Only 30 Civs in base game (+ Shawnee)

[The_J]

For 31 civs? Funny enough, here at 31:00, in about 10 seconds from that he tells it.

Perfect, thank you .
I have added this to the OP.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I am very happy with this amount. Seems like the right amount to start with. More than any other civ launch. Which is cool. I understand the concern regarding the individual game player count, but you’re playing the leaders, not the civ.

It's definitely got the bigliest number of civs for a launch. It's going to be the greatest civilization launch maybe ever.

But seriously, I hope people can hop off the media spin Firaxis are putting on this. A civilization in civ VII is not equivalent to a civilization in past games, and if you're going by diversity of choice, at any given point you pick a civ you have a choice of 10 instead of a choice of 18 in past launches. That's not more, than cooking the books to make it look like more

 

[moysturfurmer]

It's definitely got the bigliest number of civs for a launch. It's going to be the greatest civilization launch maybe ever.

But seriously, I hope people can hop off the media spin Firaxis are putting on this. A civilization in civ VII is not equivalent to a civilization in past games, and if you're going by diversity of choice, at any given point you pick a civ you have a choice of 10 instead of a choice of 18 in past launches. That's not more, than cooking the books to make it look like more

It’s neither more nor less. And yet, it is both more and less simultaneously. It’s not entirely good faith to make definitive claims in either direction.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It's definitely got the bigliest number of civs for a launch. It's going to be the greatest civilization launch maybe ever.

But seriously, I hope people can hop off the media spin Firaxis are putting on this. A civilization in civ VII is not equivalent to a civilization in past games, and if you're going by diversity of choice, at any given point you pick a civ you have a choice of 10 instead of a choice of 18 in past launches. That's not more, than cooking the books to make it look like more

Alternatively, the Leaders are now being positioned as the significant starting option instead of civs, and Firaxis claims there are more base game leaders than ever before.

I'm not sure that I actually feel that way. I'm somewhere in between "civs are important and 10 is too few" and "leaders are important and 18+ is enough".

 

[Voidwalkin]

It’s neither more nor less. And yet, it is both more and less simultaneously. It’s not entirely good faith to make definitive claims in either direction.

I mean, if a player is only interested in playing one civ, you could definitely say they're getting less if said civ is present in only 1 of 3 eras. I'm sure there are gonna be some players who don't even get their preferred civ at all. Russia and maybe GB? Pretty big markets, too.

Alternatively, the Leaders are now being positioned as the significant starting option instead of civs, and Firaxis claims there are more base game leaders than ever before.

I'm not sure that I actually feel that way. I'm somewhere in between "civs are important and 10 is too few" and "leaders are important and 18+ is enough".

I think that's a bandaid for not having your civ present. I lean heavily towards 10 is not enough, partly for gameplay and partly because when I do my little eval on game reception I don't think they've covered enough bases, and are gonna invariably disappoint at least some longtime fans.

Edit: I think my thoughts are coalescing into a clear stance: there is nothing wrong with switching conceptually, and if done well, it actually has the potential to be a real boost. But the requirements necessary to do it well are far higher than past installments, and in this department, 30/10 per is well short of what I'd consider well done. It may get there, price of getting there an uncertainty presently, but at this point on release it's pretty... meh.

Could be better.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I mean, if a player is only interested in playing one civ, you could definitely say they're getting less if said civ is present in only 1 of 3 eras. I'm sure there are gonna be some players who don't even get their preferred civ at all. Russia and maybe GB? Pretty big markets, too.

I think that's a bandaid for not having your civ present. I lean heavily towards 10 is not enough, partly for gameplay and partly because when I do my little eval on game reception I don't think they've covered enough bases, and are gonna invariably disappoint at least some longtime fans.

Edit: I think my thoughts are coalescing into a clear stance: there is nothing wrong with switching conceptually, and if done well, it actually has the potential to be a real boost. But the requirements necessary to do it well are far higher than past installments, and in this department, 30/10 per is well short of what I'd consider well done. It may get there, price of getting there an uncertainty presently, but at this point on release it's pretty... meh.

Could be better.

If that's your jam, civs aren't the only representation coverage now. Leaders are too. So, Vietnam and the Hausa are represented by leaders instead of civs. There are probably other leaders for non-present civs. Maybe they will throw in Rasputin or Tolstoy for the Rusophiles. Maybe Montezuma will be rocking it for the non-present Aztecs. Maybe Pedro will return to have a Carnivale party sans Brazil.

 

[Voidwalkin]

If that's your jam, civs aren't the only representation coverage now. Leaders are too. So, Vietnam and the Hausa are represented by leaders instead of civs. There are probably other leaders for non-present civs. Maybe they will throw in Rasputin or Tolstoy for the Rusophiles. Maybe Montezuma will be rocking it for the non-present Aztecs. Maybe Pedro will return to have a Carnivale party sans Brazil.

