Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Yeah I remember one reviewer commented that if they were trying to promote civ switching why didn’t they include Byzantium on release? It’s the tailor made example for this!

I don't think it would have worked to the fullest extent without the Ottomans alongside them. I think them including Bulgaria right now fit their vision better as a bridge between Greece and Russia.
No Aztecs between Maya and Mexico I admit is almost as strange, especially considering Aztecs were, for the most part, always a base game civ (free first day DLC for Civ 6).

 

[UWHabs]

We're never gonna get a completely satisfying set of civ chains for all the reasons you lay out but there are ways to get closer...

I think 7 already has the ingredients to solve the problem of Colonial states not feeling like acceptable follow-up civs. Buganda already shows that we don't need something to be an politically recognized nation for it to feature in the modern roster, and we have multiple examples of timelines being stretched (Khmer/Mississippians) for example in order for nations to fit. Civs like Haudenosaunee or Maori are great fits for modern for example.

For cases where civs have no successors at all, I really think though that there needs to be an eqvuivalent of "transcendance" from Humankind though for things to feel satisfying. I'd love to see some mechanic where you kept your previous civ but relevant abilities got scaled up to be competitive in the next era. Maybe allow civs to unlock it when they reach the end of a legacy path (so if you do disasterously badly you can't do it).

Yeah, no matter what the roster is, people will complain about missing gaps. But I would agree as well that there are some places on the maps that have bigger gaps than others. As mentioned, the Inca being alone in SA, they could use someone before and after them. We're missing that Central American exploration civ, presumably the Aztecs. Whether you feel the modern era needs a Native American tribe is obviously going to be contested, but you could slot in like a Navajo or Mohawk as examples, among other options. You already have Mexico and the US though in the region, so you could get some arguments that other points on the map have needs too.

The Qajar will help at least get something middle-eastern-ish to fill the modern era. You could still easily add like an Ethiopia to give you something North African too. Oceania is weird too since the only 2 civs that remotely fit the region are both exploration in Mahajapit and Hawaii, they could use true civs before and after them. But more civs that fill in gaps like that, so you don't have civs that are stranded miles apart in time and geography, will help, even if the connection is tenuous.

 

[Leucarum]

Yeah, no matter what the roster is, people will complain about missing gaps. But I would agree as well that there are some places on the maps that have bigger gaps than others. As mentioned, the Inca being alone in SA, they could use someone before and after them. We're missing that Central American exploration civ, presumably the Aztecs. Whether you feel the modern era needs a Native American tribe is obviously going to be contested, but you could slot in like a Navajo or Mohawk as examples, among other options. You already have Mexico and the US though in the region, so you could get some arguments that other points on the map have needs too.

The Qajar will help at least get something middle-eastern-ish to fill the modern era. You could still easily add like an Ethiopia to give you something North African too. Oceania is weird too since the only 2 civs that remotely fit the region are both exploration in Mahajapit and Hawaii, they could use true civs before and after them. But more civs that fill in gaps like that, so you don't have civs that are stranded miles apart in time and geography, will help, even if the connection is tenuous.

I think Tonga is coming for Oceania... My feeling is that colonial powers don't work as satisfying successors. They are just a bit icky in their connotations - I'd rather Firaxis stretched timelines and definitions for what is acceptable as a civ...

It'll never be enough to satisfy people who want strict historicity, but they can get closer bit by bit

 

[uppi]

Define 'proper successor'.

Because the unfortunate reality of most of the American native groups is that the actual Successor was a colonial 'state' like Mexico, Brazil, Peru, the United States, etc. Which in every case might be geographical and political 'successors' but are only partially, if at all, cultural successors.

Elsewhere in the world, similar progressions frequently apply, but I many cases In submit that the problem is two-fold:

1. There is no real cultural, political or 'proper' successor because the old polity collapsed completely and even the population was largely replaced by invasion/migration (the Western Roman Problem)

2. The successor and/or predecessor were so similar in so many basic aspects that it is hard to distinguish them adequately for game purposes. As a prime example, between the Shang and the Qing Dynasties of China (approximately 1600 BCE to 1912 CE) there are at least 66 separate Dynasties that ruled all or parts of China. Most of them are simply impossible to distinguish from each other in any game-meaningful way, which is why games seem to always use the same Dynasties: Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that 'proper successor' is likely to always be a judgement call in most or at least many cases, and frequently result in a 'nearly proper' or 'mostly geographic, cultural, and/or political Semi-Proper' succession.

