Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Smegger213]

They really didn’t need to do much to be successful. They have a golden goose and managed to stop it from laying eggs.

If they had kept their principle of 1/3rd new, 1/3rd innovate, 1/3rd the same I think the game would have been fine. I agree with other posters here that they seem to have gone well beyond simply introducing 1/3rd new.

I think commanders, navigable rivers, independent peoples changes were plenty enough perhaps with Civ switching if they really felt that was necessary.

Instead, they decided to introduce completely new victory methods, Civ switching, and break the immersive continuous game into three resets and to add insult to injury shipped the game with an alpha level UI.

The fact that modders dramatically improved the UI with mods in such a quick fashion really makes me feel they were exceedingly lazy with designing it.

I would have been happy with an updated Civ 5 with today's better graphics. I could never get into Civ 6 the way that I played Civ 5. There are so many things wrong with Civ 7. But I think my main gripe is complete boredom by the time I get to the 3rd age.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Sorry, but Civ 7 is no longer a game to build a civilization to stand the test of time. That´s why the new slogan is: "Build something you believe in".

The problem is, how should I build something I believe in, if the new mechanisms in Civ 7 are defenitely not convincing me ? The immortal leader was always the worst element for me in every version of the civ series. In earlier versions I simply ignored that element by only looking at the other civs and ignoring their wrong leaders and in Civ 3 there is a chance to mitigate that problem by having at least 4 era-specific leaders for each civ.

And now I should only believe in those ridicolous immortal leaders and all the civs are only "sound and smoke" ? And with all this - in my eyes - nonsense I should be able to build something that I believe in ?? My answer is no !

They need to start immediately on Civ VII Beyond Earth, with just one culture this time, one stemming from the Civ VII last Era... This way we would have a "Stand the test of time" , they could undo all critical changes, and introduce new changes.

For me, they should restart from Civ 3 rules, and take inspiration for the Quintillius world Editor that let you build also cities on Mountains, amongst other things...

Civ VII BE would skyrocket, and definitely answer those questions devs are asking themselves... there is some room for errors... but not much..,
failsafe mechanism is to adopt all Civ 3 rules, IMO.

 

[queenpea]

I don't think the game would have worked any better with the addition of a couple of "better-known" historical figures. Washington of Aksum doesn't really do it for me. I have to say that one thing that I do enjoy about VII is the risks the dev team took with a few of the leaders that were chosen.

 

[bbbt]

I would have been happy with an updated Civ 5 with today's better graphics. I could never get into Civ 6 the way that I played Civ 5. There are so many things wrong with Civ 7. But I think my main gripe is complete boredom by the time I get to the 3rd age.

And people say they would've been happy with an updated Civ 4 with better graphics, etc. I'm long bored of Civ 4, 5, 6, etc. by the time a new one comes out. The series has been successful by evolving, even if 7 is more of a miss so far. If it was just same game, better graphics, it would've died years ago.

If they had kept their principle of 1/3rd new, 1/3rd innovate, 1/3rd the same I think the game would have been fine. I agree with other posters here that they seem to have gone well beyond simply introducing 1/3rd new.

I'm not even sure that it's that, as much as they made some poor decisions/execution with the changes they made:

1) Bugginess/UI issues - definitely a turn off for people. I've had Civ 7 crash more in the under 100 hours I've played it than in thousands of hours of 4/5/6. This will eventually get fixed, but it definitely leave people with an unfinished feeling.

2) Civ switching - if they were making this choice, imho, they should've been a little more consistent with the initial leader and civ choices, so there was a little more throughline (and the AI followed that throughline) and gone for more vareity later on. They did it with India and China, but also more like Maya -> Aztecs -> Mexico etc. This should also eventually get better with more civs released.

