Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[tman2000]

I have to agree. Antiquity in Civ7 is the best ancient era in the entire franchise. I'd still make a few small adjustments here and there, but overall it’s great. The Exploration is average, not exactly bad, but far too scripted, and the religion mechanic is the worst we’ve ever had. The Modern is genuinely bad: it feels rushed, and there’s hardly any time to enjoy each civ’s uniques. I barely even feel like I’m playing any particular civ in this era, because it ends far too quickly.

Explain to me why everyone says antiquity is so good. There are numerous problems with it like wonders scaling and other issues. There's not even scout auto-explore.

I remember when Starfield came out everyone said it was bad but the spaceship building was amazing and awesome and one of the best things ever made, leading to thousands of hours of video content on starship builds.

In reality, the starship building was a bit shallow, limited overall (limited parts, rotation, etc., meaningless in the game world, poorly balanced where you buy parts, minimal differentiation in what parts do). However, it was competently executed (with some QoL that wasn't a big deal and a couple great patches). It was shallow, but complete and cool as a mini-game to play with a couple of times. The amount of hype and implied depth around this mechanic was way overblown. I never understood the narrative beyond "well the game sucks but this part was kind of cool, in theory."

So please explain to me why Civ 7 antiquity is so great? It sort of sounds like this is just discursive. "Well civ-switching sucks so bad and I know everyone will upvote me if I say that, but since antiquity occurs before civ-switching, I can take 7's few good qualities like commander stacks and visuals and use that to claim Civ 7 is awesome and get the Civ 7 fans to like what I say."

Let's unpack this. What's a "OMG antiquity is amazing" feature of 7? No workers? Is no workers actually a good feature. "It minimizes micromanagement" Certainly not in modern when you have to click to develop every last tile on every last growth event (whereas you once could automate workers). Maybe in antiquity, with growth events are few and far between, no workers is kind of meaningful and cool.

What about the fact you can't develop any tiles that aren't contiguous with your city? That sucks.

What about developing a tile and lacking the ability change it later? That sucks.

What about almost all tiles having some sort of equal benefit to all other tile types so that the game is balanced, and so you're never really developing your environment as your civilization advances? That sucks. But, in previous civ games this really wasn't in play in antiquity.

So, what's so great about Civ 7 antiquity? It's not related to civ-switching not coming into play yet. In previous civ games, all those utilities and features which made post-antiquity eras fun existed in embryo in antiquity. Civ 7 discards those features, ruining the rest of the game, but I guess that makes antiquity better because it's streamlined?

I don't get it.

 

[Gorbles]

There are numerous problems with it like wonders scaling and other issues.

1.2.4 introduced a slew of Wonder adjustments r.e. timing, placement and bonuses.

There's not even scout auto-explore.

Yes . . . there is? It was introduced in 1.2.3, in July?

Other than that, have you considered that people can be allowed to like Antiquity even if you don't?

 

[GeneralZift]

I'm also not entirely sure what is so good about Civ7's Antiquity. Not to say it's bad but it seems to me the same as every other Ancient period. It's a lot more detailed at least maybe that's it

 

[ThERat]

In fact, in other civ iterations, worker actions matter a LOT in the antiquity age. They are a key difference between good and great players. Civ 7 doesnt even have worker....

 

[Leucarum]

Explain to me why everyone says antiquity is so good. There are numerous problems with it like wonders scaling and other issues. There's not even scout auto-explore.

I remember when Starfield came out everyone said it was bad but the spaceship building was amazing and awesome and one of the best things ever made, leading to thousands of hours of video content on starship builds.

In reality, the starship building was a bit shallow, limited overall (limited parts, rotation, etc., meaningless in the game world, poorly balanced where you buy parts, minimal differentiation in what parts do). However, it was competently executed (with some QoL that wasn't a big deal and a couple great patches). It was shallow, but complete and cool as a mini-game to play with a couple of times. The amount of hype and implied depth around this mechanic was way overblown. I never understood the narrative beyond "well the game sucks but this part was kind of cool, in theory."