Yes, it will be a judgement call and people will disagree on what counts as a "proper" succession. But in case of the Inca can we all agree that same continent would be a start?

 

[Civinator]

Because the unfortunate reality of most of the American native groups is that the actual Successor was a colonial 'state' like Mexico, Brazil, Peru, the United States, etc. Which in every case might be geographical and political 'successors' but are only partially, if at all, cultural successors.

It is "unfortunately", as it is the point of view from the past up to the present, that is not working for the game properly (the part named in this post "cultural successors"). So at a first look the point of view for the evolution of a civ from the beginnings of a civ up to the present and future seems to be logical, it is ending in all those problems that Civ 7 is confronted now with this point of view. The game ends very far away from history and the names of leaders of a civ and even the names of the civs are becoming senseless in a historical perspective.

In my eyes for a game like civ it would have been much better, to use a point of view on the evolution of a civ of that game, based on the geographical and (may be) political predecessors of the current civs on a certain territory on planet earth. It is the "cultural" part, that causes the trouble in Civ 7, ending in total historical confusion about civs and leaders in that game. The look from the present on the evolution of a civ backwards in history is as logical as the look on the evolution of a civ from the start of the game up to the present and into the future, as the look from the start of the game "upwards" the timeline is influenced and defined by the knowledge of the present.

The Civ 3 mod CCM uses different leaders of a civ in a game since many years and in CCM 3 even different names of the civs in the 4 eras of Civ 3, based on a point of view from the present situation on a certain territory on earth, and there were never protests by players about using that point of view. Of course even in that mod I try to improve things and may be in the next version of this mod I replace per example era 1 of the civ USA by the Mississippians. In my eyes it is also no problem, if the true name of the ruler of the Mississippians is not known. The Ruler of the Civ USA in era 1 can be simply named "Ruler of the Mississippians".

 

[aieeegrunt]

The myriad of issues like this, as if dropping the core identity of the game alone wasn’t enough, really should have killed this terrible idea in the conception phase

They even had a test case in front of them with Humankind.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Mostly I want more ancient fertile crescent-ish civs.

 

[Captain Lime]

Yeah I remember one reviewer commented that if they were trying to promote civ switching why didn’t they include Byzantium on release? It’s the tailor made example for this!

So I think the problem with that is that Firaxis wanted to hold off on the Byzantines (and the Ottomans for that matter) until they implement proper religious gameplay. Feels kinda weird to have an Ottomans in this format without a Külliye district. But then that leads to my other problem with civ switching: just the Ottomans in general. If you have them in the modern era, then you can't have them conquer Constantinople from the Byzantines (or face off with the Safavids, or duel the Spanish), and you also lose the religious gameplay thanks to Firaxis's insistence that for some reason religion is only an exploration era thing. But if you have them as exploration only, you can't have them succeed the Abbasids *or* the Byzantines, or fight in the World Wars, and you lose out on a solid half of Ottoman history. In all of these early decisions made - splitting eras, civ switching, delaying religious mechanics, district revamp - have just come together into one great big Ottoman problem.

My recommendation to solve the Ottoman problem is to do two civs: an exploration Ottoman Empire, and a modern Ottoman Turkey: fitting for such a pivotal empire that changed so much from beginning to end, and played such a role in history. But some players may object to such an outsized Ottoman representation - and doing so would take dev time away from other players.

 

[itix]

Until the day this game dies (my bet is ~2-3 years) I will question why Firaxis chose to add whatever civs and leaders they thought would be cool rather than those that are best geared towards introducing the Eras system. Picking cool civs may have worked in previous games, but Firaxis knew that this era system would be controversial, so why not try and make that first impression as good as possible? They should have deliberately chosen leaders that irl lead many different civilizations - Timur, Victoria, Charlemagne. And they should have gone for more "triples" civilizations, with designs that build on eachother to showcase the strength of the civ switching. I'm still convinced the civ switching mechanic is scuffed in principle, but I would have liked to see Firaxis make a real effort to show it's benefits. Stupid.