I look forward to having modern America led by the absolute looniest medievaliest psycho available, FWIW.

I'm just perhaps less thrilled about potentially having to play Rome to get there. My understanding is that having a leader unlocks civs regardless of pathing, but that would lock me into Franklin, who is nowhere near as wild as I'd like to get with it.

I'll see what workarounds I can manage. I can probably finangle one if it's at all possible.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

But seriously, I hope people can hop off the media spin Firaxis are putting on this. A civilization in civ VII is not equivalent to a civilization in past games, and if you're going by diversity of choice, at any given point you pick a civ you have a choice of 10 instead of a choice of 18 in past launches. That's not more, than cooking the books to make it look like more

I'm not sure your own spin is much better than the FXS spin, it's equally misleading imo.

There are fewer civs to pick from at any given point, this is true. 30 civs doesn't seem like a lot when you can only access 10 per age. "The most civs ever" marketing line is weak and misleading, because it probably won't feel like there are move civs. They need to add some more.

But by the same token, since "a civilization in Civ VII is not equivalent to a civilization in past games", it's equally misleading to judge them by the same standards. If we think about a full campaign, rather than individual civs, the number of permutations, or "the diversity of choice", has massively increased in VII vs VI. It's not about picking just one civ anymore, it's about picking a leader + 3 civs.

 

[Krikkit1]

I look forward to having modern America led by the absolute looniest medievaliest psycho available, FWIW.

I'm just perhaps less thrilled about potentially having to play Rome to get there. My understanding is that having a leader unlocks civs regardless of pathing, but that would lock me into Franklin, who is nowhere near as wild as I'd like to get with it.

I'll see what workarounds I can manage. I can probably finangle one if it's at all possible.

We know the Mongols and Inca have gameplay unlocks, it’s possible other civs do as well. I could see
Found 3 cities in the “New World” to unlock America

Also you wouldn’t have to start as Rome, Greece->Norman and some other Age2 civ besides Norman probably goes to America (maybe Hawaii)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I'm not sure your own spin is much better than the FXS spin, it's equally misleading imo.

There are fewer civs to pick from at any given point, this is true. 30 civs doesn't seem like a lot when you can only access 10 per age. "The most civs ever" marketing line is weak and misleading, because it probably won't feel like there are move civs. They need to add some more.

But by the same token, since "a civilization in Civ VII is not equivalent to a civilization in past games", it's equally misleading to judge them by the same standards. If we think about a full campaign, rather than individual civs, the number of permutations, or "the diversity of choice", has massively increased in VII vs VI. It's not about picking just one civ anymore, it's about picking a leader + 3 civs.

- And, although this is as much a Hope as anything, I think there is a good chance that choice will be increased by having the Civ/Leader combinations provide avenues for Progression but not Lock you into Progressions.

That is, I think picking Ben Franklin as a Leader opens up the possibility of playing America in the Modern Age, but does not make it Mandatory. Mandatory would reduce player choice, whereas always leaving some kind of path for a choice provided by in-game events would give the gamer a chance of reacting to in-game events, which I think is always a better design option.

Which means an initial choice of Leader and Civ still leaves at least devious paths to most of the remaining Civs in the subsequent Ages and doesn't lock you in to fewer choices the longer you play.

That's my Hope, anyway . . .

 

[Krikkit1]

- And, although this is as much a Hope as anything, I think there is a good chance that choice will be increased by having the Civ/Leader combinations provide avenues for Progression but not Lock you into Progressions.

That is, I think picking Ben Franklin as a Leader opens up the possibility of playing America in the Modern Age, but does not make it Mandatory. Mandatory would reduce player choice, whereas always leaving some kind of path for a choice provided by in-game events would give the gamer a chance of reacting to in-game events, which I think is always a better design option.

Which means an initial choice of Leader and Civ still leaves at least devious paths to most of the remaining Civs in the subsequent Ages and doesn't lock you in to fewer choices the longer you play.

That's my Hope, anyway . . .

I see nothing a Human player does that would lock them in to a certain choice for a civ. (they might fail to unlock a civ they want, but nothing they do should “lock” a civ or stop you from using it.)

 

[AriochIV]

I see nothing a Human player does that would lock them in to a certain choice for a civ. (they might fail to unlock a civ they want, but nothing they do should “lock” a civ or stop you from using it.)

If a player fails to achieve any gameplay unlocks, and if the player has chosen a leader from a different Age than the current civilization, and if both the civilization and leader each have only one guaranteed unlock, then it's possible that a player might be forced into only one civ choice for the next era.

That's a lot of "if's", granted.

