Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[itix]

I often play games without a single war and enjoy them. I really like 1UPT combat, especially in Civ7, but I like building things and growing my empire even more, so usually I don't want to spend resources on creating large army.

But even with this, I'm sitting comfortably on Immortal in Civ7, just don't want to go up yet.

That is similar to my playstyle in civ, from the first installment. First, I expand aggressively or even fight wars, but after that I concentrate on peaceful empire building.

 

[Leucarum]

Wars in civ get progressively less fun the more units are involved... Early wars end feeling up more tactical because you have to do more with less...

 

[queenpea]

Paradox has just announced that EU 5 will be released on November 4, 2025. The base price for the standard edition is US $59.99. A premium edition is also available for $84.99. The game is releasing on PC only.

 

[Haig]

There must be some overlap with EU and Civ players, but personally the Paradox games are not for me.

I own three titles but they have been collecting dust. Even CK3 lacks atmosphere and personality I find in Civ. Of course tastes differ!

What I am intrigued about is Endless Legend 2 that releases on early access on September. I don't like Humankind but I have been enjoying EL2 demo.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I also believe that the idea of Normans already representing "England" (as we never had Britain before in name, even if e.g., civ IV was certainly meant to be the British Empire and not the English) has some sense to it.

Would it had been "England" instead of the Normans, I think that would have alleviated most people's distaste. Releasing a Modern British civ down the line would also still have worked.
Even if the Normans are supposed to represent "England" they don't feel quite right as it also giving partly Medieval France as well, making it like France was released with 1.5 civs on top of 3 French leaders.

I just counted the release roster for Humankind and there were about 10 cultures per era, which is the same as VII's 10 civilizations per age. I wonder if Humankind just feels much better now because of all the DLC cultures.

But there were also double the ages, which means double the cultures on launch. Granted civilizations are much more unique than cultures are in Humankind.

 

[queenpea]

There must be some overlap with EU and Civ players, but personally the Paradox games are not for me.

I own three titles but they have been collecting dust. Even CK3 lacks atmosphere and personality I find in Civ. Of course tastes differ!

What I am intrigued about is Endless Legend 2 that releases on early access on September. I don't like Humankind but I have been enjoying EL2 demo.

Ed Beach is certainly a player

 

[Siptah]

Paradox has just announced that EU 5 will be released on November 4, 2025. The base price for the standard edition is US $59.99. A premium edition is also available for $84.99. The game is releasing on PC only.

One week before Anno 117. Oh the horrors.

 

[GeneralZift]

I think the problem there is matching the basic snowball mechanics (inherent in any empire builder) with the desire for a proper challenge.

What they need is AI bonuses that ramp up throughout the game. (probably based on how well those AIs did in previous ages) [the Ages structure appears to be potentially good for this]

I'd like to see Civ move away from higher difficulty = more AI units and cities at start and instead implement something like the AI gets bonus yields each turn = turn # times X, where X is bigger the higher the difficulty level. So if X = 1%, then by turn 25 the AI is getting 25% more than their base yields, and by turn 50 that's up to 50% more than their base yields.

These solutions I think are very similar, and I think it's simple and works well. Once the game gets closer to the end, the AI gets more competitive, and this makes the ending more dramatic and interesting.
But, I think there needs to be adjustments to the general game design to make the ending more competitive. For example, via Ideology wars, Diplomacy, World Congress, Cyber warfare etc. etc.

I wish the game would introduce something like Rimworlds scaling difficulty. Count cities, units, tech and gold - compare that to each civ and then give a negative multiplier to AI attitudes based on that. The AI should gang up against you more if you are dominating and on a path to victory. On the other hand, friendlier if you are no threat. Introduce some chaos. That's not even a better AI, just some modifiers to make the AI at least do something. It would of course help if they tweaked the AI to be better also.

Finally someone else suggested Rimworld's systems. I really think this would work well for Civilization.

The title Rimworld focuses on making an interesting story that 'ebbs' and 'flows' from game states of great victory and utter defeat, without feeling too hopeless.
Think about it, this is exactly how Civilization behaves in reality. You have golden eras of prosperity for your nation, and among them, dark times where you need to play dirty to survive.

So the game should be designed to always strain the player -- this keeps them engaged to the end!!


Finally, I will say that my personal opinion is that the AI just needs work, like hard determined work: new AI systems, smarter AI systems, AI that is 'more informed' about the game state, and one which understands better how to play the game. At the very least it should use all the mechanics properly.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Paradox has just announced that EU 5 will be released on November 4, 2025. The base price for the standard edition is US $59.99. A premium edition is also available for $84.99. The game is releasing on PC only.