In my opinion, it is a flawed idea that civs must have a real world successor/predecessor. If you were playing TSL Earth map, it would make sense, but VII is an ahistorical, alt-history game in an alternative universe. It would just make perfect sense to have a random prev/next civ.

Just in my opinion of course

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

So I think the problem with that is that Firaxis wanted to hold off on the Byzantines (and the Ottomans for that matter) until they implement proper religious gameplay. Feels kinda weird to have an Ottomans in this format without a Külliye district. But then that leads to my other problem with civ switching: just the Ottomans in general. If you have them in the modern era, then you can't have them conquer Constantinople from the Byzantines (or face off with the Safavids, or duel the Spanish), and you also lose the religious gameplay thanks to Firaxis's insistence that for some reason religion is only an exploration era thing. But if you have them as exploration only, you can't have them succeed the Abbasids *or* the Byzantines, or fight in the World Wars, and you lose out on a solid half of Ottoman history. In all of these early decisions made - splitting eras, civ switching, delaying religious mechanics, district revamp - have just come together into one great big Ottoman problem.

My recommendation to solve the Ottoman problem is to do two civs: an exploration Ottoman Empire, and a modern Ottoman Turkey. But some players may object to such an outsized Ottoman representation.

Considering the Exploration Age starts around the year 400 AD I don't mind if the Ottoman Empire only stays in the Modern. It's already weird having Tercios with gunpowder weapons at the start, so I can't imagine wanting Janissaries at the same time either. It's also quite possible instead of Janissaries they could get Corsairs, or both as UUs if they don't get a civilian unit.

A Külliye district doesn't have to be religious in Modern if they go with a Hammam and Imaret buildings, which could focus on food and happiness. This is because the Madrasah and Mosque is already taken by the Abbasids, but if you go Abbasids to the Ottomans, you could at least have all of those buildings in your empire.

 

[Dedrytus]

Every Europe country should have possibility to switch to USA. For example Germany with Werner von Braun as a leader and space race victory or Poland with multiple leaders Warner brothers and cultural victory. You can literally choose any nation from the world that built modern US.

 

[Bug Repellent]

The myriad of issues like this, as if dropping the core identity of the game alone wasn’t enough, really should have killed this terrible idea in the conception phase

I completely agree. The amount of civs/leaders needed is far too large if they need every region of the world at every point in history to work. They probably knew this and rubbed their hands at how many DLCs they could sell to fill the leader/civ roster. Probably went like "If we give them 50ish leaders like Civ6, we'd need 150 civs for 3 easa and 200 for 4 eras. How many DLCs is that? 100? Sold!. We'll charge them $9.99 per DLC, so that's $1k/player".

 

[Kwami]

I completely agree. The amount of civs/leaders needed is far too large if they need every region of the world at every point in history to work. They probably knew this and rubbed their hands at how many DLCs they could sell to fill the leader/civ roster. Probably went like "If we give them 50ish leaders like Civ6, we'd need 150 civs for 3 easa and 200 for 4 eras. How many DLCs is that? 100? Sold!. We'll charge them $9.99 per DLC, so that's $1k/player".

DLC is being sold for $4.99, half of your nonsensical price. Civ V and Civ VI DLC was sold for exactly the same price.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yes, it will be a judgement call and people will disagree on what counts as a "proper" succession. But in case of the Inca can we all agree that same continent would be a start?

That depends on whether geographical proximity is considered a necessary requirement for a 'proper progression'

A good case can be made that in the case of the Inka, it is not.

After all, they had no real successor in South America in the sense of a political or cultural entity: the South American entities in their space were Spanish and colonial, with only passing reference to anything Inka in their make-up.

On the other hand, a more recent Civ with similar geographical problems/situations to solve might actually be a better fit for a successor, even though it had no real-world direct progression with the Inka - enter other Mountain Civs like Nepal - or as examples, Tibet or Armenia.

Not that I'm trying to suggest that they would be any better or not have at least as much controversy attached to them, but the point is that given the criteria for a successor state/polity, which almost has to include not only geographical proximity but also cultural, political, and/or military continuity, some not-intuitive choices can be legitimately argued for.

 

[Kev1916]

DLC is being sold for $4.99, half of your nonsensical price. Civ V and Civ VI DLC was sold for exactly the same price.

We had done this before ...