 

[dagriggstar]

Something I realised while all this 7 stuff was going on is that, despite having over 2000 hours in civ vi, I haven’t actually played every civilisation at least once through to win. I say civilisation because playing China or England however many times like I don’t think I could do that, it’s theoretically only one out of four bonuses that changes. I say theoretically because so many of the bonuses are messy and layered. But on average they are 25% different and that’s not enough for me to say they are meaningfully different.

Now for 7, we have a leader bonus but also each civilisation has a heap of civics. If we take the Khmer there’s 11 unique elements. So the leader choice is 1/12 or 8.33%.
If we assume unique events for every leader for every government type then it’s more equal however if that’s the case how will we even really know what bonuses we are picking to begin with ? It gets a bit messy but that would make it like 4/15 I guess which is still lower than the amount of difference in a civ vi game between leaders for the same civilisation.

The civ choices themselves, I guess let’s assume Khmer into Shawnee. The Khmer have three traditions that become ongoing choices. Shawnee have 15 unique elements. 3/18 is 16.66%.

If I’m already not playing the “different choices” in 6 (every leader), I don’t feel like I’m playing every leader civ or civ civ combination in 7. So I guess it’s more like 10 choices.
Civilisations are where most of the unique elements are, that feels like the most important thing to play.

 

[timmychompchomp]

It's definitely got the bigliest number of civs for a launch. It's going to be the greatest civilization launch maybe ever.

But seriously, I hope people can hop off the media spin Firaxis are putting on this. A civilization in civ VII is not equivalent to a civilization in past games, and if you're going by diversity of choice, at any given point you pick a civ you have a choice of 10 instead of a choice of 18 in past launches. That's not more, than cooking the books to make it look like more

Totally agree, but I assume there will be 31 leaders? I understand the spin issue, but I think of it differently. I think of it as combinations. You had 18 variations with civ vi. Of course that expands with victory conditions, but both games have that. The amount of variation between leaders, civs, and leader ability promotions, is insane. So, I give them a pass on the promotional spin, because the amount of combinations and replay ability is incredibly impressive.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

If that's your jam, civs aren't the only representation coverage now. Leaders are too. So, Vietnam and the Hausa are represented by leaders instead of civs. There are probably other leaders for non-present civs. Maybe they will throw in Rasputin or Tolstoy for the Rusophiles. Maybe Montezuma will be rocking it for the non-present Aztecs. Maybe Pedro will return to have a Carnivale party sans Brazil.

Honestly, this is not a bad way to look at it.

A lot of people found Scythia to be a weird civilization, but that Tomyris was a fun leader, if you decouple it, you can keep Tomyris, but omit Scythia. Or the Huns.

I do wanna also add, my only problem is that per age limit just limits the potential player count, I hope it's not capped at 10, I do like my big games.

 

[Voidwalkin]

I do wanna also add, my only problem is that per age limit just limits the potential player count, I hope it's not capped at 10, I do like my big games.

Me too.

My standard game has been huge maps with max civs for as long as I can remember. 10 is so far beneath my preference that it's really hurt my excitement.

It's cramping my style. Quite actually.

 

[Zaarin]

Totally agree, but I assume there will be 31 leaders?

I would highly, highly doubt that. I'm expecting ~20 personally.

A lot of people found Scythia to be a weird civilization

Not my style of civ, but I liked Scythia as an inclusion, and I think it fits Civ7 even better--it's a pretty natural segue either to Mongolia, a Central Asian civ like Timurids, or a variety of Eastern European civs like Poland and Rus'.

 

[Atlas627]

It's definitely got the bigliest number of civs for a launch. It's going to be the greatest civilization launch maybe ever.

But seriously, I hope people can hop off the media spin Firaxis are putting on this. A civilization in civ VII is not equivalent to a civilization in past games, and if you're going by diversity of choice, at any given point you pick a civ you have a choice of 10 instead of a choice of 18 in past launches. That's not more, than cooking the books to make it look like more

At any given point, but there are three points instead of one.

You're just as determined to be upset as you're claiming the others are determined to like it.

 

[timmychompchomp]

I would highly, highly doubt that. I'm expecting ~20 personally.


Not my style of civ, but I liked Scythia as an inclusion, and I think it fits Civ7 even better--it's a pretty natural segue either to Mongolia, a Central Asian civ like Timurids, or a variety of Eastern European civs like Poland and Rus'.

I was assuming it was 31, but the last leader reveal made me question that assumption.

 

[Zaarin]

I was assuming it was 31, but the last leader reveal made me question that assumption.

They said we'll have more leaders than we've ever had a in a civ game before, but they're counting personae--and 20 would technically be more than we've ever had before. So after learning we "only" have 30 civs compared to some of the higher numbers some were speculating before, I'd definitely take a conservative expectation on that number until we're told more specifics.