Well that's their deadline for getting a sale from me by then. EUIV is the only game that has somehow miraculously passed my Civ V play time

 

[Leucarum]

Paradox has just announced that EU 5 will be released on November 4, 2025. The base price for the standard edition is US $59.99. A premium edition is also available for $84.99. The game is releasing on PC only.

There must be some overlap with EU and Civ players, but personally the Paradox games are not for me.

I own three titles but they have been collecting dust. Even CK3 lacks atmosphere and personality I find in Civ. Of course tastes differ!

What I am intrigued about is Endless Legend 2 that releases on early access on September. I don't like Humankind but I have been enjoying EL2 demo.

EUV could flop, but Paradox seem.to have learned the lessons of Imperstor and are really putting a lot of effort into engaging with the community prior to game launch so I have hope.

Civ5 was the only Civ edition which I skipped, and for that period I went over to Paradox games as my main strategy fix. I do enjoy 7 but it has big flaws and I think it could easily be the case that Firaxis lose me to Paradox again...

 

[queenpea]

EUV could flop, but Paradox seem.to have learned the lessons of Imperstor and are really putting a lot of effort into engaging with the community prior to game launch so I have hope.

Civ5 was the only Civ edition which I skipped, and for that period I went over to Paradox games as my main strategy fix. I do enjoy 7 but it has big flaws and I think it could easily be the case that Firaxis lose me to Paradox again...

I don't think it will flop based the previews I've seen, though I do recognize there are risks with performance, late game lag, and overly complicated systems. Unfortunately, I won't be able to play it at launch as I'm a Mac owner, so I will have to wait.

 

[Leucarum]

I don't think it will flop based the previews I've seen, though I do recognize there are risks with performance, late game lag, and overly complicated systems. Unfortunately, I won't be able to play it at launch as I'm a Mac owner, so I will have to wait.

Paradox do appear to have moved.past their rough patch. I also worry about the UI but... Am hopeful!

And on the plus side you'll get to play it after the launch bugs are ironed out

 

[Siptah]

I don't think it will flop based the previews I've seen, though I do recognize there are risks with performance, late game lag, and overly complicated systems. Unfortunately, I won't be able to play it at launch as I'm a Mac owner, so I will have to wait.

Wait, it‘s not for Mac on release? All PDS titles in the past 15 years or so were on Mac at release. What a shame! I can only hope for GeforceNow then.

 

[queenpea]

Wait, it‘s not for Mac on release? All PDS titles in the past 15 years or so were on Mac at release. What a shame! I can only hope for GeforceNow then.

From what I can tell, it’s only supported on Windows (for now).

 

[aieeegrunt]

I mean not just this, but if you think of the implications, it's worse when it comes to the Leaders

All the main 'Civ' leaders are missing, so they'll be obvious DLC. No Genghis (and they said "oh wow I can't believe we forgot about that")

And no Montezuma, none of the American presidents (Abe, Theo or George at least).
No Kings or Queens of England. Or prime minister even.

No Gandhi but obviously some people don't want him, even though this is the perfect game for him.

No Musa OR any black male at all. Not even Alexander showed up.

I really don't know what happened there. Yes, modern age would look pretty Eurocentric if Siam would be replaced with Britain on release, but geographic representation was more or less ok with Japan, India and China representing Asia.

Oh come on, we all know what happened. Monetization happened.

Old World has proven it is possible to create lean and mean AI.

But the truth is that most players don't want AI to put up a fight. They want to steamroll over AI, not that AI steamrolls over them.

This is what settler difficulty is for

A big,BIG part of late game fatigue in Civ 5 and 6 is because the AI is abysmal and poses zero threat after the power spike from it’s initial starting bonuses is passed

The AI since 4 is awful. If I play 5 or 6 for a while and then play an older title it becomes apparent very quickly.

 

[King of Prussia]

We will see what kind of state EUV is at release. Their several of their last titles have not done well. In general it takes them many years of updates and expansions to get to a high quality.

 

[Bug Repellent]

There must be some overlap with EU and Civ players, but personally the Paradox games are not for me.

I own three titles but they have been collecting dust. Even CK3 lacks atmosphere and personality I find in Civ. Of course tastes differ!

What I am intrigued about is Endless Legend 2 that releases on early access on September. I don't like Humankind but I have been enjoying EL2 demo.

I like both Stellaris and Surviving Mars. I'm a space nerd, what can I say?

 

[Kwami]

We will see what kind of state EUV is at release. Their several of their last titles have not done well. In general it takes them many years of updates and expansions to get to a high quality.

And many, many additional dollars!

 

[queenpea]

And many, many additional dollars!

I’ve already spent $130 on Civ VII…but yes, Paradox DLC is often ridiculous in volume and cost.

 

[GeneralZift]

moral quandary