3) Ages - the choice to make it feel like a reset instead of a progression, seems like potentially the biggest miss, and the hardest to overcome. They've consistently said a lot of players don't like having their civs regress (ie Sid claiming early on they wanted to put dark ages in Civ 2 or 3 iirc, but had to drop it based on testing since players just reloaded). Maybe they should've done a bit more gatekeeping - ie Ancient era you can only expand to 2 rings. Exploration 3 rings. Modern era you can have 5 ring megalopolises, etc. Maybe even save the Town/City dynamic for the exploration era - everything builds in the ancient era, exploration era you can chose to have towns feeding food/production to 3 ring cities. 5 ring megalopolisis can incoporate smaller towns. Etc.

 

[Leucarum]

The leader choices and civ mixing/matching really helped sell me on 7. Not having to dogmatically stick to leaders who actually were heads of state, and being able to include civs which did not have well attested leaders has led to a really interesting set of gameplay mechanics. Bring on more Tubmans, Lovelaces and Mississippians!

 

[Smegger213]

And people say they would've been happy with an updated Civ 4 with better graphics, etc. I'm long bored of Civ 4, 5, 6, etc. by the time a new one comes out. The series has been successful by evolving, even if 7 is more of a miss so far. If it was just same game, better graphics, it would've died years ago.



I'm not even sure that it's that, as much as they made some poor decisions/execution with the changes they made:

1) Bugginess/UI issues - definitely a turn off for people. I've had Civ 7 crash more in the under 100 hours I've played it than in thousands of hours of 4/5/6. This will eventually get fixed, but it definitely leave people with an unfinished feeling.

2) Civ switching - if they were making this choice, imho, they should've been a little more consistent with the initial leader and civ choices, so there was a little more throughline (and the AI followed that throughline) and gone for more vareity later on. They did it with India and China, but also more like Maya -> Aztecs -> Mexico etc. This should also eventually get better with more civs released.

3) Ages - the choice to make it feel like a reset instead of a progression, seems like potentially the biggest miss, and the hardest to overcome. They've consistently said a lot of players don't like having their civs regress (ie Sid claiming early on they wanted to put dark ages in Civ 2 or 3 iirc, but had to drop it based on testing since players just reloaded). Maybe they should've done a bit more gatekeeping - ie Ancient era you can only expand to 2 rings. Exploration 3 rings. Modern era you can have 5 ring megalopolises, etc. Maybe even save the Town/City dynamic for the exploration era - everything builds in the ancient era, exploration era you can chose to have towns feeding food/production to 3 ring cities. 5 ring megalopolisis can incoporate smaller towns. Etc.

Well, that is my view, and its no more valid than your view.
I think Civ 5 is miles better than Civ 6 and Civ 7 put together.
Sometimes they evolve a game too much.
Remember the old phrase, sometimes change ends up being a change for the worse.

 

[queenpea]

Also, I'm not sure why Harriet Tubman and Ada Lovelace are "DEI" hires, but not say Machiavelli or Lafayette (neither of whom also led any nation)

We all know why these leaders are attacked more than others.

 

[trev1972]

Half of the leaders are plain DEI hires. I mean, Harriet Tubman or Ada Lovelace? Where are the great US leaders such as Washington etc, and the British such as Elizabeth 1st or Churchil? The answer is they will rip us off by adding those in paid DLC.

I dont personally think this was a major factor in the disappointing reception.
I have read a few hundred negative reviews, the vast majority to me seem to be either based on Price, Or the UI, or the Ages system / Civ changing

Of course, reading a few hundred negative reviews is still a fairly small sample so i could be wrong. Personally, didnt bother me.

 

[99-percent-sure]

I think this thread is on the road to getting deleted...

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Well, that is my view, and its no more valid than your view.
I think Civ 5 is miles better than Civ 6 and Civ 7 put together.

As this thread shows we are all different, for me personally Civ V is by far the worst iteration of the series! I've now played 200+ more hours of VII than V.

There's no right or wrong here just different preferences.

 

[tman2000]

One thing I'm quite certain of is that the dev team over-focused on how much players like to do "cool new things", post "yield spam porn", win in odd ball ways, etc. It's like they noticed that people loved seeing slam dunks and half-court 3-pointers in basketball and changed the rules of the game to create more of those moments, resulting in the All-Star game basketball that practically nobody watches or enjoys.

I don't think the civ switching per se is the problem.

