Overall impression (poll)

[TheGrayFox]

If you speak about the possibility of players outside civ fanatics being totally fine with civ switching then I have to disprove it - all discursive spaces are on fire and havingly seemingly like 50% of their voices very negative (with the remaining half not even being purely positive but positive + neutral). Civ reddit, youtube comments, paradoxplaza, random forums across the web... It's massive discontent at this point. I am frankly surprised how uniform it is - I have perceived civ reddit to be fairly uncritical, conformist and overall not a place of discussion, and even they are on fire.

This is the thing. it'd be one thing if it was just one community. Then you could say "well that's just a loud minority" but when its almost every single online community related to the sequel, it's showcase trailer, every comment section, etc being overwhelmingly negative, it might be time to take a step back and say "oh this idea generally doesn't seem very popular among the fans"

 

[Krajzen]

This is the thing. it'd be one thing if it was just one community. Then you could say "well that's just a loud minority" but when its almost every single online community related to the sequel, it's showcase trailer, every comment section, etc being overwhelmingly negative, it might be time to take a step back and say "oh this idea generally doesn't seem very popular among the fans"

I honestly wonder what was Firaxis thinking in terms of community's reception of civ switching, was it
1) Delusion that people are going to love it just because it's more mechanical choices, variety and dynamism - and, like I wrote, completely overlooking the importance of the old style "vibes" ("historical immersion" or whatever) for the global playerbase
or
2) The awareness that the change is going to be very controversial but still going with it anyway.

Latter option is much worse, since this may render Firaxis too stubborn to facilitate "old style" way of playing as an option in favour of "you ARE going to like the new system, it is totally going to convince you sooner or later".

 

[Leucarum]

I honestly wonder what was Firaxis thinking in terms of community's reception of civ switching, was it
1) Delusion that people are going to love it just because it's more mechanical choices, variety and dynamism - and, like I wrote, completely overlooking the importance of the old style "vibes" ("historical immersion" or whatever) for the global playerbase
or
2) The awareness that the change is going to be very controversial but still going with it anyway.

Latter option is much worse, since this may render Firaxis too stubborn to facilitate "old style" way of playing as an option in favour of "you ARE going to like the new system, it is totally going to convince you sooner or later".

The options aren't mutually exclusive.

Until HK released, I think they expected it to be recieved positively (so #1). People certainly seemed hyped for it there! But by the point humankind flopped it almost certainly would have neen been too late/costly to change (#2).

 

[Krajzen]

I mean, HK was released three years ago, plenty of time to scrap the entire idea if Firaxis came to conclusion Humanknd's failure invalidates the notion. It is not that crucial feature for the entire game - Three Ages and Crises system is crucial, and it can acommodate old "4000 BC to 2000 AD" civilizations. Or create shakeup in less controversial way, such as my age old proposal "can we like make some new major civilizations appear at the later stages of the game" to join the struggle against 4000 BC ones.

 

[Leucarum]

I mean, HK was released three years ago, plenty of time to scrap the entire idea if Firaxis came to conclusion Humanknd's failure invalidates the notion. It is not that crucial feature for the entire game - Three Ages and Crises system is crucial, and it can acommodate old "4000 BC to 2000 AD" civilizations. Or create shakeup in less controversial way, such as my age old proposal "can we like make some new major civilizations appear at the later stages of the game" to join the struggle against 4000 BC ones.

I think you might be underestimating the amount of time needed to change course on something that fundamental... And whether they did already do a partial course correction in those three years which we don't see at this point! Who knows, maybe there were significantly more switches!

 

[DWilson]

I think if something like this was going to change, they would need to have much more interaction with the audience at an earlier stage of development.

I think this Is what Paradox is trying to do with EU5

 

[Leucarum]

I think this Is what Paradox is trying to do with EU5

I think you mean "Project Caesar"

 

[Thormodr]

If you speak about the possibility of players outside civ fanatics being totally fine with civ switching then I have to disprove it - all discursive spaces are on fire and havingly seemingly like 50% of their voices very negative (with the remaining half not even being purely positive but positive + neutral). Civ reddit, youtube comments, paradoxplaza, random forums across the web... It's massive discontent at this point. I am frankly surprised how uniform it is - I have perceived civ reddit to be fairly uncritical, conformist and overall not a place of discussion, and even they are on fire.

