Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Core Imposter]

You were expecting civfanatics to stay on topic?

No, I guess not. I am perplexed though that so many are worried about the development cycle. All development cycles must need truncation because of the onset of AGI. Games as we know them may not survive. Very soon the major studios will have to set aside many projects to focus on the new paradigm. Which, we must admit, is hard to predict.

Different designers will no doubt want to take this in many directions, but the key will be funding.

As the world evolves into one in which AI does an expanding amount of labor some substitute must be found for the hours we spend on work. Gaming would seem to be the majority activity for future humanity assuming the AI doesn't simply eliminate humans. I am pretty certain that it will cull us somehow. Will be interesting to see how it works out over the next five or ten years.

 

[MutilationWave]

No, I guess not. I am perplexed though that so many are worried about the development cycle. All development cycles must need truncation because of the onset of AGI. Games as we know them may not survive. Very soon the major studios will have to set aside many projects to focus on the new paradigm. Which, we must admit, is hard to predict.

Different designers will no doubt want to take this in many directions, but the key will be funding.

As the world evolves into one in which AI does an expanding amount of labor some substitute must be found for the hours we spend on work. Gaming would seem to be the majority activity for future humanity assuming the AI doesn't simply eliminate humans. I am pretty certain that it will cull us somehow. Will be interesting to see how it works out over the next five or ten years.

Honestly asking here, how far do you really think we are from AGI? Because what we're calling AI now is a joke.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I like Victoria 3. I don't understand it, but I like it! Paradox seem to be still releasing DLC and it's improved a lot since launch, so I don't know that it's such a depressing comparison either...

I'm a fan of Vic3 as well, don't consider it to be a flop and I still have hope that its numbers will climb over time. The start was rough and it includes some controversial design decisions like Civ7 (absense of player controlled on-map units/armies), but it has already made good progress from the release situation. Next week, right at the day we are hopefully in for 1.2.2 as well, we will get a complete rework of the world market, essentially doubling the fun for me, because there will be the passive private economic trading you can influence via tariffs and a full blown deal system for strategic deals.

It will be interesting to see what both Civ and Vic will make out of those major updates in terms of player numbers.

 

[Leucarum]

I'm a fan of Vic3 as well, don't consider it to be a flop and I still have hope that its numbers will climb over time. The start was rough and it includes some controversial design decisions like Civ7 (absense of player controlled on-map units/armies), but it has already made good progress from the release situation. Next week, right at the day we are hopefully in for 1.2.2 as well, we will get a complete rework of the world market, essentially doubling the fun for me, because there will be the passive private economic trading you can influence via tariffs and a full blown deal system for strategic deals.

It will be interesting to see what both Civ and Vic will make out of those major updates in terms of player numbers.

There's definitely parallels. I'm holding out hope for both franchises!

 

[queenpea]

Oh yes please. That game looks so good and promising! I started playing Paradox games with EU1 back in 2001, and no EU game has surpassed EU2 for me. EU3 was flawed, EU4 was....boring? And too complex without being as managable as their other GSGs. CK2, CK3, Stellaris all are complex, but managable. I have serious hope EU5 will recapture the magic.

Oh I love EU4. My only issue with it is that the map and all of the UI is somewhat hard to look at.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

This article is not about civilization, but it's interesting read about how game studios perceive our beloved metric of concurrent players https://www.ign.com/articles/inzoi-...-performance-because-its-a-single-player-game

Civ isn’t just a single player so I’d take this as a half truth. They also can’t expect to sell DLC If their audience is so small.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

That's an interesting topic to discuss. On one hand, Civ7 clearly was released without many planned features and early access usually helps smoothing this situation. On the other hand, early access is often done when the gaming company is new in this area and want to research how users react. When you release 7th game of the franchise, using early access could produce negativity itself.

I think the best path maintaining honesty and integrity and producing the best game this thing they've released could be, they should have made it early access and called it Sid Meier's Eras.

But given humankinds lack of success, I imagine it wouldve just sold less and still been unpopular. The baffling thing to me remains why they didn't pivot away from the route after seeing the massive red flag from humankind.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think the best path maintaining honesty and integrity and producing the best game this thing they've released could be, they should have made it early access and called it Sid Meier's Eras.

But given humankinds lack of success, I imagine it wouldve just sold less and still been unpopular. The baffling thing to me remains why they didn't pivot away from the route after seeing the massive red flag from humankind.

I see several things here:

1. Humankind implementation of ages is totally different from Civ7
2. I really doubt ages are significant problem for HK. Humankind has huge pile of other issues
3. I guess Firaxis was under time constraints based on the game state on release, pivot would just make it impossible to release on time
4. We still don't know if ages are really a problem. Sure, they are recurring theme in the negative reviews, but if the advantages they create for MP games will play our, it could compensate this initial wave of negativity.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I see several things here:

1. Humankind implementation of ages is totally different from Civ7
2. I really doubt ages are significant problem for HK. Humankind has huge pile of other issues
3. I guess Firaxis was under time constraints based on the game state on release, pivot would just make it impossible to release on time
4. We still don't know if ages are really a problem. Sure, they are recurring theme in the negative reviews, but if the advantages they create for MP games will play our, it could compensate this initial wave of negativity.

It's not really ages I was thinking of so much as Civ switching just flagging as not having broad audience appeal.

Given how many years ago humankind released, it's hard to think they wouldn't have had time to pivot though.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It's not really ages I was thinking of so much as Civ switching just flagging as not having broad audience appeal.

