style loinclothis. Aztec leader from vanilla is still... but at least the wonder got painted properly and even includes a nod to the fact it was built on a lake. So overall a great progress in that.
They most definitely could use a reach-out to some Mexican museum the same way they travel to the Shawnee, though.
Ditto for Chinese and Japanese. If you can fly folks out to Aussieland, East Asia could also find its place in the budget.
moysturfurmer
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On point 2: sure, but as a game I think a certain level of Rock-Paper-Scissors approach to combat makes sense. Cav beats Swords, Swords beat Pikes, Pikes beat Swords, etc. If we take the approach of “well a Roman Legion would have been supported by Cavalry and Spearmen, it wasn’t just sword and board” then combat could potentially feel a little dull? At a certain point it’d just be a matter of who’s got more units to throw at one another.
One point 3: sure, but at the abstract scale of the game, we could tell ourselves that a trebuchet moving across the map is a wagon with some supplies and engineers who will set the trebuchet up outside of a city’s walls? Would it be better if a Treb unit in transit was disassembled and only changed to the proper graphic after you take a turn to set it up? Arguably, sure, but readability would suffer.
dagriggstar
King
The helmet icon in the tech tree for heraldry looks suspiciously like the helmet used for the men at arms when they were talking about the individual differences between models in the same unit
moysturfurmer
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Agreed, but they’ve mentioned that all your base melee units are upgraded to men-at-arms upon transition to the Exploration Age. Personally I’m thinking that Icon is for a knight, it’s just a clumsy choice for an icon
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
I've gone over all this before in Civ VI discussions, but here goes again:
Machineguns, antitank rockets should not be independent units, they should be Upgrades to regular units. And with the graphic depiction in Civ VII (8 - 10 figures per combat infantry unit) there's no reason they could not do that both mechanically and graphically. In fact, since all we've seen so far is a single rocket-launcher carrying troop, they may be doing that - I very much Hope.
Everybody loves the Trebuchet graphics, but bluntly, as a unit is does not belong in a field battle, It should be a Siege-only 'unit' or graphic, because as stated, it is almost completely useless against any bunch of troops unless they are sitting down to dinner and somehow miss the towering construction aimed at them. A Counterpoise Trebuchet as depicted was extremely slow firing and required major effort to change its aiming point. Not very useful against any target that can Move.
One of the few things that Humankind did right was to separate the mechanics of field battles and sieges. Attacking a city requires different constructions, devices, weapons, most of which are of little use against enemy troops in the field. I'm afraid this is one place where Civ is still well behind.
A few hours later, what stands out?
1. The nails. Civ VII artwork is pretty, but the nails were surprising.
2. 30 civs. New and gameplay-relevant info.
3. Civ VII started as notes over movies at Jason Johnson's house. Jason Johnson sounds like a cool colleague to work with.
I agree with the open-field trebuchet criticism. I'd argue Civ III still does siege units the best of any civ, as they must be protected by other units in order to avoid capture in III. Civ IV introduced "suicide catapults" and they've been basically free agents on the battlefield ever since. Would love to see them be extremely vulnerable to cavalry and melee. Kind of like in the historical Total War games - the siege units are all but done for if the enemy is able to reach them, maybe the siege engineers' daggers give just enough time for the cavalry to save the day but nine times out of ten that's the end of their contribution. I wonder if this could actually work in VII - with a whole front of combat, it may be feasible to protect a trebuchet enough to keep it in the back, and increase its vulnerability substantially.
I'd like to see a system where anti-tank and perhaps anti-air were optional upgrades to modern infantry platoons. Requiring relevant tech, but integrated. I sometimes wind up with hordes of Anti-Tank Crews in Civ VI, because they are an upgrade and don't require resources, and it's silly. I'm also not a fan of rock-paper-scissors combat systems, as I believe that such simple systems make things dull. Give me more to play around with than "A > B, B > C, C > A". Civ has historically had enough variables to make it somewhat more interesting - sure, pikemen beat knights, but you had swordsmen and macemen and longbowmen and crossbowmen and even musketmen all fighting on the same battlefield, along with that unusually brave trebuchet, and later on air units as well. A lot more than rock-paper-scissors.
Which reminds me:
4. The responsiveness of the new combat system. I love this. Note only does it look great and provide feedback, but the quickness of it. My pet peeve in Civ VI is that if you ever use a bomber, it is agonizingly slow because it animates the entire round-trip flight from its base to wherever it is attacking, which can be many tiles away, and you can't do anything else until that animation finishes. I've thought that the click didn't register just to find out, nope, it did, the bomber just had to taxi out to the runway first and it's up in the air now. I'm now hopeful that aircraft will also be responsive in VII.
1. The nails. Civ VII artwork is pretty, but the nails were surprising.
2. 30 civs. New and gameplay-relevant info.
3. Civ VII started as notes over movies at Jason Johnson's house. Jason Johnson sounds like a cool colleague to work with.
I agree with the open-field trebuchet criticism. I'd argue Civ III still does siege units the best of any civ, as they must be protected by other units in order to avoid capture in III. Civ IV introduced "suicide catapults" and they've been basically free agents on the battlefield ever since. Would love to see them be extremely vulnerable to cavalry and melee. Kind of like in the historical Total War games - the siege units are all but done for if the enemy is able to reach them, maybe the siege engineers' daggers give just enough time for the cavalry to save the day but nine times out of ten that's the end of their contribution. I wonder if this could actually work in VII - with a whole front of combat, it may be feasible to protect a trebuchet enough to keep it in the back, and increase its vulnerability substantially.
I'd like to see a system where anti-tank and perhaps anti-air were optional upgrades to modern infantry platoons. Requiring relevant tech, but integrated. I sometimes wind up with hordes of Anti-Tank Crews in Civ VI, because they are an upgrade and don't require resources, and it's silly. I'm also not a fan of rock-paper-scissors combat systems, as I believe that such simple systems make things dull. Give me more to play around with than "A > B, B > C, C > A". Civ has historically had enough variables to make it somewhat more interesting - sure, pikemen beat knights, but you had swordsmen and macemen and longbowmen and crossbowmen and even musketmen all fighting on the same battlefield, along with that unusually brave trebuchet, and later on air units as well. A lot more than rock-paper-scissors.
Which reminds me:
4. The responsiveness of the new combat system. I love this. Note only does it look great and provide feedback, but the quickness of it. My pet peeve in Civ VI is that if you ever use a bomber, it is agonizingly slow because it animates the entire round-trip flight from its base to wherever it is attacking, which can be many tiles away, and you can't do anything else until that animation finishes. I've thought that the click didn't register just to find out, nope, it did, the bomber just had to taxi out to the runway first and it's up in the air now. I'm now hopeful that aircraft will also be responsive in VII.
I forgot all about this and was surprised to wake up to an email from 3 am about Firaxis streaming something. There's not many more civs to reveal then. I wonder what they'll be showing next. Maybe another Exploration age civ for the Exploration age stream? Trung Trac leading Majapahit?
moysturfurmer
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There’s 2 more Antiquity Civs to reveal, and 17 more weeks to go. The Antiquity Stream was held when there was 21 weeks to go. Assuming they would space out the Age specific streams ~equally until release, the Exploration Stream will be held around 14 weeks before release. So if their marketing cadence is as mathed out as it could be, that would be 2 more weeks of Antiquity civ reveals, followed by a week where they do an Exploration stream with a simultaneous article drop of a few Explo civs.**
**Christ I’m losing my mind just release the game already I’m BEGGING you Firaxis
3 more weeks wait for an Exploration age stream? Where's the dislike button?
