Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[tman2000]

I don't mind all three existing at once! And it's not new to have different stages of a Civ's journey in a single civ. Nobody batted an eyelid at Rome and Spain co-existing for example.

But I really miss being able to take Rome into space for example...

My concept for Civ 8 is a "earn keeping your civ alive" premise. The higher the difficulty, the harder it is to NOT civ-switch, and civ-switching will represent a kind of bonus or handicap that makes it easier to recover from being behind.

At the same time, you can turn it completely off, and there will be "legacy" civs built out of the most historically appropriate pieces, i.e.: a complete "China" featuring the full Han-Ming-Qinq civics tree. This will be in an included "legacy" mode that ignores civ switching completely. Civs that don't have ancient counter parts will use default trees, or if appropriate, a regionally similar proxy. You ought to also be able to customize this.

 

[ombak]

Civ 8 will 100% not include switching

I could see Civ 8 including iterations on the civ switching gameplay presented in a very different and much less clumsy way. Say, letting you keep your civ all game long, but incorporating traditions and other things (maybe units, maybe not) from other civs, but not interrupting the game at predetermined points like 7 does, so it all happens more smoothly, is an evolution of current gameplay, but doesn't turn players off who didn't play civ 7 because of switching.

And if something like that happens, we'll have threads as long as these arguing back and forth about whether Firaxis went back on civ switching or just implemented it in a more organic way and Civ 7 was a necessary step on the way.

 

[Xur]

I could see Civ 8 including iterations on the civ switching gameplay presented in a very different and much less clumsy way. Say, letting you keep your civ all game long, but incorporating traditions and other things (maybe units, maybe not) from other civs, but not interrupting the game at predetermined points like 7 does, so it all happens more smoothly, is an evolution of current gameplay, but doesn't turn players off who didn't play civ 7 because of switching.

And if something like that happens, we'll have threads as long as these arguing back and forth about whether Firaxis went back on civ switching or just implemented it in a more organic way and Civ 7 was a necessary step on the way.

I they do that for civ8 there wont be any threads - people that hate it will just drop the franchise and accept defeat.

 

[Kwami]

The term is obviously mocking Firaxis for blatantly charging more for these civs, despite them playing a lesser role each game.

They're charging the same price as before, and less once you consider inflation. The so-called "civlets" are also include more stuff than the old civs. They certainly don't play a lesser role in the game.

 

[Siptah]

For me at least, the new civs have more replayability as most of the civs in V and VI. Back then, I got a new civ, and played it once – usually doing what it is supposed to do. Then I forgot about it for a long time. In rare cases, I might have played a second game to give it a different spin. The scenarios could change this, and increase the value of a civ by a whole lot for me.

In 7, I play a game with a new civ, and then start another one right away, because I want to see how that new civ can work in combination with some other civs and leaders. But as I'm playing 2-3 games with a civ, I can hardly complain about the price – the time spent on playing the civ is by far the larger investment for me personally. It's basically the price of a cup of coffee in a normal café against two weeks of my gaming time. One of these "currencies" I spent without thinking much about it, the other is highly contested by many other activities (and also other games). This may be very subjective and a clear first world problem though.

 

[Kev1916]

I they do that for civ8 there wont be any threads - people that hate it will just drop the franchise and accept defeat.

I also think , if they double down with the over priced mini “civlets” it’s game over for any idea of a “civ”game

 

[Kev1916]

"Civlet" is not a term used in a way that is culturally insensitive, it is being used in a way to showcase corporate greed or even just this new mechanic. I think this is rather apparent. To spin it to be something culturally insensitive is either a rather large misunderstanding or devious passive aggression. Every campaign game is now made of 3 civs, not just 1. (Or 1 whole civ for the whole game) No more is the option to play all 3 ages with 1 civ. Instead, now you must play with 3 smaller "civlets". That is the context of the term meant to discuss a dissection of a whole civ (game mechanic) into 3 civlets (new game mechanic).

The term is obviously mocking Firaxis for blatantly charging more for these civs, despite them playing a lesser role each game.

Totally the greed this time round is insidious .

Fans however will not forget the currently DLC's getting pumped out are at record negative reviews .

Imho they will try the same with the next expansion and released a well over priced 4th age with a few civslets lobbed in and a famous "leader"

 

[Siptah]

Some data on reviews according to Steam by language.