So please explain to me why Civ 7 antiquity is so great? It sort of sounds like this is just discursive. "Well civ-switching sucks so bad and I know everyone will upvote me if I say that, but since antiquity occurs before civ-switching, I can take 7's few good qualities like commander stacks and visuals and use that to claim Civ 7 is awesome and get the Civ 7 fans to like what I say."

Let's unpack this. What's a "OMG antiquity is amazing" feature of 7? No workers? Is no workers actually a good feature. "It minimizes micromanagement" Certainly not in modern when you have to click to develop every last tile on every last growth event (whereas you once could automate workers). Maybe in antiquity, with growth events are few and far between, no workers is kind of meaningful and cool.

What about the fact you can't develop any tiles that aren't contiguous with your city? That sucks.

What about developing a tile and lacking the ability change it later? That sucks.

What about almost all tiles having some sort of equal benefit to all other tile types so that the game is balanced, and so you're never really developing your environment as your civilization advances? That sucks. But, in previous civ games this really wasn't in play in antiquity.

So, what's so great about Civ 7 antiquity? It's not related to civ-switching not coming into play yet. In previous civ games, all those utilities and features which made post-antiquity eras fun existed in embryo in antiquity. Civ 7 discards those features, ruining the rest of the game, but I guess that makes antiquity better because it's streamlined?

I don't get it.

Hmm... I like it for all the reasons tou dislike it. The only thing I qould like to see if more differentiation between tiles in different biomes.

Exploration and Modern suck but I have hundreds of hours im antiquity so it must be hitting the right buttons for me.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Back on Aug 15th I noted that Civ 7 was ranked #8 in Wishlist activity on Steam.

As of today that number is #1086. That's insane variation. I mentioned in August that I couldn't find a definition for this stat on SteamDB and I still can't.

In August, I mentioned that Civ 7 being on a lot of Wishlists could be part of the reason for the optimism expressed by Take Two's CEO that the game would meet still meet their expectations for lifetime revenue. Now I'm not sure if Steam's Wishlist rankings actually reflects the total number of people who have a game on their Wishlist. Maybe it's a ranking of the number of new Wishlist additions over some period of time?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Back on Aug 15th I noted that Civ 7 was ranked #8 in Wishlist activity on Steam.

As of today that number is #1086. That's insane variation. I mentioned in August that I couldn't find a definition for this stat on SteamDB and I still can't.

In August, I mentioned that Civ 7 being on a lot of Wishlists could be part of the reason for the optimism expressed by Take Two's CEO that the game would meet still meet their expectations for lifetime revenue. Now I'm not sure if Steam's Wishlist rankings actually reflects the total number of people who have a game on their Wishlist. Maybe it's a ranking of the number of new Wishlist additions over some period of time?

There's a simple reason why the game dropped from #8 to #1086. The majority of people who had it on wishlist, bought it on 4X games sale, which went from Aug, 11 to Aug 25. Yes, some people probably just removed the game from wishlist, but there was no reason to do it dramatically at that moment - the game was at mixed review state.

We've actually seen effects of those sales in number of reviews, but as I said multiple times, both metrics we usually operate with, number of reviews and simultaneous player number, have too indirect connection to the sales. So we can't really estimate the number of Civ7 units sold during this period.

 

[queenpea]

There's a simple reason why the game dropped from #8 to #1086. The majority of people who had it on wishlist, bought it on 4X games sale, which went from Aug, 11 to Aug 25. Yes, some people probably just removed the game from wishlist, but there was no reason to do it dramatically at that moment - the game was at mixed review state.

We've actually seen effects of those sales in number of reviews, but as I said multiple times, both metrics we usually operate with, number of reviews and simultaneous player number, have too indirect connection to the sales. So we can't really estimate the number of Civ7 units sold during this period.

Do you have a definition for wishlist activity?

 

[Krikkit1]

I believe we'll reach above 40% positive reviews again soon. A significant portion of negative reviews arrived during the sale, and Civ 7 is still not easy for casual players to get going and enjoy.

In fact, I just started a series of posts on reddit to explain civ 7's mechanics in order to help new and learning players understand the game better. The first post is about expansion and happiness.