For one, even though it's mentioned often enough, I don't think people are really highlighting enough how the unfinished/unpolished state of the game contributes to this failure. It's not just a bad UI. Just the whole missionaries and explorers systems are so obviously bad. They really couldn't think of any other way to do these victory paths? I really get the impression that this game was made almost entirely in the last year and a half of development. The devs seem rushed and behind on an already bare bones product. It's perplexing. Like, it feels like 20 people are working on this game. It feels like an outsource shop of 8 people are working on this game. Outside of the art assets.

Still, the main problem with the game IMO is that it's so streamlined it becomes boring. This really becomes apparent in the Modern Age which many clearly see as "pointless" in that in many situations you're just clicking next turn, making few meaningful choices, until victory is reached. The more you play, the more that feeling and effect applies in the earlier ages. Just play a fast game on a tiny map. It feels like the right scaling for how the game is designed. It's the kind of thing where I could spend the entire Exploration age fighting over a single town and city of my neighbor, and due to the small scale, that feels meaningful. The more you scale up and out - larger maps representing that "freedom" that people feel is missing - the more the game design breaks. There's not even a "large" map in the game options for some reason. I suspect because they know that they can't scale their "streamlined" design to larger maps. They can't just apply modifiers like when you have fast/slow game speeds. I suspect they haven't figured out how to make the game they've designed work right on larger maps.

That's a problem. This is why the game is failing. They've limited the scope of design to this very formulaic streamlined system (2 culture tiers, 2 science tier buildings, next age repeat). They even screwed up food and growth rates making food pointless to have in the antiquity age. They just screwed up. They got locked into a clumsy, minimalist design and couldn't get the numbers to work outside of maybe a tight online match.

 

[bbbt]

Well, that is my view, and its no more valid than your view.
I think Civ 5 is miles better than Civ 6 and Civ 7 put together.
Sometimes they evolve a game too much.

I'm guessing Civ 5 was the first version you played?

I was not saying that Civ 5 is better or worse than Civ 6 or 7. I have like 1000 hours in Civ 5, and very much enjoyed it. My point was that if they had just kept remaking the same game with better graphics, and no changes since the start, you would have never gotten Civ 5 (or it would not have been the game it was). Civilization 1 is a very different game than Civ 5...

 

[AD1730]

it doesn’t bother me as we’ve been having people who didn’t hold political power like Gandhi since Civ 1

My issue is that we now have leaders who aren't even tangential to politics (i.e. Lovelace). Gandhi was extremely active politically, so I think it's fair to call him a political figure even though he never formally held office. The same goes for Machiavelli, who was very active in political theory.

Half of the leaders are plain DEI hires. I mean, Harriet Tubman or Ada Lovelace? Where are the great US leaders such as Washington etc, and the British such as Elizabeth 1st or Churchil? The answer is they will rip us off by adding those in paid DLC.

Harriet Tubman is not a DEI hire. Doing actual work helping get slaves to freedom is the definition of merit. Would I have preferred Frederick Douglass in the freedman role? Sure, given that he was more of a political activist and Tubman was more of a frontline one. But, I have no problem with Tubman in the game

 

[99-percent-sure]

Harriet Tubman is not a DEI hire. Doing actual work helping get slaves to freedom is the definition of merit.

Women simply weren't in social positions to assume formal leadership in the United States until very recently, as the nation was not a monarchy but also had strict limits on women's rights. But there are some who got as high as they could go in the political sense (Frances Perkins comes to mind), and pushed crucial ideas to the foreground through the men who held formal power at the time. As an estadounidense, I'm grateful to finally have a female leader option for the U.S.

 

[GeneralZift]

Someone said earlier that it was the leader choices. I do disagree, and I think a Civ game can run on basically any leaders, as long as they're fairly well known, have a tangible personality and were well-liked or impactful.

By the way, my opinion about them missing the obvious choices is very clear - they've saved them for DLC because they know people want them. That's the truth

 

[Leucarum]

Honestly I think the best designed leaders rules wise are the non-traditional ones. Tubman, Machiavelli and Ibn Battuta are all amazingly well designed and probably couldn't have appeared before.