They are not selling Dlc's like before and no no they are not the same price sigh - $6.15 for a Civ $ 5.06 for a skin at todays rate vs Sterling.

You get a "Civ" that you use in one of the 3 games ....., you could potentially pay over $23 a pop each and every run. No shame

At the Mo even forgetting about cut content there are 15 items showing for a game that's been oot a few months.

And who is the leader for the Civ Carthage , Mongolia in Civ vii ? yep you will have to buy them

 

[Krajzen]

Indeed. In the next releases, I'd prefer if they prioritized filling the gaps that make transitions in the Americas and Africa feel chaotic, rather than adding more civilizations at random or from already well-covered regions, such as South and Southeast Asia.

For the Americas:
A proper successor to the Maya
A proper predecessor to the Inca
A proper successor to the Inca
A proper successor to the Shawnee

For Africa:
A proper successor to Aksum
A proper predecessor to Songhai
A proper successor to Songhai
A proper predecessor to Buganda

Once these gaps are filled, I’d like them to take a look at Oceania as well, since Hawaii feels completely out of place without appropriate transitions.

I believe much of the criticism around the civilization transition system stems from the fact that many of the links make absolutely no sense, which causes a massive break in immersion—such as the case of Maya > Inca.

I can't get over the fact that Firaxis went out of its way to make the inherently extremely controversial decision of civ switching as invasive, unpopular and annoying as humanly possible:
1) Don't make them optional as in Humankind, no no no, force players and AI alike to make them, therefore wiping out the age old "Sumer can into space" motivation to play the game without any substitute.
2) But also don't focus on making paths as immersive as possible to minimize the controversy, no let's also
- force native Americans to become the US (I guess according to civ7 those noble savages can't reach modernity )
- already having Maya and Mexico fill the gap with... Inca
- turn Cambodians into Javanese and then Thai (led by Vietnamese)
- give Middle East (!) no modern civilization, just to maximize the frustration of the fans of Mesopotamia
- add Mongolia and Hawaii out of context and without their own regional evolutionary lines (yeah I totally want to be forced to be Chinese first in order to play as their greatest archnemesis)
- don't introduce three African civs from one region, so they make sense, no no let's pick three of the most distant unrelated cultures possible and provide them with fourth unrelated leader
(hilariously this has mildly racist implications of the entire Subsaharan Africa having great cultural homogenity and all "black people" civs being fundamentally similar on the basis of race )


I don't know what Firaxis market research has been smoking for years prior to this game's release, but the self own of somehow assuming that civ players
1) Are invested in leaders, not civs
2) Don't care much about the obvious 30 year old "ancient extinct civ can into space" fantasy
3) Care about mechanical bonuses WAY more than the continuous narrative and story in their heads, to the point of willing to wipe out their own empires in the name of getting the new toys

Should be the legendary cautionary tale for a long time how to completely fail to grasp your fanbase.

It's the meditations like these which make me *want* to believe that hilarious glassdoor rumor about devs going on the catastrophic ahayuasca trips, it would fill the gal in my mind with much needed explanation

 

[aieeegrunt]

I completely agree. The amount of civs/leaders needed is far too large if they need every region of the world at every point in history to work. They probably knew this and rubbed their hands at how many DLCs they could sell to fill the leader/civ roster. Probably went like "If we give them 50ish leaders like Civ6, we'd need 150 civs for 3 easa and 200 for 4 eras. How many DLCs is that? 100? Sold!. We'll charge them $9.99 per DLC, so that's $1k/player".

You need literally three times as many civs as previous titles to have the same level of diversity

Other fhan monetization, it’s difficult to see how the hell that seemed like a good idea

I can't get over the fact that Firaxis went out of its way to make the inherently extremely controversial decision of civ switching as invasive, unpopular and annoying as humanly possible:
1) Don't make them optional as in Humankind, no no no, force players and AI alike to make them, therefore wiping out the age old "Sumer can into space" motivation to play the game without any substitute.
2) But also don't focus on making paths as immersive as possible to minimize the controversy, no let's also
- force native Americans to become the US (I guess according to civ7 those noble savages can't reach modernity )
- already having Maya and Mexico fill the gap with... Inca
- turn Cambodians into Javanese and then Thai (led by Vietnamese)
- give Middle East (!) no modern civilization, just to maximize the frustration of the fans of Mesopotamia
- add Mongolia and Hawaii out of context and without their own regional evolutionary lines (yeah I totally want to be forced to be Chinese first in order to play as their greatest archnemesis)
- don't introduce three African civs from one region, so they make sense, no no let's pick three of the most distant unrelated cultures possible and provide them with fourth unrelated leader
(hilariously this has mildly racist implications of the entire Subsaharan Africa having great cultural homogenity and all "black people" civs being fundamentally similar on the basis of race )