That is a Serious problem the civ games have always had, terribly opaque systems that you needed online boards to explain.
A truly informative and helpful UI could probably solve 1/3 of this games problems.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Do you have a definition for wishlist activity?

Even SteamDB developer doesn't know it https://app2top.com/news/steamdb-in...ased-on-dau-and-wishlist-activity-282619.html

But there are 2 general potential meanings. It's either number of users who have it on wishlist or the number of users who added/removed the game to/from wishlist. In any case we see big purchase activity during sales - in the first case by comparing Aug, 15 data with current, in the second - by Aug, 15 data itself.

 

[Kwami]

Even SteamDB developer doesn't know it https://app2top.com/news/steamdb-in...ased-on-dau-and-wishlist-activity-282619.html

But there are 2 general potential meanings. It's either number of users who have it on wishlist or the number of users who added/removed the game to/from wishlist. In any case we see big purchase activity during sales - in the first case by comparing Aug, 15 data with current, in the second - by Aug, 15 data itself.

Of the two possibilities, the second meaning makes a lot more sense since we're talking about wishlist activity.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Of the two possibilities, the second meaning makes a lot more sense since we're talking about wishlist activity.

While it's more probable, it's a name given by someone who doesn't know what it is, based on some function name in API. So, I wouldn't rule out the first option as well.

Although I agree that drop in this number also hints to the second meaning.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Excuse the weird end dates (11th of each month), but I'm grabbing this data from SteamDB and the most recent periods there are based on today's date.

Steam reviews over the past month look almost exactly like the month ended July 11th, both in terms of number of reviews posted and the positive/negative spit. The period ending Aug 11th had fewer reviews and a modestly less negative split (although still negative):

 

[DeutschDachs]

Civ switching is something you hate from the moment it is announced. Ages are something you need to try out before you hate. The people who don't like civ switching never bought the game. It makes sense if the people who are reviewing were all open to civ switching.

For many (like myself), i hate them both. I bought the game, but I'm sure many who view it the same way as myself never bought it and thus never had the chance to review it.

Well I hated Civ-switching from the moment it was announced but I still bought the game since I've been playing Civ for ~30 years and they've never done me wrong before. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt

Unfortunately it turns out I still hate Civ-switching. And ages and detached leaders amongst other things. I've never felt so detached from a Civ game

 

[socratic]

That cant happen without a Classic Mode. The game stagnated in the current numbers and you wont get many more without a Classic mode

A classic mode won’t save the game. No one who wants a classic civ experience is going to choose a subpar optional game mode over a complete Civ 6 and 5

 

[tman2000]

Hmm... I like it for all the reasons tou dislike it. The only thing I qould like to see if more differentiation between tiles in different biomes.

Exploration and Modern suck but I have hundreds of hours im antiquity so it must be hitting the right buttons for me.

But, why though?

 

[GeneralZift]

Quick question, does buying a game remove it from your wishlist? If so, then that's a pretty obvious reason why the wishlist goes down over time. Either that or people get their paycheck, check their wishlist, see a game with Mostly Negative on it, maybe read 1 or 2 reviews then simply remove it.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Quick question, does buying a game remove it from your wishlist? If so, then that's a pretty obvious reason why the wishlist goes down over time. Either that or people get their paycheck, check their wishlist, see a game with Mostly Negative on it, maybe read 1 or 2 reviews then simply remove it.

Buying a game does remove it from wishlist if the version you put on wishlist is included in the version you bought. Anyway, it's not exactly clear, what actions are counted and whether this metric is about actions at all.

I guess all matters of adding to / removing from wishlist matter, so just the game popping out in notifications could trigger adding/removing for different people.

 

[Leucarum]

But, why though?

I like the reduced micromanagement from no builders, less rush than Civ6 from the settlement limit and cities/towns. And then antiquity is before any of the mechanics I dislike are introduced.

 

[Siptah]

I like the reduced micromanagement from no builders, less rush than Civ6 from the settlement limit and cities/towns.

In addition to that: its 100+ turns of antiquity! In civ VI, that's when you enter the atomic age...