Wow! I would figure the cesspool that is reddit would have been much more positive. That is really surprising.

 

[SySnootles]

I was all in on it and ready to pre-order, but then discovered that it won't be including hotseat multiplayer. That's the only way I play, with my wife and I swapping turns on the couch. Leaving out what is, to us, the most important feature completely negates everything else, and now I won't even be buying it. It really makes me sad, I've been playing since I got Civ II back in the mid-90s.

 

[Thormodr]

I was all in on it and ready to pre-order, but then discovered that it won't be including hotseat multiplayer. That's the only way I play, with my wife and I swapping turns on the couch. Leaving out what is, to us, the most important feature completely negates everything else, and now I won't even be buying it. It really makes me sad, I've been playing since I got Civ II back in the mid-90s.

Sorry, man. I hope that they implement that feature for you.

It's cool that you play with your wife, though.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I honestly wonder what was Firaxis thinking in terms of community's reception of civ switching, was it
1) Delusion that people are going to love it just because it's more mechanical choices, variety and dynamism - and, like I wrote, completely overlooking the importance of the old style "vibes" ("historical immersion" or whatever) for the global playerbase
or
2) The awareness that the change is going to be very controversial but still going with it anyway.

Latter option is much worse, since this may render Firaxis too stubborn to facilitate "old style" way of playing as an option in favour of "you ARE going to like the new system, it is totally going to convince you sooner or later".

Like with a lot of the features, I think the devs come up with ideas that they love and then they sincerely hope that fans will love the ideas as much as they do. It is a bit like when you love a certain book or movie or song and you really want someone close to you to love that thing as much as you do. This can create a blind spot because their love for their own ideas might blind them to fans who might think differently.

 

[Krajzen]

Like with a lot of the features, I think the devs come up with ideas that they love and then they sincerely hope that fans will love the ideas as much as they do. It is a bit like when you love a certain book or movie or song and you really want someone close to you to love that thing as much as you do. This can create a blind spot because their love for their own ideas might blind them to fans who might think differently.

That is the most possible answer, yes. And the saddest one; something made Firaxis devs deeply inspired by Humankind's idea, and now they have to confront the fact that massive amount of fans dislike it : (

 

[SupremacyKing2]

That is the most possible answer, yes. And the saddest one; something made Firaxis devs deeply inspired by Humankind's idea, and now they have to confront the fact that massive amount of fans dislike it : (

First, I am not entirely convinced that the devs were inspired by Humankind. They could have come up with the idea on their own. Like they explain in the showcase, they realized that the current civ bonuses do not work well across the entire game. They might have come up with the idea of era specific civs as a way to solve that problem on their own. Also, civ-switching is not a new idea that Humankind invented. Humankind just seems like the most recent 4x game to do it. But the idea has been around. So the devs could have found the idea from somewhere else. But assuming that they were inspired by Humankind, how were they supposed to know that so many civ fans would hate the idea? The devs are not mind readers. And as I have mentioned before, civ7 implements the idea differently than Humankind. So it is not like the civ7 devs just copied the idea exactly the same. They implemented the idea in their own unique way. And again, the idea makes sense to them. It fits their vision for civ7. They have no way of knowing that so many civ fans would hate the idea until they share info about it and see the reaction which they did during the planned showcase reveal.

Lastly, I would point out that none of these civ fans who hate the idea, have actually played the game. They are just reacting based on the limited info that was released so far. And many of them, don't seem to understand how the feature actually works in civ7, they are just having a knee jerk reaction because it reminds them of Humankind and they don't like Humankind. And it is possible that these same fans may change their minds after more info is revealed or after they play the game. I think the devs need to be careful not to overreact to what fans say on the internet. That is how you make a bad game, when you try to appease everybody that shouts on the internet. Devs need to listen to fans of course but they also need balance that with what they know about the game and their vision for the game.

 

[Thormodr]

That is the most possible answer, yes. And the saddest one; something made Firaxis devs deeply inspired by Humankind's idea, and now they have to confront the fact that massive amount of fans dislike it : (

Ed Beach is a big board game guy, like I am.