Yeah, but it's the part of the same feature.

Given how many years ago humankind released, it's hard to think they wouldn't have had time to pivot though.

Firaxis settled on ages and civilization switching before HK was even announced. So yep, that's surely an issue.

 

[Haig]

I think civ switching is, in a way, partially to "blame" for the fans complaining about America and France in ancient era.

Personally for me its boring to meet only ancient era civs in the first age, even though it is more historical.

I miss the many possibilities of who the neighbors are.

I also think it hurts the tactics discussion, like on reddit how people tell about their Poland game or how they "main" Korea or whatever.

I feel that it's like how Overwatch fans are attached to specific characters or Diablo players to favorite hero classes etc.
Maybe Firaxis underestimated that?

 

[Leucarum]

I think civ switching is, in a way, partially to "blame" for the fans complaining about America and France in ancient era.

Personally for me its boring to meet only ancient era civs in the first age, even though it is more historical.

I miss the many possibilities of who the neighbors are.

I also think it hurts the tactics discussion, like on reddit how people tell about their Poland game or how they "main" Korea or whatever.

I feel that it's like how Overwatch fans are attached to specific characters or Diablo players to favorite hero classes etc.
Maybe Firaxis underestimated that?

There's definitely a lot of players who have an absolute favourite civ.

I wonder how much of an issue there was with dividing civs by era too. I have always been most enthusiastic about playing civs that fall in the antiquity era, modern era civs aren't as exciting to me to play, so my desire to finish games wanes once the civs I like all disappear... I.e. there are classes of civs I like or dislike

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Yeah totally agree @Haig, it's the flavour that's most lacking in this game. The ages are more affecting the substance but the civ switching is like swapping out the apple in apple pie for turnip. Complete turn off and skip

@stealth_nsk I know you like the game, but sometimes it does just feel like you're running defence on it. I don't really know how to continue this conversation when you're outright dismissing my points rather than considering any nuance that might be at play here.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

I'm looking forward to EU5, and if Civ7 doesn't manage to right the boat I could see it becoming my go-to game, but I don't find the two games scratch the same itch for me. The pick up and play blank slate of Civ is very different to the historically rigid, slow gameplay of EU. As much as I could see it taking up more of my playtime, I can't see it replacing Civ, even if the nosedive continues - they're very different games.

I do wish that Firaxis could consider an early access model or at least a much greater degree of community involvement earlier in the development process. It would have been more clear what the more alienating features of Civ7 were if they had done so. Paradox learned the hard way through Imperator Rome I suspect. The irony is that Imperator ended up an amazing game, after the devs took what they'd learned from watching the community play/complain. Even though it got cancelled, I still play it from time to time. Civ7 has the name recognition behind it that if the devs are willing to listen I hope it can summon enough momentum to turn the nosedive into an U-Turn.

And I hope they do it via a lot of optional game settings/modes so the community that does enjoy it as it is now gets to still carry on doing so. That seems far easier for a Civ game to pull of than for a paradox game.

I want to like EU4 and CK3 so bad but I genuinely can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do on either game. I think ck3 I purchased without realizing it’s very much just a family simulator.

I want to have a game where I manage politics, economy, and war. That’s includes some domestic balancing of course but not as granular as CK3 and to the detriment of the other features.

A game I’ve been wanting to give a try is Old World.

 

[Leucarum]

I want to like EU4 and CK3 so bad but I genuinely can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do on either game. I think ck3 I purchased without realizing it’s very much just a family simulator.

I want to have a game where I manage politics, economy, and war. That’s includes some domestic balancing of course but not as granular as CK3 and to the detriment of the other features.

A game I’ve been wanting to give a try is Old World.

I tried old world briefly and ended up refunding it - probably if I put the time in I'd get fun from it, but it didn't grab me at first brush.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

But given humankinds lack of success, I imagine it wouldve just sold less and still been unpopular. The baffling thing to me remains why they didn't pivot away from the route after seeing the massive red flag from humankind.

I don’t understand why they didn’t either. Again, we have that supposed leak that the entire game was scrapped and redone following some trip but ardent defenders of 7 refuse to even give that idea a crumb of consideration.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

I tried old world briefly and ended up refunding it - probably if I put the time in I'd get fun from it, but it didn't grab me at first brush.

The art style reminds me of Civ V - that’s my only complaint on the surface.

 

[MutilationWave]

I see several things here:

1. Humankind implementation of ages is totally different from Civ7
2. I really doubt ages are significant problem for HK. Humankind has huge pile of other issues
3. I guess Firaxis was under time constraints based on the game state on release, pivot would just make it impossible to release on time
4. We still don't know if ages are really a problem. Sure, they are recurring theme in the negative reviews, but if the advantages they create for MP games will play our, it could compensate this initial wave of negativity.

How many people play multiplayer anyway? I'm infuriating to play with because I play slow and take breaks. The one time I tried multiplayer with a friend (the only person I know who plays civ), he seemed to lose interest when I pulled pretty far ahead.

I'll just pull a figure out of nowhere and guess like 5-10% play multi.

 

[Leucarum]

How many people play multiplayer anyway? I'm infuriating to play with because I play slow and take breaks. The one time I tried multiplayer with a friend (the only person I know who plays civ), he seemed to lose interest when I pulled pretty far ahead.

I'll just pull a figure out of nowhere and guess like 5-10% play multi.

For me and my friend group it became a big outlet during the pandemic... Wouldn't surprise me if it was the same for others.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The Steam stats don't reveal whether the players are MP or SP?