German 53% positive
Brazilian Portuguese 49% positive
English 49% positive
Japanese 48 % positive
Polish 47% positive
French 46% positive
Russian 44% positive
Traditional Chinese 43% positive
Spanish 42% positive
Italian 41% positive
Korean 36% positive
Simplified Chinese 32% positive

I'm curious how these differences can be explained. I could see some difference between European players (e.g., Italians being put off by no option to continue in Italy when starting in Rome). But why do Traditional and Simplified Chinese differ so much? And why would reviews be so much lower in Korean as well, but not in Japan?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Some data on reviews according to Steam by language.

German 53% positive
Brazilian Portuguese 49% positive
English 49% positive
Japanese 48 % positive
Polish 47% positive
French 46% positive
Russian 44% positive
Traditional Chinese 43% positive
Spanish 42% positive
Italian 41% positive
Korean 36% positive
Simplified Chinese 32% positive

I'm curious how these differences can be explained. I could see some difference between European players (e.g., Italians being put off by no option to continue in Italy when starting in Rome). But why do Traditional and Simplified Chinese differ so much? And why would reviews be so much lower in Korean as well, but not in Japan?

The majority of the difference fall under statistical fluctuation. Many of those languages have less than 1000 reviews, meaning the difference is often like 20-30 people.

Other than that, I believe there are a lot of factors in play. For example, Korea is underrepresented so far in the game.

 

[Siptah]

The majority of the difference fall under statistical fluctuation. Many of those languages have less than 1000 reviews, meaning the difference is often like 20-30 people.

Indeed for some, but Simplified Chinese has a fair bunch of reviews (> 4000) and they seem significantly lower (without actually checking statistically) than most of the others.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Some data on reviews according to Steam by language.

German 53% positive
Brazilian Portuguese 49% positive
English 49% positive
Japanese 48 % positive
Polish 47% positive
French 46% positive
Russian 44% positive
Traditional Chinese 43% positive
Spanish 42% positive
Italian 41% positive
Korean 36% positive
Simplified Chinese 32% positive

I'm curious how these differences can be explained. I could see some difference between European players (e.g., Italians being put off by no option to continue in Italy when starting in Rome). But why do Traditional and Simplified Chinese differ so much? And why would reviews be so much lower in Korean as well, but not in Japan?

I think the Korea / Japan / China difference is explainable.

Japan is broadly in line with the European countries where the modern representation is there and they have a leader, but not really earlier representation. So there's similar frustrations to those you read in English but fewer additional culture specific ones.

Korea launched with any Civ / leader representation in game, then as part of a pricey DLC add on to get their civlet they only get to play them for ancient, then Korea falls and in its place you have to pick China or Mongolia or whatever unless you get some in game unlocks to pick someone random. So Korea gets eaten by it's historical rivals, not overly happy Koreans as a result. They also still don't have a leader, so they have to be led by a foreigner.

China whilst ostensibly having a full civilization in game doesn't actually in most Chinese eyes. They have a Civ in ancient and exploration, but in modern they fall and are replaced by the Manchus. Their final era they are represented by the empire that led them through their century of humiliation. Theres some deep contradictions there with how players in china want to play as china.

Nationalism is a huge undercurrent in the way most people, especially outside the west, play this game

 

[stealth_nsk]

Indeed for some, but Simplified Chinese has a fair bunch of reviews (> 4000) and they seem significantly lower (without actually checking statistically) than most of the others.

Yeah, I'm not specialist in China. I know there are several languages from the same group, which are called dialects by Chinese official linguistic. So, I could assume non-mandarin Chinese people could use simplified Chines more and there could be big regional / social differences. It could also be difference in education level, for example, or some nationalists using traditional (here in Serbia we have both Cyrillic an Latin alphabets and various traditionalists/nationalists/religion groups use Cyrillic more often, while more neutral audience more often use Latin).

All this could be connected to how China is represented in Civ7 - particular dynasties for example (in particular I could assume Qing could trigger some people) or it could be about Confucius, with Confucianism being praised by current Chinese government. Or it could about some groups of people playing mostly as China (i.e. those with traditional views), while other playing other civs. Or it could be about some social groups only recently gotten access to personal computers and thus not having much prior civ experience...

I could generate a lot of hypotheses actually, I don't think we have a way to validate them.

 

[ombak]

Have any of you considered how the translation might affect those review scores? Can we tell by the comments in the reviews themselves?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Have any of you considered how the translation might affect those review scores? Can we tell by the comments in the revised themselves?

That's a really good point. As a native Russian speaker I cringe out every time I hear Catherine speaking. I play English version to hear Gwendoline Christie, but from previous installments of the series, the translation often had significant errors (my wife plays Russian versions only).