I can definitely see some influence for the Civ switching in board games, now that I think about it.

History of the World comes to mind, first.

History of the World

Civilizations rise and fall. Rewrite history in this epoch-sprawling game of strategy

boardgamegeek.com

 

[rocksinmypath]

I don't think it was stubbornness or delusion that prompted their decisions. You're all forgetting that there is potentially a much wider market out there for the Civ franchise than what it has managed to capture thus far. There were people who tried Civ 6 or previous installments and never fell in love with the series for one reason or another. There will be people who will encounter the series for the first time when they play Civ 7. Firaxis has a much greater incentive to appeal to those people than to try to retain all of the existing fanbase, which would be futile to attempt at. The argument that culture swap makes the game worse because of historical inaccuracies, etc. is an arbitrary one that can be countered by pointing out that the previous paradigm has similar problems. Is it weird that Egypt evolves to Mongolia? Yes. Is it weird that Egypt and Mongolia can be neighbours in 4000 BC? Also, yes. I'm not saying it's unreasonable to feel that the culture swap makes the game less fun. What I'm saying is, if the situation was reversed, where the culture swap was in the incumbent paradigm and was being removed in Civ 7, I'm willing to bet that there would be a similar sort of outrage within the fanbase. Instead of worrying about that, Firaxis chose to tackle big problems with Civ 6 that was making the game less fun than it could be for most of the people who have played the game (e.g. late-game slog). That's not delusion.

 

[Thormodr]

"You're all forgetting that there is potentially a much wider market out there for the Civ franchise than what it has managed to capture thus far."

Yes. All the people that have yearned to play Japan led by Benjamin Franklin or the Zulus led by Confucius.

 

[James_Champagne]

I actually totally forgot about the gameplay trailer dropping on the 20th (got back from vacation this week and my mind's been preoccupied). I got around to it today. I did get excited when I found out that Gwendoline Christie was the narrator (the GAME OF THRONES fan in me thought, "This is great, CIV VI had Ned Stark, now VII has Brienne of Tarth"). Sadly the rest of the gameplay trailer was a crushing disappointment. Only 3 eras, with civ switching at the start of each new one... who really thought this was a good idea? It's like they decided to base their game around HUMANKIND's worst feature. Ugh.

 

[Cywil]

Good things:
+ commanders armies packing/unpacking units within 1 tile radius,
+ navigable rivers,
+ landscape and buildings and units models.

Bad things:
- civs changing in time,
- unreadable UI,
- leaders visual interaction,
- undiscovered tiles strange style,
- maps density (too many settlements tiles on a map comparing to wild tiles),
- general feeling that the game doesn't look like Civ but like Humankind or Millennia rather.

 

[Malachi256]

I put "no opinion," but I'm definitely not optimistic.

I put 800+ hours into Civ 5, 500ish in Civ 6, and I'm not even sure I'm going to buy Civ 7. My faith in the AAA studios has declined pretty sharply in recent years...
I hope I'm wrong and it's amazing!

 

[IgorS]

I put "no opinion," but I'm definitely not optimistic.

I put 800+ hours into Civ 5, 500ish in Civ 6, and I'm not even sure I'm going to buy Civ 7. My faith in the AAA studios has declined pretty sharply in recent years...
I hope I'm wrong and it's amazing!

Civ VII may be amazing, but not as a Civilization game, unfortunately. With the main concept of "building a civilization to stand the test of time" removed in favour of morphing from one civ to another, and having a leader not connected to any of your three civs, Civilization VII can do Humankind the right way, but definitely not Civilization.
For me, I don't care how good Civ VII is, this is not a Civilization game anymore, so I will skip it, hoping that they either add a "classic" mode (which is highly unlikely), or that Civ VIII returns the series to its roots, whenever it comes out (my guess - 2030 the earliest).
And of course, I hope some other studio will pick up the challenge, and give us a proper Civ game, just like we got Parkitect and Planet Coaster instead of the defunct Rollercoaster Tycoon, Cities Skylines instead of the defunct SimCity, and, from what it looks like, also InZoi instead of the defunct The Sims.