Compared to a lot of the more traditional leaders it feels like the devs were able to find fun mechanics when they were freed from some constraints

 

[luca 83]

Half of the leaders are plain DEI hires. I mean, Harriet Tubman or Ada Lovelace? Where are the great US leaders such as Washington etc, and the British such as Elizabeth 1st or Churchil? The answer is they will rip us off by adding those in paid DLC.

They should create more narrative events and less civilizations and ethnic leaders to get more audiences.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

Honestly I think the best designed leaders rules wise are the non-traditional ones. Tubman, Machiavelli and Ibn Battuta are all amazingly well designed and probably couldn't have appeared before.

Compared to a lot of the more traditional leaders it feels like the devs were able to find fun mechanics when they were freed from some constraints

Machiavelli I actually enjoyed his design alas exploration age arrived and I checked out immediately

 

[UWHabs]

I don't think the civ switching per se is the problem.

For one, even though it's mentioned often enough, I don't think people are really highlighting enough how the unfinished/unpolished state of the game contributes to this failure. It's not just a bad UI. Just the whole missionaries and explorers systems are so obviously bad. They really couldn't think of any other way to do these victory paths? I really get the impression that this game was made almost entirely in the last year and a half of development. The devs seem rushed and behind on an already bare bones product. It's perplexing. Like, it feels like 20 people are working on this game. It feels like an outsource shop of 8 people are working on this game. Outside of the art assets.

Still, the main problem with the game IMO is that it's so streamlined it becomes boring. This really becomes apparent in the Modern Age which many clearly see as "pointless" in that in many situations you're just clicking next turn, making few meaningful choices, until victory is reached. The more you play, the more that feeling and effect applies in the earlier ages. Just play a fast game on a tiny map. It feels like the right scaling for how the game is designed. It's the kind of thing where I could spend the entire Exploration age fighting over a single town and city of my neighbor, and due to the small scale, that feels meaningful. The more you scale up and out - larger maps representing that "freedom" that people feel is missing - the more the game design breaks. There's not even a "large" map in the game options for some reason. I suspect because they know that they can't scale their "streamlined" design to larger maps. They can't just apply modifiers like when you have fast/slow game speeds. I suspect they haven't figured out how to make the game they've designed work right on larger maps.

That's a problem. This is why the game is failing. They've limited the scope of design to this very formulaic streamlined system (2 culture tiers, 2 science tier buildings, next age repeat). They even screwed up food and growth rates making food pointless to have in the antiquity age. They just screwed up. They got locked into a clumsy, minimalist design and couldn't get the numbers to work outside of maybe a tight online match.

I think they know that being able to put out a product where people could do a head to head match in a reasonable timeframe was a priority. I think that's partly why you have the age breaks, you can run a single age session in only a few hours. And that's fine, as long as it still works for those people who don't mind spending a bit more time.

I do think that does break you out a touch from the classic civ game, just because you feel too pressured to follow the paths. Like, I'm not building a wonder because I necessarily think it will win for me, it's to get those victory points. I'll settle a random island city to get that tea resource.

I do think in time, they will come around and find the balance. Swapping around the resources to make sure distant lands resources have a purpose to themselves, that will help. Better growth balance too. I'm sure they'll make some tweaks to specialist yields, tech times, etc... to change things up enough. Especially once they make some deeper changes in an expansion, that will all help.

But the fact that the game comes in quite expensive, and that just a lot of stuff came in with sub-par finish, I think makes everyone also look a little more critically at all the other features too. It would have been really nice if the last couple patches could have been balancing costs and tweaking other bits, rather than having to focus too much on getting those basic UI updates in. We'd be talking about the first challenge, etc...

 

[AD1730]

I think they know that being able to put out a product where people could do a head to head match in a reasonable timeframe was a priority.

And this was a rather stupid thing to prioritize and shows that they don't understand the audience they have. Not many people play multiplayer matches in Civ. If they do, they're often between friends and have no problem if it's an on and off thing that occurs over weeks.