 

[Crashdummy]

My concept for Civ 8 is a "earn keeping your civ alive" premise. The higher the difficulty, the harder it is to NOT civ-switch, and civ-switching will represent a kind of bonus or handicap that makes it easier to recover from being behind.

At the same time, you can turn it completely off, and there will be "legacy" civs built out of the most historically appropriate pieces, i.e.: a complete "China" featuring the full Han-Ming-Qinq civics tree. This will be in an included "legacy" mode that ignores civ switching completely. Civs that don't have ancient counter parts will use default trees, or if appropriate, a regionally similar proxy. You ought to also be able to customize this.

I think trying to push the civ switching even after Civ VII failure would be a massive mistake, but at this poiint i dont trust Firaxis anymore, so maybe they are enough out of touch with the community that they attempt this

 

[queenpea]

I am a bit offended by the term "civlet" as if that playable civilization is a minor thing. Only to be used to justify a certain hatred about civ switching.

I remember those days in Civ VI when people were asking to deblob India and China because India and China across ages were actually composed of different polities / dynasties.

Now we have it in Civ VII we are now reducing them to "civlets"?

Seems like there is no appreciation here.

The way I interpret “civlet” is that it represents just one chapter of a longer civilization story. Thus the civilization is your polity/culture as a whole over the course of three ages, and a civlet represents 1/3 of that identity.

 

[Siptah]

Yeah, civlet is fine to use and we can also differentiate in conversation what exactly we mean.

Eg., „I prefer the expanded design of the Norman civlet in 7 to the bland English mono-civ of civ 6 or the mix and match San Marino version of England in 5 or the English rump-civ in 3 and 4 or the non-civs in 1 and 2.“

That way, we are simply more precise and always acknowledge the differences in how civs were realized and designed, which makes it clear that a civlet is not the same as a mono-civ nor rump-civ nor a San Marino version without evaluating that one is better than the other. Except for non-civs of course, non-civs are garbage.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Yeah, civlet is fine to use and we can also differentiate in conversation what exactly we mean.

Eg., „I prefer the expanded design of the Norman civlet in 7 to the bland English mono-civ of civ 6 or the mix and match San Marino version of England in 5 or the English rump-civ in 3 and 4 or the non-civs in 1 and 2.“

That way, we are simply more precise and always acknowledge the differences in how civs were realized and designed, which makes it clear that a civlet is not the same as a mono-civ nor rump-civ nor a San Marino version without evaluating that one is better than the other. Except for non-civs of course, non-civs are garbage.

That would be good approach if those things would coexist in the same game. But since they only important in context of comparing different games of the series and you need to specify which games you're comparing anyway, I don't see it as a valuable term. In your sample sentence, using "civilization" instead of "civlet" will not cause any misinterpretations. Moreover, that way calling both "civilizations" make more sense as it makes more sense to compare similar entities.

So, in my view, the term "civlet" is only used by people who want to emphasis that they don't see Civ7 implementation of civilizations as civilizations.

 

[Siptah]

That would be good approach if those things would coexist in the same game. But since they only important in context of comparing different games of the series and you need to specify which games you're comparing anyway, I don't see it as a valuable term. In your sample sentence, using "civilization" instead of "civlet" will not cause any misinterpretations. Moreover, that way calling both "civilizations" make more sense as it makes more sense to compare similar entities.

So, in my view, the term "civlet" is only used by people who want to emphasis that they don't see Civ7 implementation of civilizations as civilizations.

I should have used the „sarcasm“ emoji. I agree that the term is/will be used in a derogatory way for the most part. I just wanted to emphasizes in a (apparently not) funny way that what makes a civ doesn‘t really translate between the different games of the franchise.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, I didn't mean it to be too pejorative.

It engages issues that we've thrashed through since the release of 7. If each of the age-limited-polities (I'll call them for a moment) is a "civilization," what is the name for the larger polity, made up of those three, that you guide through the entire game?

@Gorbles has floated "empire." That's fine. That's functional: In civ 7, you control an empire made up, over time, of three civilizations. It doesn't match up with outside-of-the-game historians nomenclature, but it can be pressed into service for describing how this game works. (Though still we could fault the developers for not making it easy for players to identify with that "empire," as an overarching entity, except by calling it "the Tubmans" or something like that).

But the term will become pejorative if they release the civlets that make up an old school "civ" in separate DLCs. Then it will become clear that the company is trying to gouge people who favor the traditional style of play.