Official announcement: Hot off the presses. Next Civ game in development!!!!!!!

[bbbt]

The buzz on that is it's basically a war game where you build up a big army and then fight. Not interesting to me.

Of course this was awhile back, maybe they've updated it? Or is it still a slog to see who can build the biggest army?

They have a decent amount of ways to adjust the AI to make it less aggressive.

They also have a 'make your goals' victory (essentially imagine a series of more-elaborate CS quests to complete) that can be non-militaristic.

I'd roughly say, if you want a competitive experience/challenging AI you definitely need a big army and fighting. If you want to play on easier levels, you can get away a lot less without.

 

[Per-aa]

Just read some interesting info about Civ 7: it may have a focus on extinct civilizations such as the Harrapan and Minoans, e. g. If this is true I would be really looking forward to playing it.

while the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans are all present in the vast majority of Civilization entries, they're all still around today in one form or another. A much rarer occurrence in the Civilization franchise is a nation that no longer exists at all....Civilization 7 should take this concept of ancient civilizations to the next level, and essentially make it its whole hook. Though it might seem like Civilization has already brought all the well-known ancient civilizations to the forefront, there are actually a ton of lesser-known ancient nations that are equally deserving of representation in the Civilization series. The ancient Indus, also known as the Harappan, was an ancient valley civilization that thrived on agriculture, and is generally considered to be one of the earliest civilizations known to man, right alongside Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Olmec are another ancient, long-gone civilization, existing around the same time as the Aztecs, Incans, and Mayans. The Minoans are another great pick for an ancient civilization, appearing in Crete during the Bronze Age.

The full article is here: Civilization 7's Hook Could Be a Focus on Ancient History

 

[The_J]

I think that's just some really wild guessing from the author there.
It would make a nice game, but not sure if that should be a Civ game. Or at least not the base game.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Frankly, it reads like what someone thinks would be cool who doesn't know anything about the Civ series. The Olmecs and Harappans and Minoans, as has been discussed to Near Death in these Forums, cannot be done the way Civ does Civilizations now because we do not have city lists or languages or enough information about individual Leaders for a Civ-Style civilization rendering.

-And changing the way Civ does Leaders and Leader Boards and Civilizations would be a major change in the presentation for Civ VII compared to the previous games in the series, and probably a Very Bad Idea since the animated, native-language-speaking Leaders are a major part of what sets Civ apart from Leaderless, language-less, city-list-less games like Humankind and Milllenia.

 

[Solver]

The problem isn't what the article says about Minoans or anything else specific, the problem is really that the article is "what I'd like a strategy game to do", but in order to generate clicks, it's framed and published as "what Civ7, which has not even been announced, may do".

 

[Nikolai II]

The problem isn't what the article says about Minoans or anything else specific, the problem is really that the article is "what I'd like a strategy game to do", but in order to generate clicks, it's framed and published as "what Civ7, which has not even been announced, may do".

Aside from this good critique…the article is almost a year old. That says it all.

 

[Dale]

Still don't get how people get hooked by obviously click-bait headings. Everyone in the know already knows the next Firaxis game is Colonisation 3.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The problem isn't what the article says about Minoans or anything else specific, the problem is really that the article is "what I'd like a strategy game to do", but in order to generate clicks, it's framed and published as "what Civ7, which has not even been announced, may do".

Reminds me of the article I saw on "the next Mario Kart" game.
They knew nothing about it except "look for it on a Nintendo system" and "featuring characters that you know and love like Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser etc."

I missed my calling. I should have become a gaming journalist if it's that easy.

 

[notNamed]

Just read some interesting info about Civ 7: it may have a focus on extinct civilizations such as the Harrapan and Minoans, e. g. If this is true I would be really looking forward to playing it.

For most of these, we have no person to put at the forefront because these are cultures we know strictly through archaeology.
Humankind features a bunch (Indus Valley, Olmecs, Mississipians,...) but most people would agree the game didn't manage to find a successful way to replace the personality that leaders add to the game in Civ. So you're back to finding a leader and you don't really even know the name of the civilisation (hence "people who lived in the modern Indus Valley", "Aztec name of the people of the vague area we found the artifacts in", "people who had several well-known archeological sites around the river we call Mississipi today"), let alone some actual personalities from it.

Oh, and...
"The Olmec are another ancient, long-gone civilization, existing around the same time as the Aztecs, Incans, and Mayans"

 

[Dale]

For most of these, we have no person to put at the forefront because these are cultures we know strictly through archaeology.
Humankind features a bunch (Indus Valley, Olmecs, Mississipians,...) but most people would agree the game didn't manage to find a successful way to replace the personality that leaders add to the game in Civ. So you're back to finding a leader and you don't really even know the name of the civilisation (hence "people who lived in the modern Indus Valley", "Aztec name of the people of the vague area we found the artifacts in", "people who had several well-known archeological sites around the river we call Mississipi today"), let alone some actual personalities from it.

Oh, and...
"The Olmec are another ancient, long-gone civilization, existing around the same time as the Aztecs, Incans, and Mayans"

The culture swapping of HK did more to destroy any personality/identity with your "civ" than the random avatars they employed. Culture swapping: worst design feature ever.

 

[UWHabs]

For most of these, we have no person to put at the forefront because these are cultures we know strictly through archaeology.
Humankind features a bunch (Indus Valley, Olmecs, Mississipians,...) but most people would agree the game didn't manage to find a successful way to replace the personality that leaders add to the game in Civ. So you're back to finding a leader and you don't really even know the name of the civilisation (hence "people who lived in the modern Indus Valley", "Aztec name of the people of the vague area we found the artifacts in", "people who had several well-known archeological sites around the river we call Mississipi today"), let alone some actual personalities from it.

Oh, and...
"The Olmec are another ancient, long-gone civilization, existing around the same time as the Aztecs, Incans, and Mayans"

Yeah, like civ seems more into personality of the leader, so they'd rather use probably fictional leaders like Gilgamesh than make up a leader for the Olmecs. I mean, 20 or 30 years ago, they would have made up one for them if that fit the game (Shakala anyone?), but that doesn't really fit their current working nearly as much. Like, if there was anyone, even some scribblings on a tablet, that hinted at a real person, I think civ could easily run with that. But they would have to invent an entire person to lead civs like that, and that just feels... problematic. If they really wanted to, they I'm sure could figure something out. But it just feels like it's stretching.

Civ doesn't necessarily need a strong leader for a civ, sure. Like if they offered us the Olmecs led by "Olmec Leader" (or make up some name using a semi-Mayan language), I'm sure people would play and enjoy, and they'd get their own personality based on the civ's attributes. but given the number of civs out there that could fit the game, where we do have some leader (real or semi-fictional), I don't think civ needs to stretch that far for that.