I don't know what Firaxis market research has been smoking for years prior to this game's release, but the self own of somehow assuming that civ players
1) Are invested in leaders, not civs
2) Don't care much about the obvious 30 year old "ancient extinct civ can into space" fantasy
3) Care about mechanical bonuses WAY more than the continuous narrative and story in their heads, to the point of willing to wipe out their own empires in the name of getting the new toys

Should be the legendary cautionary tale for a long time how to completely fail to grasp your fanbase.

It's the meditations like these which make me *want* to believe that hilarious glassdoor rumor about devs going on the catastrophic ahayuasca trips, it would fill the gal in my mind with much needed explanation

Ha ha ha I forgot about that particular landmine, where for a lot of civs, especially the Americas, the logical “successor” civ is a colonial genocide.

Or say Byzantium into the Ottomans, same deal.

This had to have been an “Enperor has no clothes” situation where whoever came up with this concept was both in a position where whatever idea they came up with, no matter how dumb was gonna get implemented, and was hubristic enough to be immunized against feedback.

A Great Pride Goeth indeed

 

[firadin]

- force native Americans to become the US (I guess according to civ7 those noble savages can't reach modernity )

I just want to emphasize this one again. The idea that we have to be bound by the horrible results of history, colonialism, and indigenous genocide in this game about alt-history civilization building is insane to me. Half of my Civ games are choosing a now-destroyed civilization and taking the opportunity to pit them against their conquerors and having fun imagining a world where cultures that were stamped out by greed and hatred got to thrive and grow. That bit of role-playing fantasy was entirely wiped out by the new Civ7 model and they didn't even try to pay lip service to it by maintaining modern-era indigenous civilizations. No, we have to turn from the Shawnee into the USA as if that's some kind of natural cultural progression and not a consequence of the genocide of Native Americans, or turn from Incans to Mexico as if Mexico isn't a remnant of colonial Spain destroying numerous Central American nations and cultures.

And don't even get me started on the Exploration Era Economic path, as if resource-extracting colonization of a second-class continent was the only way for nations to progress economically.

 

[Captain Lime]

A Külliye district doesn't have to be religious in Modern if they go with a Hammam and Imaret buildings, which could focus on food and happiness. This is because the Madrasah and Mosque is already taken by the Abbasids, but if you go Abbasids to the Ottomans, you could at least have all of those buildings in your empire.

1. Almost every Külliye was made during the 16th century.
2. You're telling me that a district which it's primary real life feature was that it was centered around a mosque/cami/whatever doesn't need to be religious in nature? I would hope that when actual religion mechanics are added, they will update the Abbasid mosque to be more religious.

On the note of gunpowder units, that's another issue with the era system. It seems designed to prevent the thing that happened in real life: the Ottomans were early adopters of disciplined standing armies, gunpowder weaponry, and other elements of bureaucracy and the modern state. They benefitted greatly for being early adopters. Not really possible in VII, especially if they're unceremoniously tossed into modern era.

 

[Haig]

Half of my Civ games are choosing a now-destroyed civilization and taking the opportunity to pit them against their conquerors and having fun imagining a world where cultures that were stamped out by greed and hatred got to thrive and grow.

In an Alan Moore graphic novel, when conquistadors enter Aztec lands they are met by technologically advanced aztec army who machine-guns the conquistadors down.

I miss these fun crazy moments, like when enemy sends tanks against your obsolete renaissance army.

I dont understand why everything needsnto be so symmetrical, do players really need unique units and buildings for each age?
The game already throws new bonuses and yields at you all the time so there is almost an inflation of new stuff, and its all hard to remember!

Another design I found weird is that units no more get promotions and experience but the commanders do. I wonder if majority of people prefer it this way.